ASRock Z87M Extreme4 (LGA 1150) Motherboard Review

A Closer Look

As mentioned already the ASRock Z87M Extreme4 uses the micro-ATX form factor making it an ideal compact solution for the Z87 chipset and LGA 1150 socket.

The CPU socket has an 8 phase VRM to allow for effective overclocking of Haswell K series processors.

The Z87 PCH gets a rather small and modest looking black ASRock heatsink.

Six SATA III ports are provided all via the Z87 chipset. There is also an eSATA port on the rear I/O which shares bandwidth with SATA port SATA 3_1.

Despite being a micro-ATX motherboard this still has full memory support for up to 32GB and at up to 2800MHz speeds with overclocking. The CPU fan header has an optional fan header next to it but for some strange reason the CPU fan header is a 4 pin and the optional one is a 3 pin. This means if you have a CPU cooler with two PWM fans they will not both fit, you’ll need a splitter for the first slot. If you have a CPU cooler with two 3 pin fans, or a single fan, then you’ll be fine. I assume ASRock have chosen these configuration because of space but also because people with something like a H60 will have a single PWM fan and a single 3 pin connection for the pump.

The PCI express configuration which is, from top to bottom, PCIe 3.0 16X, PCIe 2.0 1X, PCIe 3.0 16X (8X electrical) and PCIe 2.0 16X (4X electrical), allows you to run SLI or CrossFireX. Most users will probably opt for a single dual slot PCI express graphics card in the first PCI lane, and then add one or two single slot PCIe devices in lanes 3 and 4.

The bottom of the motherboard has, from left to right, a COM header, a chassis intrusion header, a TPM header, two USB 2.0 headers, a chassis fan header, front panel connections, an IR header, another power LED header and a motherboard speaker header.

ASRock’s awesome looking “Purity Sound” audio implementation is tucked away next to the PCI express lanes.

The rear I/O is well fleshed out with the following connectors:

• 1 x PS/2 Mouse/Keyboard Port
• 1 x D-Sub Port
• 1 x DVI-D Port
• 1 x HDMI Port
• 1 x Optical SPDIF Out Port
• 1 x eSATA Connector
• 4 x USB 2.0 Ports
• 4 x USB 3.0 Ports
• 1 x RJ-45 LAN Port with LED (ACT/LINK LED and SPEED LED)
• 5 x HD Audio Jacks: Rear Speaker / Central / Bass / Line in / Front Speaker / Microphone