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For an affordable budget motherboard the Asrock 870 Extreme3 offers an impressive feature set, supporting literally every feature you could ask for. Amazingly, despite the price tag, users can look forward to USB 3.0, SATA 6Gb/s with RAID support, eSATA, Firewire and 8-Channel Audio, along with a number of other Asrock innovations.
Availability of AMD 870 motherboards is not great right now, with just a small handful of boards available, still this will improve in the coming weeks and we expect the Asrock 870 Extreme3 to be one of the most affordable and best equipped boards of its class. Also across the pond it is worth noting that most high-end Intel H55 based motherboards do cost more while providing fewer features, making the 870 Extreme3 an even more attractive option.
Asrock has opted for the standard 4+1-phase CPU VRM design and although this is all the AMD specification calls for, their new 890GX boards have received an 8+2-phase design. Still, given the motherboards price, this is not an issue and in fact many quality high-end AMD boards only use the 4+1 design anyway. Asrock claims that their 4+1-phase design is more than enough to handle the new AMD Phenom II X6 hexacore processors and will support processors with a 140W TDP (Thermal Design Process). The AMD SB850 south bridge provides six SATA (6Gb/s) ports, though only five of them are featured onboard. The sixth port has been re-wired to provide the board’s eSATA support. This is not an uncommon practice and we often find that affordable motherboards will ditch third party SATA controllers and simply borrow a port from the south bridge chip.
Expansion slots include a pair of blue PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots (x8/x8 when both are populated), two PCI slots and two PCIe x1. The full length x16 slots are separated by a single PCIe x1 expansion slot, though there is still a double slot gap here, so users wanting to utilize Crossfire can have room to spare while losing one of these ports.
Rather than sacrifice the first slot below the primary PCI Express x16 slot when using a dual slot graphics card, Asrock has simply neglected to position a slot here which is an excellent idea. Almost all graphics cards available today feature a dual-slot design, particularly those owned by gamers, so rather than position a valuable PCIe x1 slot here that will inevitably be rendered useless, Asrock has stuck this port above the primary PCIe x16 slot instead.
The board’s audio is taken care of by the Realtek ALC892 8-Channel HD Audio CODEC featuring optical and SPDIF outputs. Already we have found that a number of high quality AMD 890GX motherboards have used this audio solution, so it is a welcomed addition to the Asrock 870 Extreme3. Furthermore this audio solution features support for jack detection, multi-streaming and front panel jack retasking.
Gigabit Ethernet is provided by a single Realtek 8111E controller. This controller utilizes the PCI Express bus for maximum bandwidth. The 870 Extreme3 also incorporates two Firewire (IEEE1394a) ports using the VIA VT6315N controller, one of which is located on the boards I/O panel.
Along with the twelve USB 2.0 ports, the 870 Extreme3 also boasts USB 3.0 support. The two USB 3.0 ports are color coded blue and are driven by the NEC D720200F1 controller, which connects directly to the 880G north bridge chip for maximum throughput. This wraps up the bulk of the features found on the Asrock 870 Extreme3 motherboard. |
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Busta9 |
Posted on: 05/11/2010 12:43 PM
wow these boards are cheap!!! now I really cannot wait for the new phenom ii x4 processors to unlock those extra cores. |
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Ricky |
Posted on: 05/11/2010 01:15 PM
Now we just need some SATA 6Gb/s devices. Ohh and while we are at it lets request some USB 3.0 hardware as well  Still great review thanks. |
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Minx |
Posted on: 05/12/2010 11:48 AM
Hey what about the Asrock 770 Extreme3? Its about $30 cheaper ... is it any good? Also have you tried the Asrock ION 330HT-BD computer? It looks pretty cool but I want to know if they work well. Thanks for the review and any help you can give me regarding those two products. |
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Rocky |
Posted on: 05/23/2010 10:57 AM
These 870 boards are great value. Thanks for the review this helped me heaps! |
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seb |
Posted on: 06/17/2010 11:08 AM
I bought this board yesterday... my cpu and hdd are on their way, lets see if it can hold what internet says about it. Future system config: Asrock 870 extreme 3 AMD Phenom II X4 to unlock 2 cores Sapphire radeon HD 4650 2x Western digital caviar green 800GB 64MB sata3 i think it will rock! |
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G0D5MARINE |
Posted on: 08/05/2010 07:09 PM
I have had the 870 for about a month now. Running a 965BE. Had the overclock to 4ghz but wasn't stable. No matter what I have tried to do, I can't seem to get above 3.7. Attribute this to the mobo not the processor. Overall however it runs well. Liked the spacing with the pci-e slots for my crossfire configuration. Running 8x8 isn't as good as the FX series but it still gets the job done. Dual MSI Hawk 5770. |
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boss rain |
Posted on: 10/17/2010 08:34 AM
this asrock 870 extreme3 is nowhere to be found in the philippines! i have looked in all places imaginable but there was nada. they should have never built a good motherboard like this if they weren't gonna make it available for people who want to buy it! it just don't make sense! |
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bossrain |
Posted on: 10/17/2010 08:42 AM
maybe next time they build a motherboard (asrock 870 whatever!) like this they put it in the market so people who wants it can buy it, instead of putting it on websites telling you how good it is and is nowhere to be found! very disappointing! |