14 DAY TRIAL // ASRock is obviously going to offer motherboards ready to support Intel's next-generation CPUs, which means that some are already complete, like the Z66 Extreme6.
The company will probably launch the Z77 Extreme6 motherboard in the near future, even if the chips it is meant to bear will take their sweet time in showing up.
After all, even if Intel's processor launch plans have become disparate at best, that doesn't mean that mainboard makers have to trip over their own feet and turn their release roadmaps on their heads as well.
In other words, even if the uneven delays in the Ivy Bridge CPU line gave ASRock a metaphorical headache to end all headaches, the latter will go ahead with its mainboard releases anyway.
The still un-priced Z77 Extreme6, spotted by CoolEnjoy.net and VR-Zone, uses the 7-Series chipset, hence the LGA 1155 central processing unit socket.
A 12-phase DigiPower VRM supplies energy, while four DDR 3 DIMM slots can handle dual-channel DDR3 RAM (random access memory) at over 2,800 MHz speeds.
That's not exactly close to the near-absurd 3736MHz record that we spotted just a short while ago, but still quite impressive.
Oddly, though, there is no mention of quad-channel RAM support anywhere.
Moving on, there are two PCI Express 3.0 x16 slots (x8/x8 when both are occupied), plus a PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots (x4 electrical) and a PCI Express 2.0 x1.
Mini-PCI Epxress 2.0 x1 (for wireless networks cards and such), as well as two legacy PCI slots are available as well.
As for storage, connectivity and I/O, buyers will find Gigabit Ethernet, FireWire, 8+2 channel HD audio, four SATA 6.0 Gbps ports, four SATA 3.0 Gbps connectors, eSATA 6.0 Gbps (one port) and USB 3.0 (four on the back panel, two via front-panel header), among other things.
Finally, THX TruStudio Pro, Intel RapidStart and SmartConnect, NVIDIA SLI, AMD CrossFire and LucidLogix VirtuMVP are supported, along with filesystem and Internet browsing straight from the limited-functionality OS included in the UEFI firmware setup program.