Asrock X58 Extreme3 Review
Packaging and First Look
Published: 12th May 2010 | Source: Asrock | Price: £180 |
Asrock Extreme3 Packaging and First Look
Straight away you can tell this isn't your standard Asrock motherboard. The box is about as fancy as anything we've seen with an incredible hologromatic sheen that looks amazing from every angle.
The main features of the Extreme3 are naturally the most advertised elements with the 333 support and Gulftown support writ large for all to see.
Flipping the box over and it's nice to see that Asrock have kept the colourful finish on the whole of the box exterior. The various features are also exceptionally well laid out with everything that you could want in a clear position. Motherboards, by virtue of having so many elements to convey, can sometimes have busy boxes, but here it's fantastic. Top marks Asrock.
Opening the box has a slightly less impressive effect. No seperate boxes or compartments and even the inside isn't black, but it's not a big problem. More a little disappointing after the epic exterior.
Inside we have a few full colour sheets showing the various software that's included. Along with a large multi-language manual, the obligatory driver disk, and some SATA, power and IDE cables. IDE. Huh?
Taking the Extreme3 out of the protective static bag we get our first look and can see a rather peculiar layout. Perhaps we've got used to the way 90% of motherboards are made these days, but to see a fan, a very empty area behind the SATA ports and, amazingly, both a IDE port and a floppy one really just looks jarring.
Most Recent Comments
I agree a floppy and IDE is a bit nuts. the ide i could live with just for moving across old stuff or to use some of the old 750 gigs i have lying around how ever the floppy . that got me scratching my head. Allso why do they have PS2 ports. they could have saved a few quid buy removing all this old gear.
I wasn't to fussed about placement of parts until you said about the small fan. oh dear me comes to mind here.
The sound OH MY OH MY OH MY .. squealing , electrical noise .. oh dear me a throw back to the early days of the first on board sound comes to mind. That is one hell of a major flaw esp since a hell of a lot of people now a days use on board sound. Something doesn't sound rite at all.
ASrock have all ways mixed old and new tech but if the old tech is a bad interference on the new tech then is it a worth while thing to do. All so i noted that the caps next to the ram slots are well to say the least unbelievably close to the ram slots does that cause any problems (just wondering). Ive seen ppl miss when placing ram in there slot and them caps look a little fragile. I could imagine them being ripped off by accident,
Ah well asrock nice try may be a ver 2 would be on the drawing boards pritty much straight away ....
p.s Love the Insta Boot if it works that well.
I do like that instant on feature though. That's pretty cool to get into Windows so fast.
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Originally Posted by name='BloomerzUK'
Probably for people that still flash using floppy maybe?
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Originally Posted by name='Diablo'
The 3D mark scores you get are probably physx enhanced, which won't be the case for these scores. Mine will only hit 35K or so standard. Also, floppy drive, welcome to the 1990s?
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