ASRock Z77 Extreme11 Motherboard

On-Board Peripherals

The Intel Z77 chipset is a single-chip solution that is also known as a PCH (Platform Controller Hub). This chip supports two SATA-600 ports and four SATA-300 ports, supporting RAID (0, 1, 10, and 5).

One of the highlights of the ASRock Z77 Extreme11 is the presence of an LSI SAS2308 chip, which offers eight SATA-600/SAS-600 ports supporting RAID 0, 1, 1E, and 10. This chip is connected to the system using a PCI Express 3.0 x8 connection, meaning that it offers the highest performance possible when several devices are using the ports at the same time; usually, SATA/SAS chips use a PCI Express 2.0 x1 connection.

All SATA ports are located at the motherboard’s edge and rotated 90°, so video cards won’t block them. See Figure 7.

Figure 7: SATA-600/SAS-600 ports (gray), SATA-300 ports (black), and SATA-600 ports controlled by the chipset (gray)

This motherboard has an eSATA-600 port, which is connected to the SATA3_1 connector, so these two ports cannot be used simultaneously.

The Intel Z77 chipset supports 14 USB 2.0 ports and four USB 3.0 ports. The ASRock Z77 Extreme11 offers nine USB 2.0 ports, two soldered on the rear panel, one soldered on one of the edges of the motherboard, and six available through three headers located on the motherboard; and 12 USB 3.0 ports, eight located on the motherboard rear panel and four available through two headers located on the motherboard, near the main power supply connector. The eight additional USB 3.0 ports are controlled by two EtronTech EJ188H chips.

The motherboard comes with a 5.25” panel containing two USB 3.0 ports and the Wi-Fi antenna.

Figure 8: Panel with two USB 3.0 ports and Wi-Fi antenna

The ASRock Z77 Extreme11 has two FireWire ports, one soldered on the rear panel and one available through a header on the motherboard. These ports are controlled by a VIA 6315N chip.

This motherboard supports 7.1+2 audio format, i.e., eight channels plus two independent channels for audio streaming. On this motherboard, the audio is generated by the chipset using the Realtek ALC898 codec, which is an outstanding solution, providing an impressive 110 dB signal-to-noise ratio for the analog outputs, 104 dB signal-to-noise ratio for the analog inputs, and up to 192 kHz sampling rate for both inputs and outputs, with 24-bit resolution. This means you are able to capture and edit analog audio (e.g., converting LPs to CDs or MP3, converting VHS to DVDs or any other digital format, etc.) with this motherboard without adding any background noise.

The motherboard has on-board optical SPDIF output. A header labeled “HDMI_SPDIF1” also provides SPDIF output for you to install a coaxial SPDIF output or to route digital audio to older video cards that require this physical connection in order to have digital audio output in their HDMI connectors.

The analog audio outputs are independent only if you use a 5.1 analog speaker set. If you install a 7.1 analog speaker set, you will need to use either the “mic in” or the “line in” jacks.

The portrayed motherboard has two Gigabit Ethernet ports, one controlled by the chipset using an Intel WG82579V chip to make the interface with the physical layer and one controlled by an Intel WG82583V chip.

The ASRock Z77 Extreme11 comes with a Wi-Fi/Bluetooth module. See Figure 3. The Wi-Fi module supports the IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n standards and is a dual-band component, which allows it to achieve higher speeds than Wi-Fi cards that are single-band. The Bluetooth portion of the card operates under the 4.0 specification.

In Figure 9, you can see the motherboard rear panel with a shared PS/2 keyboard/mouse connector, eight USB 3.0 ports, a clear CMOS button, HDMI output, two Gigabit Ethernet ports, two USB 2.0 ports, one FireWire port, one eSATA-600 port, one optical SPDIF output, and the analog audio jacks.

Figure 9: Motherboard rear panel