ASRock P55 Extreme4 Motherboard

Conclusions

The new ASRock P55 Extreme4 is a nice option if you are looking for a mainstream socket LGA1156 motherboard and want to buy a mo
del with four SATA-600 ports, one eSATA-600 port and four USB 3.0 ports. The front panel adapter with two USB 3.0 ports is definitely a really nice touch. Other nice features of this motherboard include support for SLI (remember, not all P55-based motherboards come with SLI support), on-board optical and coaxial SPDIF connectors, a POST diagnostics display, support for socket LGA775 CPU coolers, decent overclocking options, and a decent voltage regulator circuit.

Of course if you are a high-end user that demands only “the best in class,” you will find some flaws in this product, such as the absence of a PCI Express switching chip for improving performance when all SATA-600 ports and USB 3.0 ports are used at the same time, the absence of FireWire ports, the ability of running a RAID array only on the first two SATA-600 ports, the eSATA-600 port that is shared with the last internal SATA-600 port, and the absence of more advanced overclocking options. For the Average Joe, however, these “flaws” are not apparent and you will be doing a good deal picking this motherboard.