Asrock z170 extreme 4 review

Today we bring you the complete review of the ASRock Z170 Extreme 4 motherboard, which has become so famous for its ability to overclock non-K. And, it was time for us to get an ASRock brand motherboard , because it was the only main brand that we have not analyzed of the Intel Skylake series.

We thank ASRock Spain for its trust in the transfer of the product for its analysis:

ASRock Z170 Extreme 4 technical characteristics

ASRock Z170 Extreme 4 unboxing and design

The ASRock Z170 Extreme 4 is presented in a black and gold box where we see large letters with the name of the product and its " Super Alloy " technology. Once we are in the back we have all the most important technical characteristics.

When we open the box we find two sections, the first where the motherboard is and the second all its accessories. What is inside? Patience, this is what includes:

ASRock Z170 Extreme 4 motherboard. Back plate. Instruction manual and quick guide. CD disk with drivers. SATA Cable sets. Screw to connect M.2 disk.

The ASRock Z170 Extreme 4 is an ATX format motherboard with dimensions of 30.4 cm x 22.4 cm for the platform with socket LGA 1151 . As we can see the design of the motherboard is quite close when combining the black and bronze colors (memory, heatsink and PCI Express sockets), while the PCB is brown and includes an LED strip on the right side to offer a increased lighting.

Rear view of the motherboard.

Asrock incorporates two large aluminum alloy XXl heat sinks in both the power and chipset phases. It has 10 feeding phases together with the "Super Alloy" technology.

It has available 4 DDR4 RAM sockets compatible with up to 64 GB with speed from 2133 MHz to 3866 MHz with overclock. We can confirm its compatibility with 3000 and 3200 MHz speed memory without any problem.

The ASRock Z170 Extreme 4 has a very interesting distribution for the price range that it is. It has three PCIe 3.0 to x16 sockets and three other PCIe 3.0 x1 connections. It allows us to install up to 3 AMD CrossFireX graphics cards as with Nvidia SLI .

As expected we have an M.2 connection to install any disk of this interface with its 32 GB / s bandwidth. Compatible models are 2242/2260/2280/22110 with x4 / x2 and x1 speed.

It features the latest generation of sound. Sound Purity 3 is enhanced sound with Nichicon capacitors, a 115dB amplifier for top of the range 600 Ohm headphones, and interference isolation.

Once we look at the lower right area we have a control panel, several connectors for fans, internal USB connections and a DEBUG Led that will tell us of any type of incident..

It is time to talk about storage options, it has six SATA III 6 GB / s connections with support for RAID 0.1, 5 and 10. and three shared SATA Express connections. We start with a good connection base that will cover the needs of any consumer.

The rear connections come to meet the needs of most users. It has:

6 x USB 3.0.PS/2. Switch for Clear CMOS BIOS. HDMI.DVI.Displayport. 1 x Network card. 1 x USB Type-C. 7.1 sound outputs.

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Test bench and tests

TESTING BENCH
Processor:	Intel i5-6600k.
Base plate:	ASRock Z170 Extreme 4
Memory:	2 × 8 16GB DDR4 @ 3000 MHZ Kingston Savage
Heatsink	Corsair H80i GT.
HDD	Samsung 840 EVO 250GB.
Graphic card	Nvidia GTX 780.
Power supply	EVGA SuperNOVA 750 G2

To check the stability of the i5-6600k processor at 4500 MHZ and the motherboard we have stressed with Prime 95 Custom and air cooling. The graphics we have used is an Nvidia GTX780, without further delay, let's see the results obtained in our tests with a 1920 × 1080 monitor.

BIOS

Final words and conclusion

The ASRock Z170 Extreme 4 has 10 power phases, very successful cooling, excellent distribution in its PCI Express connections and a large capacity for DDR4 memory at 3866 MHz.

In our tests, it has given chest against plates of the same range or higher, proving that it is a motherboard that has a lot to say in the Spanish market. We have chosen an i5-6600k one of the best processors of the moment and a graphics card "fierce" as is the GTX 780 of 3GB.

In short, we can affirm that the ASRock Z170 Extreme 4 has everything necessary to enter our guide to the best motherboards on the market . Currently it can be found in online stores about 135 to 150 euros.

ADVANTAGE	DISADVANTAGES
+ NICE DESIGN.
+ OVERCLOCK CAPACITY.
+ DEBUGGED BIOS.
+ DISTRIBUTION OF PCI EXPRESS.
+ IMPROVABLE SOUND IMPROVEMENT.