Introduction

17. That's the number of motherboards that ASRock currently have using the Z77 chipset. It's truly a massive amount of boards for one chipset, but the Z77 is a mainstream one and ASRock are known for making boards for so many categories. The chipset saw Nick Shih's first board in the Z77 OC Formula which did a fantastic job of impressing us.

We also saw a Mini ITX board in the Z77E-ITX which was absolutely awesome and showed us just how much power can be packed into a Mini ITX motherboard. We had a look at the Z77 Pro3 which comes in under $100 along with the slightly more expensive Z77 Extreme6. Finally we checked out the Fatal1ty branded Z77 Professional which looked good and performed extremely well.

If that wasn't enough ASRock Z77 boards for you, today we're checking out the brand new Z77 Extreme11 which sits at the top of the Z77 food chain. We're not too sure what to expect so we'll simply just get into the package side of things and get the ball rolling.

Once we've done that we'll take a look at the board itself, move onto the BIOS, have a look at the overclocking side of things and finally get down and dirty with the performance.

Package

Starting off with the front of the box you can see we've got a fairly typical ASRock design with a large focus on the 555 XFast Technology. Flipping the front over we're greeted with some of the major features that are present on the motherboard. Some of the highlights here include the integration of eight SAS2 ports, 3-Way SLI and 4-Way CrossFireX support. We can also see mention of Digi Power, Dual-Stock MOSFET along with the inclusion of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

Moving onto the other side of the box we get our first look at the Z77 Extreme11. Turning over to the back of the box we again have a run down on some of the major features that are included on the board with the 555 XFast technology taking up a large portion. We've also got Premium Gold Caps, 8 + 4 Power Phase Design, 2oz Copper PCB, 12x USB 3.0, Lucid Virtu MVP, Fast Boost and UEFI to round out the major highlights.

As we move inside we've got a fairly typical paperwork line up with a couple of manuals, a guide on Lucid Virtu MVP and what it does along with a larger explanation on the 555 XFast technology. Above we can also see the driver CD and the standard I/O shield.

Finishing off the bundle we've got a massive eight SATA cables, two Molex to SATA power connectors along with a SLI and 3-Way SLI bridge. Finally we have the ASRock Wi-SB BOX, which is something that is new to us. This box offers two USB 3.0 ports which you can clearly see along with an SSD mount. Also included are two wireless antennas to help boost the wireless signal. It's a nice addition and beats the standard antenna that you might find yourself having sit on top of your chassis.