ASRock Z77 Pro4 vs Extreme4

[daiwek]

My setup:

Corsair Carbide Series 500R
Intel Core i5 3570K 3.4GHz
Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB DDR3-1600
Cooler Master Hyper 212
EVGA NVIDIA GTX 560 Ti
PC Power and Cooling MK III Silencer


Which motherboard would be better?
ASRock Z77 Pro4 or the ASRock Z77 Extreme4


The Pro4 is 109.99 and the Extreme4 is 134.99

 

[nikorr]

They are almost same, except for the power design difference.

That makes difference when overclocking.

Extreme has 8+4 phases.

Pro has 4+2 phases.

 

[nikorr]

So, extreme can OC higher and be more stable.

 

[Sakkura]

They are almost same, except for the power design difference.

That makes difference when overclocking.

Extreme has 8+4 phases.

Pro has 4+2 phases.

Sure about that? In the recent Z77 motherboard review, the best overclocker was an ASUS board... with a 4 + 2 power phase design. This beat the Extreme4.

Or are you saying the reviewer just forgot to take power phase design into account?

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/z77-express-ivy-bridge-benchmark,review-32489.html

 

[nikorr]

Sure about that? In the recent Z77 motherboard review, the best overclocker was an ASUS board... with a 4 + 2 power phase design. This beat the Extreme4.

Or are you saying the reviewer just forgot to take power phase design into account?

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/z77-express-ivy-bridge-benchmark,review-32489.html

I don't know what is your point, but check the voltages on ASRock and on ASUS.

And they didn't OC manually.

That is the whole point of OC, not letting the software to use predefined settings.

 

[Sakkura]

I don't know what is your point, but check the voltages on ASRock and on ASUS.

And they didn't OC manually.

That is the whole point of OC, not letting the software to use predefined settings.

They did OC manually, and they used the same voltages on each board (or as close as possible).

I'm just wondering how 4+2 power phase design can be so bad for overclocking if Tom's Hardware hands the OC crown to a 4+2 board.

 

[daiwek]

So Extreme is better for OC?

 

[dudewitbow]

the other minor difference is 8x/8x during crossfire/sli vs 16x/4x lane speeds and that the pro4 accepts crossfire but not SLI

 

[daiwek]

So, what's the final verdict?

 

[dudewitbow]

go through the extreme4 path if you might SLI and want to have a more smooth overclock. go the pro direction if all you want is a single card and going to overclock only a small amount.

 

[daiwek]

Best answer selected by Daiwek.

 

[nikorr]

So Extreme is better for OC?

Yes.

 

[nikorr]

This topic has been closed by Nikorr