The feature set continues with 7.1 channel audio with Content Protection, ASRock DuraCap (100% Japan-made high-quality Conductive Polymer Capacitors extend lifespan by a factor of 2.5), various hardware monitoring elements, a long list of connectors (HDMI, 5 x SATA 6.0 Gbps, Power LED, USB 3.0/2.0, etc.) and several slots besides the aforementioned PCIe (two of each PCI Express x1 and legacy PCI). ATX is large, but has nothing on E-ATX.Īt any rate, in addition to the CPU socket (4 + 1 Power Phase Design, AMD's Cool 'n' Quiet Technology), the 970 Extreme3 R2.0 motherboard possesses dual-channel RAM support (four DDR3 DIMM slots, for 32 GB DDR3-2100+) and two PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots (Quad CrossFireX supported). This is only caused by the form factor though. Thus, the ASRocks 970 Extreme3 R2.0 can be considered one of the better mainboards out there, although it doesn't have quite the same number of slots as other models. That means that only an AM3+ socket motherboard can hold high-end 8-core chips of that variety. The one big problem with the FM2 socket, if it can even be called a problem, is that it doesn't have the pin-out compatible with AMD's Piledriver (Vishera) and Steamroller core CPU designs.

ASRock didn't make a big fuss about it, but it did introduce a new motherboard, one that is ready to support even the newest 8-core central processing units from Advanced Micro Devices.

Asrock 970 extreme3 driver