Conclusion

ASRock do not brag enough about the Z68 Extreme3 Gen3, which is odd when you take into consideration the excellent results it outputs. The Z68 models in the Sandy Bridge range are clearly models not to be reckoned with. The Extreme3 Gen3 comes right at the top of the benchmarks all the time, if not exceeding the standards of its rival brands such as Gigabyte and soon to be MSI and Asus motherboards. The board has so many of the latest features and with the included Lucid Virtu the performance is increased more than other board would be. The Z68 has been built around the Intel core K series processors making the Z68 the ideal Sandy Bridge foundation to build the rest of your system onto. If that’s not enough for you, the price will definitely take away those doubts. This board offers you top of the range Sandy Bridge performance.

• £120
• $186

Debugging Error

One problem that was faced from the start with the ASRock Extreme3 Gen3 was, the debugging error on the motherboard that was arising every time you start up the system it will say 45 on the debugger I/O. This code is not in the manual at all. The problem can be solved by downloading and updating your BIOS to 5.0.2v. After doing so ASRock suggest you try insering the RAM moduals into A2 and B2 slots instead of A1 and B1, after this the RAM worked fine.

The ASRock Extreme3 Gen3 as said has brilliant and easily recognisable price for performance, so we awarding the it the following:

HardwareLOOK awards the ASRock Extreme3 Gen3 a 9/10 Silver Award.