ASRock Z77 Extreme6 Review: Legacy Bites Back
by Ian Cutress on July 13, 2012 2:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- ASRock
- Z77
Test Setup
| Processor |
Intel Core i7-3770K ES 4 Cores, 8 Threads, 3.5 GHz (3.9 GHz Turbo) |
| Motherboards |
ASRock Z77 Extreme4 ASUS P8Z77-V Pro Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD3H MSI Z77A-GD65 ASUS P8Z77-V Deluxe ASRock Fatal1ty Z77 Professional Gigabyte GA-Z77MX-UD3H ASRock Z77 Extreme6 |
| Cooling | Intel All-in-One Liquid Cooler |
| Power Supply | OCZ 1250W Gold ZX Series |
| Memory |
GSkill RipjawsZ 4x4 GB DDR3-2400 9-11-11 Kit GSkill TridentX 2x4 GB DDR3-2666 11-13-13 Kit |
| Memory Settings | XMP (2400 9-11-11) |
| Video Cards |
ASUS HD7970 3GB ECS GTX 580 1536MB |
| Video Drivers |
Catalyst 12.3 NVIDIA Drivers 296.10 WHQL |
| Hard Drive | Micron RealSSD C300 256GB |
| Optical Drive | LG GH22NS50 |
| Case | Open Test Bed - CoolerMaster Lab V1.0 |
| Operating System | Windows 7 64-bit |
| SATA Testing | Micron RealSSD C300 256GB |
| USB 2/3 Testing | OCZ Vertex 3 240GB with SATA->USB Adaptor |
Power Consumption
Power consumption was tested on the system as a whole with a wall meter connected to the OCZ 1250W power supply, while in a dual 7970 GPU configuration. This power supply is Gold rated, and as I am in the UK on a 230-240 V supply, leads to ~75% efficiency > 50W, and 90%+ efficiency at 250W, which is suitable for both idle and multi-GPU loading. This method of power reading allows us to compare the power management of the UEFI and the board to supply components with power under load, and includes typical PSU losses due to efficiency. These are the real world values that consumers may expect from a typical system (minus the monitor) using this motherboard.
The Z77 Extreme6 does not seem to pull anything special out of the bag for power delivery, matching some of the more high performance models from ASUS and Gigabyte.
POST Time
Different motherboards have different POST sequences before an operating system is initialized. A lot of this is dependent on the board itself, and POST boot time is determined by the controllers on board (and the sequence of how those extras are organized). As part of our testing, we are now going to look at the POST Boot Time - this is the time from pressing the ON button on the computer to when Windows starts loading. (We discount Windows loading as it is highly variable given Windows specific features.) These results are subject to human error, so please allow +/- 1 second in these results.
ASRock always does quite well on boot timings, taking all the top spots. It is assumed that ASRock has the least amount of 'check and verification' tools compared to their competitors, which can increase boot time.
Overclocks
Here at AnandTech we want to provide quick and easy ways to determine if a board is good for you (with in-depth analysis of course). So here is a quick round up of our overclocking results. Overclocks are tested for stability with PovRay and OCCT - while these may not be the most strenuous of stability tests, it does offer a quick check for memory errors under high load (and also balances testing time with getting the next board on for review!).
|
CPU Speed (MHz) |
Voltage (Volts) |
PovRay Peak Temp (ºC) |
OCCT Peak Temp (ºC) |
Notes | |
|
ASRock Fatal1ty Z77 Professional |
4700 | 1.200 | 89 | 89 | PLL Overvoltage enabled |
|
ASRock Z77 Extreme4 |
4700 | 1.175 | 86 | 86 | LLC Level 1 |
|
ASRock Z77 Extreme6 |
4700 | 1.175 | 81 | 82 | LLC Level 1 |
|
ASUS P8Z77-V Deluxe |
4700 | 1.225 | 89 | 84 | PLL Overvoltage enabled |
|
ASUS P8Z77-V Pro |
4700 | 1.200 | 83 | 86 | PLL Overvoltage enabled |
|
Gigabyte Z77X-UD3H |
4700 | 1.200 | 82 | 86 | LLC Extreme |
|
Gigabyte Z77MX-D3H |
4700 | 1.200 | 80 | 84 | LLC Extreme |
|
MSI Z77A-GD65 |
4700 | 1.250 | 90 | - | PLL Overvoltage enabled |
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35 Comments
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albiglan - Friday, July 13, 2012 - link
I liked the parts about the difficulty in reviewing motherboards and the explanation of the humidity feature. (Overclocking could maybe have benefited from a table layout)Would be nice to see additional benchmarks for things not directly related to performance (something that covers things like ease of setup, stability, etc. that is easy to compare against other mobos...)
IanCutress - Friday, July 13, 2012 - link
I have a board on the test bed now that was a little different to set up - all the additional controllers had to be installed one by one. Every other board manufacturer usually has a one button install for drivers and software. Odd.It is hard to benchmark stability. We don't have infinite CPUs to keep all the boards running for days. I only have one CPU, and when one motherboard is tested I move it on to the next one. All I can do are my PovRay/OCCT tests to make sure it won't fall over in the first five minutes or so. I'm sure there are owners of these boards (like cknobman) who have been using these boards in a real world context that can give you a hint as to how they feel about their boards :)
Ian
xodius80 - Friday, July 13, 2012 - link
please anand, its time to move into the future of computing, we need a floppy port benchmark to see how well the chipset handles the data over competing products.thank you.
extide - Friday, July 13, 2012 - link
Or are the pictures of the ATX headers on ALL ASRock boards show a bowed motherboard? I swear I have seen that like 2-3+ times before.Draconian - Friday, July 13, 2012 - link
I'm disappointed they didn't include an IDE port. It really would've made this board stand out from the competition. I'm in the market to buy a Z77 board in the next month or so.My wish list for a Z77 board:
Thunderbolt, IDE, and eSATA on the same board
Don't care about Floppy or mSATA
arthur449 - Friday, July 13, 2012 - link
Buy a cheap IDE->SATA converter for your older drive. One of the requirements of the SATA standard was that it be backwards compatible with IDE.Or get a USB 2.0 to IDE converter (I'm not certain if USB 3.0 -> IDE converters exist for cheap). You'll be limited to ~40MB/s, but you'll have hotswap functionality without the potential headache of making sure old school IDE drives are run in IDE mode instead of the usual AHCI that most folks prefer for NCQ support.
geforce912 - Friday, July 13, 2012 - link
IDE is a parallel bus and it is not compatible with SATA which is a serial point to point connection (Hence SATA is not backwards compatible with IDE). Those IDE>SATA converters are active converters and not just simple wire-crossing. Same goes for usb which is serial point to point.ypsylon - Saturday, July 14, 2012 - link
Seriously, both additions are completely pointless. To some extent I can understand IDE, perfect for equally antiquated optical drives which are still around, but floppy.... I haven't used those in years, something around 10 for sure. If somebody need floppy then USB floppy is the logical choice. If AsRock are so concerned about legacy support then where is Fast SCSI port? I still own my first FastSCSI HDD for sentimental reasons. It weights ~ as much, as car battery but it works.duffman55 - Saturday, July 14, 2012 - link
I just upgraded my computer with the ASRock Z77 Extreme4 at the beginning of the week. It consistently threw a blue screen error a few seconds after it started to load Windows which I found out was because I didn't have the AHCI drivers installed. I had to switch to IDE mode, boot up, install the drivers, then switch back to AHCI.What's the difference between the IDE and AHCI modes when using a SATA drive? It makes no sense to me to have an IDE mode for SATA devices.
P.S. On the BIOS and software page you mistyped AHCI as ACHI.
Coup27 - Saturday, July 14, 2012 - link
What is a COM header? Is this a serial port under a different name?Personally I think this product makes no sense. Anybody buying a "legacy" motherboard would try and find one with native serial and parallel ports for starters. Serial is still very much alive in the automation sector with barcode readers, PLC, funky sensors etc..
Unfortunately Fujitsu are the only laptop manufacturer left making new laptops with native "legacy" ports.