ASRock 990FX Extreme4 AM3+ AMD 990FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard

Pros: I usually don't give to many 5 star reviews but this board is great. I manhandled it pretty bad and since my stupid cheap case came with a missing standoff I just left one of the more useless holes empty. The front panel or expansion slot usb 3 additions were super nice except not too many cases have external 3.5" bays but it comes with a pci bracket so you can easily use that. It comes with a dedicated clear cmos switch and an onboard power button. Pcie locks are pretty decent too, very secure. Has 8 sata 3 ports, 2 in a different location I mean this thing is loaded. Packaged well. Bios is aight.

Cons: Ugly (doesn't really matter too much), I don't even know what color scheme they were going for, if at all. Friggin' NB fan is kinda of terrible and doesn't screw in that well, the hole mounting it to the heat sink thing is set up terribly if you chose to put the fan on instead of the useless logo. It also makes a little noise but hey, they give you the option. And the fan doesn't lower you NB too much so I might not even bother. The last thing would be the fan pins, they're all at the top of the board so if you're like me and have a lower-front intake fan then your gonna need to use a molex to 3 pin connector or some sort of extension because there's almost no way.

Other Thoughts: Great board came with bios 2.00, its nice because there's a little sticker on the board (bios chip) with the version.

Pros: fan on the mosfet heatsink. plenty of fan headers. PCIE x16 slots are spaced apart so dual slot cards can breath in crossfire/sli. UEFI type bios is simple enough to navigate, but that ties into the cons. automatically detected my g.skills 1866 memory speed and i didn't have to manually tweak to get it past 1600 like many people have.

Cons: unstable no matter which of my cpu's i put in it. i have an FX-8350, an FX-6300 and an FX-4300. each of those chips work perfectly fine in my two gigabyte 990FX UD3 mobos. with a thermaltake water 2.0 extreme, i can get the 8350 on the UD3 up to an overclock of 4.9 Ghz stable at 1.525 volts, without breaking 40c under load. the asrock won't boot past 4.4 Ghz, at any voltage.

even with all settings at default, it doesn't run stable. temps never read right. HWmonitor shows my cpu temps bouncing between 12c and120c. one USB 2.0 header stopped working entirely. without any attempts to overclock on any of my three piledriver chips, i get random crashes, programs and games freeze up and say "not responding" for 15-30 seconds every ten minutes or so. while running games it stops recognizing the GPU, and the display goes black. switch out to any other motherboard, no problems whatsoever.

my UD3's were cheaper, and they look nice as well. the extreme4 is ugly. i expected better performance. the UEFI on the gigabyte UD3 sucks, but at least those mobo's work.

Other Thoughts: i wish i could have bought this mobo and an FX cpu at the same time so i could have tested it. as it was, i bought the mobo, and it sat unopened for two months until i got around to buying the 8350. i'm not even going to bother Asrock or Newegg with any attempts at RMA or replacement. it's not Newegg's nor ASrock's fault i didn't test it right when i got it, lesson learned.

when i finally find a good motherboard for my 8350 this board is getting bitcoin duty when i slap the four 6570's i have layin around onto it, stick it in a ten dollar case and set it to mining and forget about it. i'd have to PAY someone to put up with all the little annoying freezes and hangups i have with this board. next time i'll go with a Crosshair V formula Z or something like that.

Pros: All the pros are the specs listed. It overclock memory fine for me at 2100 using Gskill PC 17000. HOWEVER... see cons

Fantastic BIOS options for storage, etc. RAID (6 ports). SLI. etc.

Is stable.

Cons: I started with 2 sticks totalling 8GB. Great! In love with the board, despite it's odd quirks (noise through audio out on power down)... Worked so well I order 2 more sticks of identical memory.. The machine did not like it. Loading both profiles, playing with voltages, etc. The timings were correct for the RAM. Nothing greater than 2 sticks would post at a speed higher than 1600. Changing this value, and subsequent values, led to difficulty posting.

I contacted tech support. They responded suggesting upgrading to BETA BIOS (which addresses issues other than memory). I upgraded to 2.01b, and no change. Further they differed to the memory list. OK. Nowhere in the list do list 4 sticks running faster than 1600. So.. Beware, if you want to upgrade later. I am keeping the board and have ordered PC 18000 ram which is 8GB x 2. I hope these TWO sticks will be all I require for now.

I asked again if more than 2 sticks can be 'overclocked', and they refered me to the 'list'. I guess thats a NO. I even tried 1866. Anything more than 2 sticks, it wont post, until it automatically resets to 1600. So beware of this limitation. I did give it 5 stars initially.

I'd like to see at LEAST one overclock listing where they used 4 pcs of DDR3. It's not on list. Only pcs at 1600 speed. :(

Other Thoughts: I really wish this stick limit wasn't an issue. Otherwise.. very good value.

Pros: Lots of features.

Cons: Latest board I set up for a friend this last week would not post when turned on. After resetting the CMOS it posts fine. USB 3.0 is an issue however as some USB 2.0 devices work and others do not. Having trouble on the front of the case with USB 3.0 and flash memory. I have the same motherboard and I have trouble as well. Mine is a year old.

Other Thoughts: Hopefully a driver download from Etron will fix it.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear ASRock Customer

We sincerely apologize that you having difficulty with USB 3.0 onboard. Please downlaod and install USB 3.0 driver at link "http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/990FX%20Extreme4/?cat=Download ". Test with another known good USB devices to eliminate the issue.
If you have any technical questions or warranty issues please contact our Tech Support at http://www.ASRock.com/support/tsd.asp. We can assist you shortly.

Thank you

ASRock SUPPORT
Tech Support Email: user@ASRockamerica.com

Pros: Overall this is a very good motherboard. Almost everything has worked flawlessly since purchasing it in feb 2012.

Cons: USB 3.0. The front USB 3.0 is extremely flaky. The only device that works without fail when attached is a Rosewill Wireless adapter. Flash drives sometimes will not eject or they will not be recognized.

Other Thoughts: I am going to dloanload the latest driver from the Etron website and hopefully the problem is solved.

Pros: looks nice

Cons: where to start. when booted the lan never worked installed drivers every thing nothing worked. rebooted and the usb drives surged and fried my usb devices. replaced them then my video card went. now it gives d6 error and there is no way ill plug anything into it again.

Other Thoughts: lets see i bet they dont replace anything it ruined.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear ASRock Customer

We sincerely apologize that you having difficulty with mainboard. d6 related to VGA card and/or it's controller.
Please trouble shooting the mainboard with known good components;
Turn the power off.
Clear the CMOS
Test with another known good Video card with 6+6 power (if applied)
If you have any technical questions please contact us at 909-590-8308 or http://www.ASRock.com/support/tsd.asp. We can assist you shortly.


Thank you

ASRock SUPPORT
Tech Support Email: user@ASRockamerica.com

Pros: Writing a followup review since I wrote one when I got it, and now I've had this one for a year.
Needless to say, when they say durability is their key component, it is durable. I am using this is a semi-truck tractor-trailer rig for its entire life, and its got a heavy Zalman 165mm cooler and XFX Radeon HD 6970 hanging off it and showing no signs of stress or wear and tear from the vibrations of the vehicle.

I bought this board for that reason, and you can say I've put it through the ultimate stress test. To this day, continues to support every upgrade I've thrown at it, recently upgraded to a Sound Blaster Fatality card, it took it no problem (even reroutes the HD audio to both the I/O header and the case jacks).

Legacy support is a plus on this board, for I got a IDE DVD burner that has followed me since an old Compaq, and continues to be a dependable drive, yet with all that legacy components, it still has high end specs for today's standards.

Love the easy reach rear CMOS clear button, for those days I just feel like overclocking. 140w CPU power channel gives plenty for overclocking with more to spare.

Plenty of fan headers.

Cons: I still cannot for the life of me, get my memory to its stock numbers. They're the Gskill Ripjaws 1800's 16GB, and when I select that profile, Windows won't load. I don't know if its motherboard, memory, or operating system, but I can bring it down to 1600 and tighten the timings at 7-7-7-24 and bump the voltage.

Because even a year later I cannot figure it out, will not dock an egg because of it. I just still look for BIOS updates (maybe someday we'll see PCI-E 3.0 with a BIOS update?).

But the memory OC menu needs polish anyway.

Other Thoughts: Once again, this is a followup review, since I've owned the hardware for the long haul in extreme environments (even had a fire extinguisher go off on it), definitely pick this for durability, performance, and reverse compatibility.

Pros: 1.) Works with openSUSE 12.3 out of the box.
2.) Nice set of features both in hardware and software aspect of the board.
3.) Supports IOMMU for some advanced virtualization configurations.
4.) Supports secure virtualization.
5.) Detected my FX-8350 and set the proper stock frequency.
6.) First ASRock purchase and it will not be my last.
7.) Nice heat sink on board. Easily installed the fan on the heat sink after removing the cap.
8.) USB 3.0 which with a USB 3.0 key booted Crunchbang in roughly 5 seconds from a USB key. lol
9.) The USB 3.0 and SSD docking station that fits into the FDD drive bay is a nice, high quality, item that includes necessary screws.
10.) Four SATA cables.
11.) Works well with G.SKILL Sniper Series 16GB - F3-1866C9D-16GSR
12.) Nice bios.

Cons: None. I am very pleased with the quality of this board at this price point.

Other Thoughts: Had to boot with APCI=OFF during installation then remove acpi=off in the boot options after the first boot; not necessarily the board's fault as this happened on my previous AMD build. Just a tip if you are having problems installing Linux. I am really happy with how virtualization performs on this board. I had WIndows 7 and Windows XP running on top of openSUSE without any slowdown ( With 16GB memory). As for the memory I just had to select the second recognized profile in the BIOS and the bios set the correct frequency and timings for my RAM that was easy. I don't intend on overclocking my CPU as I find it fast enough already. But I have found that these types of over-clocker oriented boards tend to have a greater life expectancy as heat is the enemy of the PC and this type of board has higher thermal capacities. Just an unscientific opinion.

Pros: I think this is a great board for the price (plus it was on sale). Pretty happy with it. Decided to go ahead and give it 5 stars. No 990FX board (right now) can compete with its options and price.

Cons: Not to great if ya have a water cooler like the antec h2o 620. doesn't leave any space for you unless you have a deep case (like someone else noted below). I have a NZXT Source 210 S210-002 just for reference. took some reworking of case fans to figure out something workable.
Also, the material used on said heatsink is pretty flimsy. my southern heatsink also had a slight ding in it.. no big deal to me though.

Other Thoughts: Didnt take an egg off for this, because its not the products fault.. but...
What in the what newegg?? I ordered this on a Tuesday (april 2nd) and it didn't even ship untul Friday (april 5th). I know I used the free shipping option, but come on. That 4-7 took 10 days. Not cool. Wont be using that option again.
Also, BAD PACKAGING JOB. One of the flaps on my items box was TURNED UP on a corner INSIDE THE SHIPPING BOX. Ripped the entire corner of the items box. Also not cool. Come on now newegg. Ive been a customer for a long time but if this keeps up I don't know! get it together! lol.

Pros: Strong feeling, looks meaty, great specs, lot of time to waste toy, seriously. Will work great decorating a garbage can for a PC case.

Cons: Purchased mine last November and still can not relax and compute. After numerious tech text and calls they RMA'd it to Chico, CA. I paid shipping there. A 1 1/2 week later, I got a used mobo with older serial numbers with new 2.0 bios and good endevors note. Constantly having to reboot 3X to get it to post and operate.

Other Thoughts: Like push starting a new car, it will start and get running' I'm now scared to loose any work. I'm now back on my older Gigabyte PC that the AsRock was suppose to retire as emergency backup, it is : ). Will try to get New Egg to give me a credit on another mobo.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear ASRock Customer

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. The mainboard has safe guard function which will auto-restart 3 times to recover BIOS default setting, if memory setting is mismatch. However, all retuning mainboard has been stress tested to assure working fine before shipped. If you have any technical questions or warranty issues please contact our Tech Support at http://www.ASRock.com/support/tsd.asp. We can assist you shortly.

Thank you

ASRock SUPPORT
Tech Support Email: user@ASRockamerica.com