ASRock's Debuts World's First Thunderbolt-Certified Mobo

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By Niels Broekhuijsen
published

ASRock is the first to get Thunderbolt Certification for one of its 8-Series motherboards.

So far, many rumors and teasers have surfaced regarding the upcoming Z87 motherboards from numerous manufacturers. Today, we bring you yet another one: ASRock is the first company to get Thunderbolt certification for one of its boards. The motherboard in question is the Z87 Extreme9/ac. While this is not the first we've heard about a motherboard with Thunderbolt, ASRock is the first 8-Series motherboard that has passed the Intel Thunderbolt Certification process.

The Z87 motherboards will all likely be released very soon, in line with Intel's Haswell launch at Computex 2013. ASRock has done a lot to differentiate themselves in the motherboard market, with particular emphasis on its A-Style branding. The A-Style feature set includes five features: Purity Sound, HDMI-In, 802.11ac WiFi, Waterproof by Conformal Coating, and Home Cloud.

ASRock was also the first to get Windows 8 certification for its Z87-Extreme4 motherboard.

Niels Broekhuijsen
Niels Broekhuijsen

Niels Broekhuijsen is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware US. He reviews cases, water cooling and pc builds.

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8 Comments Comment from the forums
  • JOSHSKORN
    So what's the difference between a motherboard with Thunderbolt certification and the Ivy Bridge Mobos that had Thunderbolt on them?
    Reply
  • Chipi
    This is supposed to be the first Z87 Thunderbolt-Certified motherboard (emphasis on Z87), since we already have Z77 certified MBs.
    Another case of journalists not knowing what they hell they copy+paste...
    Reply
  • tomate2
    what a misleading title
    Reply
  • Matsushima
    Waterproof coating and Gigabit wireless...
    Reply
  • Soda-88
    10815254 said:
    So what's the difference between a motherboard with Thunderbolt certification and the Ivy Bridge Mobos that had Thunderbolt on them?

    An extra sticker on the box, pretty much.
    Reply
  • SchizoFrog
    Bad journalism? Well what did you expect with that sort of grammar in the title anyway? It should either be:
    'Asrock debuts world first...' or 'Asrock's world first...'.
    Anyway, not only is this in error because of the Z77 boards but Apple is also part of the world the last I heard and they had it on their Mobo's first.
    Reply
  • lp231
    All this certified this and certified that is nothing but nonsense. It's like that ROHS thing, before that all cables don't have it. After that, all packages say ROHS, is the same package with a ROHS sticker on it. So what is the difference when them when both cables are exactly the same. :pt1cable:
    Reply
  • wiyosaya
    10816845 said:
    All this certified this and certified that is nothing but nonsense. It's like that ROHS thing, before that all cables don't have it. After that, all packages say ROHS, is the same package with a ROHS sticker on it. So what is the difference when them when both cables are exactly the same. :pt1cable:
    As I see it, ROHS does actually have meaning to it. While it is possible for the manufacturer to leave ROHS off the box and have the same product, ROHS does certify that the use of hazardous substances meets the ROHS specification. Products without that certification may have significant levels of the six hazardous substances that ROHS restricts.

    Personally, I think something like THX is a better example. There are many products on the market that would meet THX certification, however, they do not bother to get THX certified because of the cost involved.

    Reply