ASRock Z77 Extreme4-M 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). The ASRock Z77 Extreme4-M has two additional SATA-600 ports, controlled by an ASMedia ASM1061 chip.

Most of the SATA ports are located at the motherboard’s edge and rotated 90°, so video cards won’t block them, but two of them are not installed rotated, and the installation of an expansion card on the third PCI Express x16 slot (PCIE4) may block them. See Figure 4.

Figure 4: SATA-300 (black) and SATA-600 (gray) ports

This motherboard has an eSATA-600 port, which is shared with the SATA3_A1 connector, so both can’t be used at the same time.

The Intel Z77 chipset supports 14 USB 2.0 ports and four USB 3.0 ports. The ASRock Z77 Extreme4-M offers 10 USB 2.0 ports, four soldered on the rear panel and six available through three headers located on the motherboard; and four USB 3.0 ports, two located on the motherboard rear panel and two available on a header located on the motherboard, near the main power supply connector.

The ASRock Z77 Extreme4-M doesn’t have FireWire ports.

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 one Gigabit Ethernet port controlled by a Realtek RTL81111E chip.

In Figure 5, you can see the motherboard rear panel with a shared PS/2 keyboard connector, four USB 2.0 ports, VGA output, DVI-D output, HDMI output, eSATA-600 port, Gigabit Ethernet port, two USB 3.0 ports, an optical SPDIF output, and the analog audio jacks.

Figure 5: Motherboard rear panel