Bought this as I was upgrading to an Intel i7 2700K and from past experience I have been happy with AsRock motherboards, it was also the cheapest board I found with the Realtek ALC898 Audio Codec.
The Good - price, UEFI bios screen, power regulation and audio better than my old CD player.
The Bad - Confusing and difficult to access SATA sockets.
The Ugly - not the sort of board you will want to light up your case for.
To be fair I would buy this motherboard again, it's just so frustrating that the SATA ports are pointing sideways from a board that is likely to be fitted in a budget midi tower and unlike my last board they are not easy to understand.
Old AsRock board - Primary, Secondary, Third and Fourth - easy to understand and sockets point up from the board.
New AsRock board - Sata 3_0, 3_1, 3_A0 and 3_A1 plus the Sata 2 sockets 2_2, 2_3, 2_4, and 2_5 and just to confuse matters the handbook description starts with the Sata 2 sockets (page 36 in the online manual).
If you are confident at building your own PC, have a full tower case or just like a challenge this is a well specified motherboard with reasonable over-clocking facilities, great audio at a bargain price.
| Brand | ASRock |
|---|---|
| Product Dimensions | 30.48 x 6.35 x 21.84 cm; 816.47 Grams |
| Item model number | Z77 EXTREME4 |
| Manufacturer | AsRock |
| Form Factor | ATX |
| Screen Resolution | 2048 x 1536 pixels |
| Processor Socket | LGA 1155 |
| Memory Technology | DDR3 2400;DDR3 2133;DDR3 1066;DDR3 1333;DDR3 1600 |
| Computer Memory Type | DDR3 SDRAM |
| Maximum Memory Supported | 32 GB |
| Memory Clock Speed | 1333 MHz |
| Speaker Description | Realtek ALC898 |
| Graphics Chipset Brand | Intel |
| Graphics Card Interface | PCI, PCI Express |
| Number of USB 2.0 Ports | 2 |
| Number of HDMI Ports | 1 |
| Number of VGA Ports | 1 |
| Voltage | 1.5 Volts |
| Operating System | Windows 7, Vista, XP 32/64-bit |
| Are Batteries Included | No |
| Lithium Battery Weight | 3.2 Grams |
| Item Weight | 816 g |
