Introduction

We've absolutely powered through a bunch of ASRock motherboards recently. First we checked out the ASRock X79 Extreme4 which came in at an awesome price point. From there we checked out the mATX version, the ASRock X79 Extreme4-M. Today, though, it's all about the new high end board from the guys at ASRock, the X79 Extreme9.

Everything about the X79 Extreme9 seems to be big and the big box is where we'll be starting today. Once we've done that we'll move inside the box to see what ASRock is offering us with the X79 Extreme9 before we move onto the motherboard.

Once we've done that we'll get into the BIOS to see how that looks before we check out the testbed, cover overclocking potential and finally see the performance the X79 Extreme9 has to offer us.

We've always been big fans of the ASRock boards and over years past they've gotten only better and better. The new Gen3 Z68 boards we saw launch not long ago also brought with them a refresh when it comes to the board design. We've seen that carry over to the new X79 boards and we hope that we can get some killer performance that's able to match the killer new look.

Before we get into all the fan stuff, though, we need to check out what's going on with the massive package that ASRock is offering us with their new high end board, the X79 Extreme9.

The Package

We've got a big box on hand as we mentioned and moving through it, we've got an absolute wealth of information including an area that opens up and gives us a peak at the motherboard itself. We won't go into too much detail on that, though, as we'll be checking that out a lot closer in just a moment.

Moving inside the package, we see a lot of the regulars, paperwork, driver CD, I/O back plate, six SATA cables, two Molex to SATA cables and a 3-Way SLI and normal SLI bridge.

Along with all that, we've got the USB 3.0 add-on that we see on some of the higher end ASRock offerings. This can be installed in the front of the case or via the bracket you can install it at the back.

Along with all this, we've also got the new ASRock Game Blaster included in the package which offers us four auxiliary ports, Gigabit LAN, Optical Out and S/PDIF Out. Sound is offered via the Creative Sound Core3D Quad Core processor while Gigabit LAN comes via the Broadcom BCM57781 chip.

This is a really strong bundle and is no doubt one of the better bundles we've seen from a company so far. Hopefully the board offers us performance that can match what we're seeing here.