14 DAY TRIAL // New flagship product has a black PCB and will be one of, if not the most expensive LGA 2011 platform once the product launches start in November.
The ASRock X79 Extreme9 Black Edition is most assuredly not the first motherboard to leave the company's laboratories.
Nevertheless, it is, quite clearly even, the most feature-packed of them all, or so VR-Zone says.
The existence of five PCI Express 3.0 x16 slots is the first thing, or one of them, that jumps into view.
The fact that the CPU socket is wired to eight DDR3 memory slots is no small feat either.
Meanwhile, eight SATA 6.0 Gbps ports are present, six of which are supplied by Marvell 2-port SATA 6.0 Gbps controller chips. Four SATA 3.0 Gbps connectors exist as well.
Additionally, ASRock was able to include eight USB 3.0 ports (four on the back panel, four as headers).
At this point, it is ready to see just why this might qualify as the true flagship instead of the ASRock X79 Extreme7.
The above, as well as the extensive connectivity options on the I/O panel, aren't all that enthusiasts can look forward to though.
After all, ASRock also intends to offer a daughterboard, to permanently occupy one of the PCI Express 3.0 x16 slots.
Said board is called “Game Blaster” apparently and has 7.1 channel audio and a gaming network controller.
Alas, even though the specifications have been unraveled (the photos of the ASRock X79 Extreme9 Black Edition don't leave much to the imagination after all), it is unclear how much it will cost to get one.
Naturally, the price will be considerable, perhaps the highest of all motherboards to be launched alongside the Intel Sandy Bridge-E CPU series. November 14, or around that time, is when things will become truly clear.
