Early this year, we reviewed the ASRock X58SupeComputer. It is the top notch mainboard from ASRock which features 4 X PCIe slots supporting CrossFireX and Quad-SLI. Although it has the most flexible solutions, the pricing is generally high for such a well designed board.

To bring down the cost of ownership for Intel X58 systems, ASRock introduced a mid range mainboard based on the Intel X58 chipset. This new board, ASRock X58 Extreme has some similarities to the X58SuperComputer. The most important difference is that this board has 3 full length PCIe slots, thus it cannot support Quad crossfire or Quad SLI.

Instead, it added some interesting new features : TPM. TPM or Trusted Platform Module allows you to secure your working environment with enhanced data protection via high level encryption and decryption.

For DIY users, ASRock added one of our suggestions. That is, switches for Power On/off, Clear Cmos and Reset.  You no longer require a screw driver to short the circuit to power on/off, clear cmos or reset the system while you are assembling the system. To help you debug the system, ASRock also added in Dr.Debug, to show you the BIOS POST diagnostics status of your system.

Other features on this board include Instant Boot to boot up to Windows in 4secs, a new feature Instant Flash. Instant Flash can be done within the BIOS Screen and it will search the attached HDD or USB devices for the BIOS and automatically flash it. The board also supports I.E.S, OC Tuner and Smart BIOS.

Specifications

1. Intel^® Socket 1366 Core™ i7 Processor Extreme Edition / Core™ i7 Processor Supports Intel^® Dynamic Speed Technology
2. System Bus up to 6400 MT/s; Intel^® QuickPath Interconnect
3. ASRock DuraCap (2.5 x longer life time), 100% Japan-made high-quality Conductive Polymer Capacitors
4. Intel^® X58 + ICH10R Chipsets
5. Advanced V8 Power Phase Design
6. Supports Triple Channel DDR3 2000(OC)/1866(OC)/1600(OC)/1333(OC)/1066 (6 x DIMM slots) non-ECC, un-buffered memory, Max. capacity up to 24GB

• Supports DDR3 ECC, un-buffered memory with Intel^® Workstation 1S Xeon^® processors 3500 series
• Supports Intel^® Extreme Memory Profile (XMP)
• 3 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots (blue @ x16 mode, orange @ x4 mode) (Double-wide slot spacing between each PCI-E slot)
• Supports ATI™ CrossFireX™, 3-Way CrossFireX™ and Quad CrossFireX™
• Supports NVIDIA^® SLI™ and Quad SLI™
• PCIE Gigabit LAN 10/100/1000 Mb/s
• 6 x SATAII 3.0 Gb/s connectors, support RAID (RAID 0, 1, RAID10, RAID 5 and Intel^® Matrix Storage), NCQ, AHCI and Hot Plug functions
• 1 x Powered eSATAII/USB Connector
• Supports 2 x IEEE1394 ports (one port on back panel, one header on board)
• EuP Ready
• Smart Switch
• Dr. Debug
• Supports ASRock Instant Boot, Instant Flash
• Supports Smart BIOS, ASRock OC Tuner, Intelligent Energy Saver
• 7.1 CH Windows^® Vista™ Premium Level HD Audio with Content Protection, supports DAC with 110dB dynamic range (ALC890 Audio Codec)
• Windows^® Vista™ Premium 2008 Logo Ready
• Free Bundle: 1 x ASRock SLI_Bridge_2S Card
• I/O Panel : 1 x Coaxial SPDIF Out Port, 1 x Optical SPDIF Out Port, 7 x Ready-to-Use USB 2.0 Ports, 1 x Powered eSATAII/USB Connector, 1 x RJ-45 LAN Port with LED, 1 x IEEE 1394 Port, 1 x Clear CMOS Switch

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