Asrock has been aggressively pushing their new Extreme3 motherboards since releasing the P55 Extreme3 and X58 Extreme3 motherboards. Since then three more Extreme3 motherboards have been released, all supporting AMD processors. The flagship part, being the 890GX Extreme3, has now been followed by the 880G Extreme3 and 870 Extreme3 motherboards.

All Extreme3 motherboards feature USB 3.0, SATA3 (6Gb/s) and eSATA3 (6Gb/s), while they also receive the “extreme” theme which makes use of a black PCB with a blue and white connector color scheme. However Extreme3 is not just about a couple of new features and a fancy color scheme, rather Asrock includes all their enthusiast orientated features in these boards as well. Features such as Asrock UCC (Unlock CPU Core) are included, along with a great deal of overclocking options.

The 870 Extreme3 is one of the most affordable Asrock motherboards to receive Extreme3 status, making it a very interesting product. The heart of the 870 Extreme3 is of course the AMD 870 chipset, which is accompanied by the SB850 south bridge chip. Unlike the AMD 890GX and 880G chipsets, the 870 does not feature an integrated graphics engine, just like the flagship product the 890FX.

However where as the 890FX is designed to deliver a huge amount of PCI Express lanes for optimum CrossfireX support, the 870 is best suited for a single graphics card. Whereas the 890FX can provide full PCIe x16 bandwidth for two graphics cards, the 870 limits them to PCIe x8 bandwidth, while the 890FX can support four graphics cards using PCIe x8 bandwidth.

That said, those looking at spending around $100 US on a motherboard are unlikely going to be investing enough money in their graphics card configuration to warrant a secondary card, let alone a third or fourth.

With a total of 22 PCI Express lanes, the AMD 870 chipset matches the 890GX and 880G chipsets, while all 8-seires chipsets utilize the x4 A-Link III technology for connecting the north and south bridge chips. The 870 is the most power conscious chipset of the 8-series, consuming just 12.5 watts of power which is 36% less than that of the 890FX.

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.

The heatsink featured on top of the AMD 870 north bridge chip measures 5.5 x 3cm and is 3cm tall. The die surface of the 870 measures roughly 1 x 1cm. Additionally, smaller passively cooled heatsinks can be located on the board’s power circuitry and SB850 south bridge.

In terms of expansion almost all AMD 870 motherboards will support at least two PCI Express x16 slots, though some may only provide a single PCIe x16 slot. However it is worth noting that there is just a single true PCI Express x16 slot, as this is all the 870 chipset supports.

The Asrock 870 Extreme3 does provide you with two full length PCIe x16 slots, though it is important to note that using two of these with Crossfire or SLI technology will only provide x8 bandwidth each. Additionally, the 870 Extreme3 features a pair of PCIe x1 slots and two traditional PCI slots.

The primary and secondary PCIe x16 slots have been separated by a distance of two slot lengths to help improve air-flow between dual graphics cards, a design that most motherboard manufacturers today use.

In fact, the 870 Extreme3 is a very well designed motherboard. The 24-pin power connector is well placed in the top right hand corner of the board where it is easy to access. Four of the five SATA ports are mounted at a 90-degree angle to avoid any conflicts with longer graphics cards and in the bottom right hand corner is a pair of easy access buttons for power and reset.

There are really no design flaws to speak of. The typical design flaws that plague most motherboards are not present or have been in one way or another solved. The DIMM slots for example are well clear of the primary PCI Express x16 slot, while the CPU socket is well clear of any obstructions. There are five well positioned easy to access fan headers, while the extra USB and Firewire headers are neatly located at the bottom of the board.

At first the battery placement looks to be an issue as it can be found between the primary and secondary PCI Express x16 slots. However Asrock has solved this placement issue in more than one way. First the CMOS clear jumper is easily locatable at the bottom of the motherboard above the USB headers. However, most users will simply go for the CMOS clear switch found on the I/O panel which can be accessed externally.

Looking at the I/O panel we have a legacy keyboard PS/2 port, a CMOS reset button, six USB 2.0 ports (two of which are USB 3.0 ports), eSATA port, Firewire port, LAN port, optical and S/PDIF ports, along with six audio jacks. All in all, everything the user could want or need can be found on this I/O panel.

Overall we are pleased with the design and layout of the Asrock 870 Extreme3, as there are no real design flaws. The board's cooling is sufficient and the layout caters well for multi-GPU setups, while the I/O panel provides all the necessary connectivity.

However it is the next menu titled “OC Tweaker” that we are most interested in, as this is where almost all the system tweaking takes place, better known as overclocking. The first setting within this menu is designed for overclocking novices that want to get a little more out of their system at no extra cost.

Called “EZ Overclocking” this setting allows the user to overclock their processor to a predefined setting at the click of a button. The drop down menu allows for predefined overclocks ranging from a 5% boost to a 50% boost in just 5% increments, which allows even the most green overclockers to fine tune their system.

With our AMD Phenom II X4 965 test processor installed we could select a frequency ranging from 3.57GHz through to 5.10GHz in 170MHz increments. Despite the massive headroom, the highest frequency we have been able to achieve without compromising stability with this processor is just 4.00GHz, though having said that, this is a good air-cooled overclock for such a processor.

When testing the CPU EZ OC function the 3.57GHz worked perfectly and we quickly moved on to the 3.74GHz preset. Here the system crashed just moments into stress testing, by throwing up the infamous BSOD. The BIOS settings that had been pre-configured looked perfect, though the CPU voltage was a little low for our chip at just 1.40v and therefore we boosted it a little. Having done that the 3.74GHz overclock was now 100% and temperatures were still relatively low when under load.

Unfortunately the next jump to 3.91GHz was not possible, as the system would crash trying to load Windows. Furthermore, no amount of voltage would help stabilize this overclock and in the end we gave up. When manually tuning the Asrock 870 Extreme3 the best frequency we were able to obtain from the Phenom II X4 965 processor was 3.80GHz without compromising stability.

This is an average result given that just last week 4.0GHz was achieved with this very same processor using the Gigabyte 890GPA-UD3H (890GX) motherboard. Still, even at 3.80GHz the 870 Extreme3 has allowed us to squeeze quite a bit more performance out of this processor. Additionally, while we were unable to exceed this frequency, that is not to say other processor configurations will not perform better.

The Asrock UCC feature was also tested out with the Phenom II X2 555 processor, which we turned into a quad-core. The 870 Extreme3 recognized the Phenom II X2 555 with four cores enabled as the Phenom II X4 B55 and we were safely able to overclock it from 3.20GHz to 3.78GHz without compromising stability.

Overall we were impressed with the amount of tweakable options found in the Asrock 870 Extreme3 BIOS, as well as the features. The Gigabyte 890GPA-UD3H for example, lacked the ability to allow the user to save BIOS configurations, where as the 870 Extreme3 allows for three different saved configurations. On top of that, the 870 Extreme3 has an extensive range of presets that can be loaded in seconds.

Hardware - Intel Core i7 930 - x3 2GB G.Skill DDR3 PC3-12800 (CAS 8-8-8-24) - Seagate 500GB 7200-RPM (Serial ATA300) - Radeon HD 5870 (1GB) Crossfire - Asus P6T Deluxe (Intel X58) Software - Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit) - ATI Catalyst 10.3

Hardware - Intel Core i5 750 - x2 2GB G.Skill DDR3 PC3-12800 (CAS 8-8-8-24) - Seagate 500GB 7200-RPM (Serial ATA300) - Radeon HD 5870 (1GB) Crossfire - Asus P7P55D-E Premium (Intel P55) Software - Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit) - ATI Catalyst 10.3

Hardware - AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition - x2 2GB G.Skill DDR3 PC3-12800 (CAS 8-8-8-24) - Seagate 500GB 7200-RPM (Serial ATA300) - Radeon HD 5870 (1GB) Crossfire - Asrock 870 Extreme3 (AMD 870) - Asus M4A89GTD Pro (AMD 890GX) - Gigabyte 890GPA-UD3H (AMD 890GX) - Asrock 890GX Extreme3 (AMD 890GX) Software - Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit) - ATI Catalyst 10.3

The memory bandwidth performance of the Asrock 870 Extreme3 is on par with the other AM3 motherboards, as it should be. Given that the AMD Phenom II X4 965 processor features an on-die memory controller and that the AM3 motherboards all support the same memory, we were not expecting much to change here.

The first application that we tested with was Microsoft Excel 2007, and as you can see the Asrock 870 Extreme3 also performs well in this program. In terms of performance the results were as expected, with the 870 Extreme3 matching the other AM3 motherboards.

The WinRAR performance was also fairly spot on, though the Asrock 870 Extreme3 did take 4 seconds longer than the other AM3 motherboards to complete the 700MB file compression test. In the scheme of things this is a very limited difference.

When testing with Photoshop CS5 we did find that the Asrock 870 Extreme3 again took 4 seconds longer than the average AM3 motherboard, which was surprising. This is not a significant margin, but it does show that the 870 Extreme3 is a little slower than the 890GX motherboards in this test.

The Asrock 870 Extreme3 averaged 61fps when testing with HandBrake, making it just a few frames per second slower than the fastest AMD 890GX motherboard. This is well within acceptable performance limits and it still meant that the Phenom II X4 965 was a fraction faster than the Core i5 750 in this test.

When testing with the x264 HD Benchmark we find that the Asrock 870 Extreme3 slots in alongside the Gigabyte 890GX motherboard, making it just a few frames per second slower than the fastest 890GX motherboard.

Again the Asrock 870 Extreme3 matches the Gigabyte 890GPA-UD3H, this time when testing with TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress. While this does make the Asrock 870 Extreme3 slower than the Asrock and Asus 890GX motherboards, the performance margins are minimal.

The Asrock 870 Extreme3 was surprisingly slow when testing with Unreal Tournament 3, our first real-world gaming test. It is not clear why the 870 Extreme3 performs so poorly here, we did check the PCI Express bus and the Radeon HD 5870 was being fed full x16 bandwidth. In any case, the 870 Extreme3 was limited to around 190fps, while all other AM3 boards exceeded 200fps.

The Company of Heroes Opposing Fronts results are far more competitive than those seen when testing with Unreal Tournament 3. Although the Asrock 870 Extreme3 is still the slowest AM3 motherboard tested, it was just 1-2fps slower than the Gigabyte 890GPA-UD3H.

The Far Cry 2 results were also quite competitive, though the Asrock 870 Extreme3 did only render 92fps at 1024x768 while all other AM3 boards averaged 95fps. Still, at 1920x1200 the margins were minimal, with the 870 Extreme3 lagging behind by just a single frame.

Again the Asrock 870 Extreme3 was the slowest motherboard tested, this time in Resident Evil 5. This time the margins were very minor, as the 870 Extreme3 did work within a frame of the Asus M4A89GTD PRO/USB3.

Something we found interesting about the Asrock 870 Extreme3 motherboard was the power consumption figures, particularly the idle results. When measuring the idle consumption levels the Asrock 870 Extreme3 was considerably higher than the AM3 motherboards based on the 890GX chipset. However the stress test results were quite a bit lower in comparison. Power saving technologies such as Cool'n'Quiet were enabled, so we are not sure why the 870 Extreme3 was drawing so much more power at idle.

Along with the Asrock 870 Extreme3 we know of two other AMD 870 motherboards available at the same price, which includes the MSI 870A-G54 and Asus M4A87TD EVO. All three motherboards appear to be very similar in terms of features and all support core unlocking. It has to be said that the Asrock 870 Extreme3 is the most impressive looking board of the bunch, at least in our opinion.

Appearances aside these three AMD 870 motherboards are very much alike, featuring almost the same board design and feature sets. However the Asrock 870 Extreme3 is the only version to offer two PCI Express x1 slots and it is the only board to feature a quick and easy to access CMOS reset switch. Additionally, the 870 Extreme3 offers five fan headers opposed to just the three found on the Asus and MSI boards.

However where the Asrock 870 Extreme3 does lose out when compared to the Asus M4A87TD EVO for example, is in its SATA support. Whereas the 870 Extreme3 only features five onboard SATA ports, with the six being moved to the I/O panel to provide eSATA support, the M4A87TD EVO employs the JMicron JMB361 controller providing an additional eSATA 3Gb/s port (SATA On-the-Go). This controller also adds PATA support, though this is something we feel Asrock could safely drop from the 870 Extreme3.

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Clearly the difference between the various AMD 870 motherboards is minimal and with such little headroom to move on the pricing we are not surprised by this. Having said that, the Asrock 870 Extreme3 does look and feel like a unique product.

Overall the 870 Extreme3 passed all of our tests with flying colors, and we failed to find any problems with this motherboard. The feature set is everything you could hope for from a $110 US motherboard, the performance is on par with the more expensive 890GX motherboards, the design is excellent as it is both striking and practical, while innovations such as Asrock UCC help to enrich this product.