Opinion on the Z77 Extreme6 board

[CRRacer]

Looking for input from anyone that has the ASRock Z77 Extreme6 motherboard. I'm looking to update an i3 PC to an i5-3570k, looking to overclock as well, which is why I am looking for a different motherboard. I have an i7 paired with the Z77 Extreme4 and really like the setup, but I see the Extreme6 can be had for nearly identical money now and was considering trying that board.

[odiebugs]

Re: Opinion on the Z77 Extreme6 board

Why, same Sata, secondary sata controller, audio, memory, graph, so you're getting two extra sata cables and a mini pci-e. Not really a reason to buy it.

[parsec]

Re: Opinion on the Z77 Extreme6 board

The Z77 Ex 6 has somewhat better VRM chips for CPU power, and better VRM and chipset heatsinks.

I have an i5-3570K in a Z77 Ex 4 board, and it over clocks just fine. The difference between these two boards will be minimal at best for over clocking. If you want to do true, hard core OCing, neither of these boards are a good choice.

The Ex 6 has a Display Port output, but for the Intel iGPU.

I've seen reviews of these two boards that showed the Ex 6 to be slightly slower in some areas.

[CRRacer]

Re: Opinion on the Z77 Extreme6 board

I notice the Extreme6 has a different secondary USB 3 controller, Eltron EJ168A vs ASMedia ASM1042 (on the extreme4). The VRM heatsink has that little extra cool factor. On newegg, there is only a 5 dollar difference (so that would be a reason why, as to considering this board with just two more sata cables...) I don't want to have two of the same boards in anything, like to try something different for comparison is another reason why.

I'm not in to hardcore overclocking. both systems in my sig are OC'd to 4.4GHz. The ASRock Extreme 4 will go higher, but the Asus will not (and be stable), which is the same thing that xbit labs found (good article on their site on z77 boards, its just the Extreme6 isn't part of it).

I know it's chip dependent on how well a unit overclocks (along with the mobo and heatsink), I'm just hoping for somewhere between 4.2 and 4.4 GHz with that i5-3570K. I would be upgrading my sons PC from a Asus P8H77-v with an i3-3120, all other components would transfer (cept I will probably get another case)

parsec, what do you have your i5-3570K OC'd too? I see you've went with haswell, was there a noticeable difference there? Do you think that since I am doing a CPU/mobo upgrade that I should look in to 4th gen as opposed to 3rd gen? Have there been any compatibility issues that you've ran in to with haswell? I only ask as I planned to try the Asus PCE-AC66 network adapter and I see that particular network card has known issues with the Z87 chipset (I'm sure it will be worked out and if I do try that card, it's going on one of the Z77 boards anyway, but if that issue exists, there must certainly be others with a chipset this new).

[parsec]

Re: Opinion on the Z77 Extreme6 board

Your SaberTooth Z77 does not OC well, or as much as the ASR Z77 Ex 4 does? I'm surprised to hear that, not that I have experience with that SaberTooth board. I've used two earlier SaberTooth boards, which I thought were very good boards. I guess the "TUF" aspect of these boards make them more conservative in their operation, the memory OC specs are lower than the other higher-end ASUS boards.

I have my i5-3570K at 4.4Ghz, but I also use power saving options (C-States) so I'm not constantly running at 4.4GHz. It was a simple OC, using Auto voltages, nothing difficult to do. The ASR Z77 Ex 4 board cooperated fine, it's stable at that speed, I don't worry about it at all, it just works. I know one user of the Z77 Ex 6 board, and it is at least as easy to OC as the Ex 4 is.

Haswell is another story. It runs hotter than any Intel CPU I've ever used when over clocked. It's also more difficult to OC, the CPU settings must be adjusted with greater care than IVB or SB CPUs, (which is an understatement) to avoid BSODs. Adequate CPU cooling has a new meaning with Haswell when over clocked, when stress testing using the new AVX2 instructions, cores would hit 100C, and throttling would activate. That is after minutes of running the test, not hours. I'm not a hardcore OC enthusiast, but I've never had a CPU throttle due to temperatures until Haswell. That is why you'll see the threads about delidding Haswell CPUs, and the need for custom water cooling setups for those going for high OCs. The "wall" or transition point into the high Haswell temps is at ~4.2 - 4.4GHz.

For anyone that is not an OC experienced enthusiast, I don't suggest Haswell as their first venture into that world. The performance gain over IVB is not large IMO, some might disagree, but it certainly is not night and day.

[CRRacer]

Re: Opinion on the Z77 Extreme6 board

Thanks for the reply! Both my i7's are using power savings, idling down to 1.6GHz for general desktop use, but boost to 4.4 when needed. The Sabertooth board will typically get a little better result in benchmarks for the CPU, between it and the Extreme4. Not much better, but generally it leads every time. I too would have thought the Asus would have OC'd better, but after reading the article from xbit labs, It just doesn't appear to be the case.

I believe they tested about 4 boards in the first run using the i5-3570k, the Extreme4 and a gigabyte board both peaked at 4.6 on air simply by bumping the multiplier and leaving voltages on auto. They could only go to 4.4 on the sabertooth, they were thinking possibly that since the saberooth was the 6th board tested, perhaps the CPU had stressed and no longer would be stable above 4.4. Then they put that same CPU back in the extreme4 and it had no stability issues going back to 4.6GHz. Pretty impressive ASRock, especially for the price of their board.
I'm leaning towards the ivy, I just hate jumping on new chipset/cpu combos. It's why I went sandy a little over a year ago versus ivy, that and the cooling being easier to deal with on Sandy over Ivy, and now history repeats itself...

[jaggerwild]

Re: Opinion on the Z77 Extreme6 board

I notice the Extreme6 has a different secondary USB 3 controller, Eltron EJ168A vs ASMedia ASM1042 (on the extreme4). The VRM heatsink has that little extra cool factor. On newegg, there is only a 5 dollar difference (so that would be a reason why, as to considering this board with just two more sata cables...) I don't want to have two of the same boards in anything, like to try something different for comparison is another reason why.

I'm not in to hardcore overclocking. both systems in my sig are OC'd to 4.4GHz. The ASRock Extreme 4 will go higher, but the Asus will not (and be stable), which is the same thing that xbit labs found (good article on their site on z77 boards, its just the Extreme6 isn't part of it).

I know it's chip dependent on how well a unit overclocks (along with the mobo and heatsink), I'm just hoping for somewhere between 4.2 and 4.4 GHz with that i5-3570K. I would be upgrading my sons PC from a Asus P8H77-v with an i3-3120, all other components would transfer (cept I will probably get another case)

parsec, what do you have your i5-3570K OC'd too? I see you've went with haswell, was there a noticeable difference there? Do you think that since I am doing a CPU/mobo upgrade that I should look in to 4th gen as opposed to 3rd gen? Have there been any compatibility issues that you've ran in to with haswell? I only ask as I planned to try the Asus PCE-AC66 network adapter and I see that particular network card has known issues with the Z87 chipset (I'm sure it will be worked out and if I do try that card, it's going on one of the Z77 boards anyway, but if that issue exists, there must certainly be others with a chipset this new).

I have an AsRock extreme6 with a i5-3570K, mine is using water to cool the CPU, it over clocks nicely. I do 4.6Ghz, the board seems to have issue's going higher though it just may be a voltage adjustment(I've not spent much time tinkering with it). @4.6Ghz you will need a good cooling solution, its been a while but I think the board voltage on the CPU is around 1.3v. I'm using one SATA2 SSD for the operating system, and two 60 GB HD (set up in Rad) for my stuff. The board has no issue's with my hard drives when over clocking, witch is a big plus.
Here is a link to my ICE STORM score, with two GTX 580's in SLI. NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 video card benchmark result - Intel Core i5-3570K Processor,ASRock Z77 Extreme6

I have not really used any memory over clocking as mine are 16000, but I do run them @1 T. Hope this helps you!

[CRRacer]

Re: Opinion on the Z77 Extreme6 board

Thank you for the reply. I was planning on water cooling. One of my i7's is on air, the other on water, but am thinking I might water cool the other as well although the temps aren't really that far apart. I just like the looks of the interior better with the water cooling.

I'm debating on either the i5-3570k/extreme6 z77 or an i5-3570k.Asus P8Z77-V LK. The extreme6, there is no combo price and would run 360.00. There is a combo price on the Asus, 320 up front, 305 after a 15.00 rebate. I'm trying to be cheap here, but I notice the Asus has only a single VRM heatsink, to the left of the CPU and none above the CPU. Any thoughts here?

[CRRacer]

Re: Opinion on the Z77 Extreme6 board

Well, I went with the Extreme6, i5-3570k, Cooler Master Seidon 120M, Enermax Hoplite ST (case), and EVGA GTX760 Superclocked. I wasn't planning on changing the case, but I do want to hand down the other mobo and cpu, so decided to leave it with the case and psu that is powering it. The GPU was simply because he has had a taste of a faster cpu/gpu combo (I loaned him one of my i7's for awhile). The GTX760 should be a bit of an improvement over the GTX650 that he has now. Now just praying all components arrive in good shape....

[jaggerwild]

Re: Opinion on the Z77 Extreme6 board

Well, I went with the Extreme6, i5-3570k, Cooler Master Seidon 120M, Enermax Hoplite ST (case), and EVGA GTX760 Superclocked. I wasn't planning on changing the case, but I do want to hand down the other mobo and cpu, so decided to leave it with the case and psu that is powering it. The GPU was simply because he has had a taste of a faster cpu/gpu combo (I loaned him one of my i7's for awhile). The GTX760 should be a bit of an improvement over the GTX650 that he has now. Now just praying all components arrive in good shape....

I did do some over clocking with the factory cooler, but it was in the winter time and I had the window open(I love tinkering). I did notice it had good voltages on default, I think it was less than 1.0v with all the energy saving stuff. You'll be happy with that set up, not sure on the price as it has been a while since I bought mine (Think I paid around $130). Enjoy!

[CRRacer]

Re: Opinion on the Z77 Extreme6 board

Stuff is in. Only thing I've inspected are the case and mobo, all looks great. Always concerned about those delicate pins, but they appear to be perfect. Hopefully get some time this evening to do an out of case boot and see about updating the bios. So far, I'm impressed with the Enermax Hoplite case. My favorite is the Cooler Master 690II, the Enermax resembles including the hot swap sata tray up top (I use this all the time on my two i7 builds, disappointed to see they didn't include it on the new 690III case).

[CRRacer]

Re: Opinion on the Z77 Extreme6 board

Had time to do an OBB on this board. No issues until windows install, and not really an issue, more compatibility.

Using the CoolerMaster Seidon 120M, the i5-3570k stays cool, ~28-29 range at idle. OC'd without issue to 4.2, OC to 4.4 and WEI in windows 7 wouldn't complete, it would shut down during the DirectX 10 texture test. This may be me and the BIOS. All settings were left to auto, only raising the multiplier. I didn't OC the iGPU, and there is a setting above the CPU over clock (something with a '30') at the end that was left disabled, I have no idea what this is, input here would be appreciated). Will try 4.4 again after build is complete with the GTX760 installed. If it won't go 4.4, I'm ok with that, however, temps weren't an issue at 4.4 and CPUz showed nearly identical vcore voltages while it was boosting to 4.4 as it did when it boosts to 4.2, don't recall seeing them go over 1.12, temps under both clocks settings were within a degree of each other and way cooler than my 2600K builds (but again, this is out of box build at the moment).

Board shipped with 2.60 bios, updated to 2.80 which also updated the ME firmware.

The only 'issue' I had was with the USB ports. The top two by the PS/2 connector are USB 3.0, they worked fine in bios and windows after drivers loaded for the keyboard and mouse. Initially to install windows, I moved the keyboard/mouse down to the only two USB 2.0 ports. After all drivers were installed, I connected my Netgear WNA3100 USB wifi adapter to one of the top two USB 3.0 ports, it was initialized and I installed the drivers. It connected to my router, but it would go in and out of having internet access (yellow ! would appear and disappear over signal bars). As well, It would show no home group to connect too, nor would it show my NAS or WHS 2011 server. Moved keyboard/mouse back to the top USB 3.0 ports, and the Netgear wifi adapter down to the USB 2.0 port and everything clicked, it instantly recognized there was a home group, I had internet access, and it would show my NAS and server (which are not part of a home group). I suspect that the top USB 3.0 ports are controlled by the etron controller. I don't have an issue with this adapter when connected to the USB 3.0 ports on my Exreme4 which has the ASMedia controller. It's not a big deal, but appears there is a compatibility issue there.

I had briefly thought about swapping the Extreme6 for my Extreme4, pairing the 6 with my i7-2600k, but I like the USB configuration on the back of the Extreme4 better. This is a beautiful board, excellent layout, and tons of fan connectors.

[jaggerwild]

Re: Opinion on the Z77 Extreme6 board

Had time to do an OBB on this board. No issues until windows install, and not really an issue, more compatibility.

Using the CoolerMaster Seidon 120M, the i5-3570k stays cool, ~28-29 range at idle. OC'd without issue to 4.2, OC to 4.4 and WEI in windows 7 wouldn't complete, it would shut down during the DirectX 10 texture test. This may be me and the BIOS. All settings were left to auto, only raising the multiplier. I didn't OC the iGPU, and there is a setting above the CPU over clock (something with a '30') at the end that was left disabled, I have no idea what this is, input here would be appreciated). Will try 4.4 again after build is complete with the GTX760 installed. If it won't go 4.4, I'm ok with that, however, temps weren't an issue at 4.4 and CPUz showed nearly identical vcore voltages while it was boosting to 4.4 as it did when it boosts to 4.2, don't recall seeing them go over 1.12, temps under both clocks settings were within a degree of each other and way cooler than my 2600K builds (but again, this is out of box build at the moment).

Board shipped with 2.60 bios, updated to 2.80 which also updated the ME firmware.

The only 'issue' I had was with the USB ports. The top two by the PS/2 connector are USB 3.0, they worked fine in bios and windows after drivers loaded for the keyboard and mouse. Initially to install windows, I moved the keyboard/mouse down to the only two USB 2.0 ports. After all drivers were installed, I connected my Netgear WNA3100 USB wifi adapter to one of the top two USB 3.0 ports, it was initialized and I installed the drivers. It connected to my router, but it would go in and out of having internet access (yellow ! would appear and disappear over signal bars). As well, It would show no home group to connect too, nor would it show my NAS or WHS 2011 server. Moved keyboard/mouse back to the top USB 3.0 ports, and the Netgear wifi adapter down to the USB 2.0 port and everything clicked, it instantly recognized there was a home group, I had internet access, and it would show my NAS and server (which are not part of a home group). I suspect that the top USB 3.0 ports are controlled by the etron controller. I don't have an issue with this adapter when connected to the USB 3.0 ports on my Exreme4 which has the ASMedia controller. It's not a big deal, but appears there is a compatibility issue there.

I had briefly thought about swapping the Extreme6 for my Extreme4, pairing the 6 with my i7-2600k, but I like the USB configuration on the back of the Extreme4 better. This is a beautiful board, excellent layout, and tons of fan connectors.

(something with a '30')
Yeah I use that setting for over clocking, I up the voltage to around 1.3(@ 4.4) also the CPU load line calibration I use the top one(I think its 1) as it shows the least reduction. I don't use the CPU off set voltage, I just manually do it. Turn off spread spectrum, if its shutting down under stress test then your voltage is low. I use Intel Burn Test for stability, you shouldn't have a issue with temps even at 1.3v with a good cooler. From the sounds of it you just need a bump in voltage at the settings your using........Then once you get stability you can back off the voltage little by little till you get what you like.

[CRRacer]

Re: Opinion on the Z77 Extreme6 board

Thanks for the input, I will give this a try.