ASRock X99 Extreme6/3.1 preview – a motherboard for professionals

We launched our motherboard previews with a Gigabyte model that was peculiar with its affordable price and various options – Gigabyte H170-Gaming 3. Slightly after that we tried to present another extreme in our preview of the gaming motherboard MSI X99A GODLIKE GAMING CARBON. Today we shall have a look at a motherboard meant for those of you who deal with photo and video editing, graphic design and similar professions. How can there be a dedicated motherboard for all this? Well, read the article and you will find out.

If you are interested in the purchase of this motherboard, you can check its price and availability here: http://amzn.to/1suT5RU

Socket and supported CPUs

X99 Extreme63.1(L1)You may guess by the name that this motherboard and MSI X99A GODLIKE GAMING CARBON have something in common. Yes, both come with the same chipset (Intel X99), and this means that they also have a similar socket – 2011-3. Even though MSI had not included the newly announced Intel Core i7-6950X, ASRock made sure that this will be one of the chips to be easily installed on X99 Extreme6/3.1.

If you have problems starting up, ASRock offers a BIOS update, including support of CPUs to be released during this year’s second quarter. However, ASRock warns that flashing or updating the BIOS is enitrely at your own risk, especially if you have no CPU problems. Fortunately for those of you who may have to perform this operation for the first time, ASRock provides an online guide “How to Update” which should be of great help.

Apart from the expexted Intel Core i7-6950X, the CPU support list also includes the extreme 4th generatoin Haswell-E Core i7-5960X. Other supported models from this family are Intel Core i7-5930K and Core i7-5920K. Since the Core i7-6950X is based on the Broadwell-E architecture, we can expext other fifth-generation processors. They are Core i7-6900K, Core i7-6800K, and Core i7-6850K which will become available on the market namely during this year’s second quarter.

A motherboard made for professionals

As the name of the article suggests, ASRock X99 Extreme6/3.1 offers some functions that are important to users who deal with CAD and other such applications. Apart  from the listed above processors, the motherboard supports the “server” chips from the Xenon lineup. They are characterized by large cache and a good number of cores which are crucial when it comes to photo or video rendering. The most significan chip supported by this motherboard is Xeon E5-2699 v4. It offers 22 physical and 44 logical cores, 55 MB third-level cache.


X99 Extreme63.1(L2)

X99 Extreme63.1(L3)

Despite the Xenon CPUs support, this is not the only professional aspect of X99 Extreme6/3.1. Additionally, this motherboard offers three PCIe slots allowing up to three GPUs. What’s peculiar about this fact is that apart from standard gaming GPUs, you can also use professional chips from AMD’s FirePro and NVIDIA’s Quadro series. They will provide the maximum computing performance for your work. We must also mention the option of up to 128 GB of RAM which is a key factor in some situations (such as rendering of large videos or images). If you want to mount three “green” GPUs so that they may work properly, you must have a CPU with 40 PCI Express lines, and not 28. Follow this pattern for the PCIe slots:  x16 / x16 / x8.

If you are interested in the purchase of this motherboard, you can check its price and availability here: http://amzn.to/1suT5RU

Specs sheet

Socket2011-3
CPU supportIntel Core i7 and Xeon
RAM8 x DDR4-3400+(OC) slots, up to 128GB of RAM
ChipsetX99
SoundRealtek ALC1150 (7.1 channel surround)
Connectivity
  • 1 x Qualcomm® Atheros® AR8171 (PCIE x1 Gigabit LAN 10/100/1000 Mb/s)
  • 1 x Intel® I218V (Gigabit LAN PHY 10/100/1000 Mb/s)
Features
  • 7x USB 2.0 (2 rear, 4 front and 1 vertical type A)
  • 8x USB 3.0 (4 front, 4 rear)
  • 5x audio jacks
  • 3x USB 3.1 –  one Type-C and two Type-A
  • 1x optical S/PDIF Out connector
  • 2x RJ-45
  • 1x 1 x Clear CMOS switch

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