ASRock X79 Extreme6/GB Motherboard Strides In

ASRock created a motherboard that easily qualifies as a high-end platform and even comes as part of the ASRock Game Buster Blaster bundle.

The ASRock Game Blaster product bundle is what the X79 Extreme9 was and is famous for being sold with.

This Game Blaster card has Broadcom Gigabit LAN and Creative Sound Core3D 7.1 CH HD audio.

Now, the X79 Extreme6/GB has been paired with the same special hardware, even though it isn't as mighty as the X79 Extreme7.

There are eight DIMM DDR3 memory slots, which put the board ahead of the Extreme7 by two such slots, oddly enough.

On the flip side, the number of PCI Express x16 slots is three instead of five.

Meanwhile, the X79 Extreme6/GB boasts a single PCI Express x1 slot and a pair of legacy PCI slots.

It should be noted that, going by the layout of the platform, only one of the PCI slots can actually be used for anything is owners have dual-slot graphics cards everywhere.

USB 3.0 ports (two on the front) and five SATA 6.0 Gbps ports, plus four SATA 3.0 Gbps connectors, are present as well.

As for connectivity and I/O, people will find two PS/2 ports, four USB 3.0 ports (at the back), four USB 2.0 connectors, Gigabit Ethernet, 7.1-channel audio with optical and coaxial S/PDIF out, eSATA and a distinct lack of a second LAN port, though the Game blaster negates the need for that anyway.

Other specifications include a clear CMOS button, VRM heatsink, tantalum capacitors and an unfortunate side effect to the strange layout of the expansion slots.

The Game Blaster card needs to be placed inside the PCI Express x1 board, but that won't be possible if one has three graphics cards in multi-GPU configurations (NVIDIA SLI or AMD CrossFire).

Fortunately, people don't usually have more than two video cards, assuming they even go for more than one.

The price was not provided, but with the feature set and the bundle, it is probable that the tag will be similar to that of the Extreme7 (€260 / $360).