ASRock 990FX Extreme3 AM3+ AMD 990FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard with UEFI BIOS

Pros: Solid board, runs my new FX-8530 CPU no problem

Cons: None so far

Pros: Lots of USB ports, plenty of SATA ports, supports 8 core/125W AMD CPU's, looks nice.Installing drivers was easy. Glad that the board included 2 SATA cables, the SLI bridge, an audio cable for connecting my mp3 player to the PC, and a nicely designed user manual.

Cons: Wow...After having Windows 7 updated and board drivers installed, the system refused to boot the next morning.

When I bought it on May 27, 2013 the price was $119.99, same price when I checked again before submitting an RMA. The next couple of days Newegg dropped the price by $15...and are now throwing in a stick of 8GB RAM to sweeten the pot.
Was able to get the system to boot, computer worked for about 4 days continuously before dropping dead on a restart after ripping a CD...System powers on but there is no video, no POST...Almost seems spiteful with its behavior...Rather unhappy. My buddy recommended I downgrade to the 970 series but I like the extra features this board offers. I am excited for the RMA to come in sometime next week but...I am cautious about getting my hopes up. The system worked great WHEN IT WORKED. Except for the weird USB thing. My wireless mouse is connected via USB and the mouse would begin lagging for no reason. I swapped out batteries and the problem continued until the board died. This mouse worked on three other Windows 7 machines and two of them were in the exact same spot as this one to also include the system this board replaced. Terribly dissatisfying experience thus far.
Also, I don't like the layout of SATA ports 3-6, a vertical stack at the edge of the board...? ASRock, Are you even trying to make this a builder friendly board?
Also, I was taken by surprise as to the size of this board. I should have done my homework better but I guess the industry decided to change the ATX specification to make the board narrower than they used to be without telling me. This did not fit my ATX case without having to locate standoffs to modify my case with as the two previous boards in my computer case were also ATX and fit the bumps provided by the case to side-step having to use standoffs.

Other Thoughts: What a pile of frustration dealing with a board that doesn't start everytime...

Manufacturer Response:

Dear ASRock Customer

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.
For the future reference, please trouble shooting the mainboard for below steps with known good components;
Turn the power off.
Clear the CMOS
Set the UEFI BIOS default.
Test with single memory module (non-ECC, un-buffered), try with another known good memory if its same issue.
Video card with 6+6 power (if applied)
Power supply with connecting 24 pins + 8 or 4 pins ATX power to the mainboard
Plug the computer case’s power switch to mainboard's front panel power header and try again
If you have any technical questions please contact us at http://www.ASRock.com/support/tsd.asp. We can assist you shortly.

Thank you

ASRock SUPPORT
Tech Support Email: user@ASRockamerica.com

Pros: Tons of options, good visual appearance, performed well in the beginning.

Cons: Died literally one day after the warranty. I had issues with this board from day one. USB ports from the front of my case would randomly freeze the system entirely when removed, my usb wireless stick would randomly stop working, but would work fine upon a restart? Had some BSOD's while playing games like sleeping dogs, and darksiders 2. Updated everything, also had weird throttling issues with my FX-8120, 2 year old games would run at really weird frame rates. Turned off all of the cores except for two to be able to play them somewhat stable. Had one sata port stop being recognized after 3 weeks, swapped ports and all is good. Have lived with all these issues for the last year. Went to update the bios the other day, bios updated fine, did 4 to 5 full restarts to make sure the bios took. Next day no Post, cleared cmos and it booted. Shut it off entirely. Next day, no post. replaced the cmos battery, worked fine for 3 days, then no post. I'm done.

Other Thoughts: A lot of little things that I learned to live with because I just didn't want to deal with swapping the board while it still worked, but now I'm wishing I had a long time ago.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear ASRock Customer

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.
Please turn the power off, clear the CMOS.
Set the UEFI BIOS default.
Test with single memory, try with another known good memory if its same issue.
If you have any technical issues or warranty questions 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: This is a very nice board, and it has good software that comes with it. I bought it as a replacement for the MSI 990XA-GD55. It also has a nice black color scheme that is not common, but not rare.

Cons: Just a note to others thinking to buy, there are only 5 sata 6Gb/s not 6, and the third PCI-E slot on the board (the bottommost) only runs at x8, while the other two run at x16

Other Thoughts: Its a good board

Pros: I like the board but I was in a hurry to get this computer together and didn't take a look at his new baby brother the Extreme 4. For $20 bucks more get the Extreme 4 it has more options. But this mobo is very nice for the price.

Cons: none so far

Pros: Appears durable and reliable so far. PC runs approximately 8 to 16 hours a day. Paired with an AMD FX 6100 with stock cooler in an Antec 300 series case. Decent set of features 4 ram slots, sata III, usb 3.0, etc...

Cons: I bought mine in October 2012. There was only a couple of bad reviews. There are many more now. I have always had great luck with ASRock boards

Other Thoughts: Just some advice, before you even put it in the case, reset the bios jumper. Save yourself a migraine headache. This is the first thing I do when I remove the anti-static bag. Had 4 in a row fail to either boot or post. No problems at all after reset. (Intel and AMD, various motherboards.)

Also, if your CPU fan is whining, set the fan speed in the bios.

Everything is at stock speed. no overclocking.

Pros: Has the intermediate components of a high end gaming system. Multiple slots for graphics card, fast bus speeds, etc etc.

Cons: This thing overheats way too easily considering what it was advertised as. The motherboard can't tolerate more than 50 degrees celsius before throttling down.

Other Thoughts: Highly overrated.
The Ram slots get blocked by any aftermarket heatsink, poor design foresight. There's no slots for additional usb 3.0; a real cornercutting move.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear ASRock Customer

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.
For the throttling issue, please set the UEFI BIOS default if setting has changed under BIOS to check if the symptom still occurs.
For the USB 3.0 front header, unfortunately, 990FX Extreme3 model does not come with front USB 3.0 header but 990FX Extreme4. For more information, please visit mainboard specification link at" http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/990FX%20Extreme3/?cat=Specifications ".
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: Well,it's a good looking board,but aren't they all.

Cons: DOA. No post. Fans came up,but that was the extent of it. Tried troubleshooting with known good parts but was unable to get a post. RMA for replacement,but fear that I will be chasing my tail, based on many of the reviews here.

Other Thoughts: Wish I had done more homework on the item. Have always been a Gigabyte guy,and the one time I test the waters, I get burned.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear ASRock Customer

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.
Please trouble shooting the mainboard for below steps with known good components;
Remove the mainboard from inside computer to outside, place the mainboard on top of the empty mainboard’s box
Clear the CMOS
Reseat the CPU and heatsink fan as well
Test with single memory module (non-ECC, un-buffered), try with another known good memory if its same issue.
Video card with 6+6 power (if applied)
Power supply with connecting 24 pins + 8 or 4 pins ATX power to the mainboard
Plug the computer case’s power switch to mainboard's front panel power header and try again
If you have any technical questions please contact us at http://www.ASRock.com/support/tsd.asp. We can assist you shortly.


Thank you

ASRock SUPPORT
Tech Support Email: user@ASRockamerica.com

Pros: Easy to install and use. Cheap for what it is and i got it in a bundle which saved me some money.

Cons: None so far.

Other Thoughts: I was very nervous after i purchased this motherboard because i started to read all the reviews on how this product does not seem to work for people. But after it booted up i have had no issues. Great buy

Pros: -Tons of features
-Black colour scheme(Goes with basically any build)
-Amazing bang-for-the-buck
-Sata III

Cons: -Bios on the board I received was the oldest one, no big deal, warehouses exist as storage, not the reason for the egg dock.
-In my gf's pc so I can't look at it.

Other Thoughts: Egg was docked because as it seems great and all I can't say for sure that it is a 100% amazing product as I don't use it enough to get familiar with it.

She uses her PC for drawing and content creation as well as some gaming when she wants.

Pc it's used in has:
Phenom II x4 975
16 gb LP vengeance memory 1600mhz
Gigabyte 5870 1gb
XFX 850w Pro
Kinston HyperX 3k 120gb
WD Black 1TB
All inside of the Thermaltake Commander