ASRock 970 Extreme3: 1. Introduction

1. Introduction

Thank you for purchasing ASRock 970 Extreme3 motherboard, a reliable mother-

board produced under ASRock’s consistently stringent quality control. It delivers

excellent performance with robust design conforming to ASRock’s commitment to

quality and endurance.

This Quick Installation Guide contains introduction of the motherboard and step-by-

step installation guide. More detailed information of the motherboard can be found

in the user manual presented in the Support CD.

Because the motherboard specications and the BIOS software might

be updated, the content of this manual will be subject to change without

notice. In case any modications of this manual occur, the updated ver-

sion will be available on ASRock website without further notice. You may

nd the latest VGA cards and CPU support lists on ASRock website as

well. ASRock website http://www.asrock.com

If you require technical support related to this motherboard, please visit

our website for specic information about the model you are using.

www.asrock.com/support/index.asp

1.1 Package Contents

ASRock 970 Extreme3 Motherboard

(ATX Form Factor: 12.0-in x 8.6-in, 30.5 cm x 21.8 cm)

ASRock 970 Extreme3 Quick Installation Guide

ASRock 970 Extreme3 Support CD

2 x Serial ATA (SATA) Data Cables (Optional)

1 x I/O Panel Shield

ASRock Reminds You...

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To get better performance in Windows

7 / 7 64-bit / Vista

/ Vista

64

bit, it is recommended to set the BIOS option in Storage Conguration

to AHCI mode. For the BIOS setup, please refer to the “User Manual” in

our support CD for details.

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ASRock 970 Extreme3 Motherboard

1.2 Specifications

Platform - ATX Form Factor: 12.0-in x 8.6-in, 30.5 cm x 21.8 cm

- All Solid Capacitor design (100% Japan-made high-quality

Conductive Polymer Capacitors)

CPU - Support for Socket AM3+ processors

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- Support for Socket AM3 processors: AMD Phenom

II X6 /

X4 / X3 / X2 (except 920 / 940) / Athlon II X4 / X3 / X2 /

Sempron processors

- Supports 8-Core CPU

- Supports UCC feature (Unlock CPU Core) (see CAUTION 1)

- V4 + 1 Power Phase Design

- Supports CPU up to 140W

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- Supports AMD’s Cool ‘n’ Quiet

Technology

- FSB 2400 MHz (4.8 GT/s)

- Supports Untied Overclocking Technology (see CAUTION 2)

- Supports Hyper-Transport 3.0 (HT 3.0) Technology

Chipset - Northbridge: AMD 970

- Southbridge: AMD SB950

Memory - Dual Channel DDR3 Memory Technology (see CAUTION 3)

- 4 x DDR3 DIMM slots

- Support DDR3 2100(OC)/1866(OC)/1800(OC)/1600(OC)/

1333/1066/800 non-ECC, un-buffered memory

(see CAUTION 4)

- Max. capacity of system memory: 32GB (see CAUTION 5)

Expansion Slot - 2 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots

(PCIE2 @ x16 mode; PCIE4 @ x4 mode)

- 2 x PCI Express 2.0 x1 slots

- 2 x PCI slots

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- Supports AMD

Quad CrossFireX

and CrossFireX

Audio - 7.1 CH HD Audio with Content Protection

(Realtek ALC892 Audio Codec)

- Premium Blu-ray audio support

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- Supports THX TruStudio

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LAN - PCIE x1 Gigabit LAN 10/100/1000 Mb/s

- Realtek RTL8111E

- Supports Wake-On-LAN

- Supports LAN Cable Detection

- Supports Energy Efcient Ethernet 802.3az

- Supports PXE

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ASRock 970 Extreme3 Motherboard

Rear Panel I/O I/O Panel

- 1 x PS/2 Mouse Port

- 1 x PS/2 Keyboard Port

- 1 x Coaxial SPDIF Out Port

- 1 x Optical SPDIF Out Port

- 4 x Ready-to-Use USB 2.0 Ports

- 2 x Ready-to-Use USB 3.0 Ports

- 1 x eSATA3 Connector

- 1 x RJ-45 LAN Port with LED (ACT/LINK LED and SPEED

LED)

- HD Audio Jack: Side Speaker/Rear Speaker/Central/Bass/

Line in/Front Speaker/Microphone (see CAUTION 6)

SATA3 - 5 x SATA3 6.0 Gb/s connectors, support RAID (RAID 0,

RAID 1, RAID 5 and RAID 10), NCQ, AHCI and "Hot Plug"

functions

USB 3.0 - 2 x USB 3.0 ports by Etron EJ168A, support USB 1.0/2.0/3.0

up to 5Gb/s

Connector - 5 x SATA3 6.0Gb/s connectors

- 1 x IR header

- 1 x CIR header

- 1 x COM port header

- 1 x HDMI_SPDIF header

- 1 x Power LED header

- CPU/Chassis/Power FAN connector

- 24 pin ATX power connector

- 8 pin 12V power connector

- Front panel audio connector

- 3 x USB 2.0 headers (support 6 USB 2.0 ports)

BIOS Feature - 32Mb AMI UEFI Legal BIOS with GUI support

- Supports “Plug and Play”

- ACPI 1.1 Compliance Wake Up Events

- Supports jumperfree

- SMBIOS 2.3.1 Support

- CPU, VCCM, NB, SB Voltage Multi-adjustment

Support CD - Drivers, Utilities, AntiVirus Software (Trial Version),

CyberLink MediaEspresso 6.5 Trial

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ASRock 970 Extreme3 Motherboard

Unique Feature - ASRock Extreme Tuning Utility (AXTU) (see CAUTION 7)

- ASRock Instant Boot

- ASRock Instant Flash (see CAUTION 8)

- ASRock APP Charger (see CAUTION 9)

- ASRock XFast USB (see CAUTION 10)

- ASRock XFast LAN (see CAUTION 11)

- ASRock On/Off Play Technology (see CAUTION 12)

- Hybrid Booster:

- CPU Frequency Stepless Control (see CAUTION 13)

- ASRock U-COP (see CAUTION 14)

- Boot Failure Guard (B.F.G.)

- Turbo UCC

Hardware - CPU Temperature Sensing

Monitor - Chassis Temperature Sensing

- CPU/Chassis/Power Fan Tachometer

- CPU/Chassis Quiet Fan

- CPU/Chassis Fan Multi-Speed Control

- Voltage Monitoring: +12V, +5V, +3.3V, Vcore

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OS - Microsoft

Windows

7 / 7 64-bit / Vista

/ Vista

64-bit / XP

/ XP 64-bit compliant

Certications - FCC, CE, WHQL

- ErP/EuP Ready (ErP/EuP ready power supply is required)

(see CAUTION 15)

* For detailed product information, please visit our website: http://www.asrock.com

WARNING

Please realize that there is a certain risk involved with overclocking, including adjusting the

setting in the BIOS, applying Untied Overclocking Technology, or using the third-party over-

clocking tools. Overclocking may affect your system stability, or even cause damage to the

components and devices of your system. It should be done at your own risk and expense.

We are not responsible for possible damage caused by overclocking.

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ASRock 970 Extreme3 Motherboard

CAUTION!

1. ASRock UCC (Unlock CPU Core) feature simplies AMD CPU activa-

tion. As long as a simple switch of the UEFI option “ASRock UCC”, you

can unlock the extra CPU core to enjoy an instant performance boost.

When UCC feature is enabled, the dual-core or triple-core CPU will boost

to the quad-core CPU, and some CPU, including quad-core CPU, can

also increase L3 cache size up to 6MB, which means you can enjoy the

upgrade CPU performance with a better price. Please be noted that UCC

feature is supported with AM3/AM3+ CPU only, and in addition, not every

AM3/AM3+ CPU can support this function because some CPU’s hidden

core may be malfunctioned.

2. This motherboard supports Untied Overclocking Technology. Please read

“Untied Overclocking Technology” on page 27 for details.

3. This motherboard supports Dual Channel Memory Technology. Before

you implement Dual Channel Memory Technology, make sure to read the

installation guide of memory modules on page 14 for proper installation.

4. Whether 2100/1866/1800/1600MHz memory speed is supported de-

pends on the AM3/AM3+ CPU you adopt. If you want to adopt DDR3

2100/1866/1800/1600 memory module on this motherboard, please refer

to the memory support list on our website for the compatible memory

modules. Non OC mode’s DDR3 1866 is supported by AM3+ CPU.

ASRock website: http://www.asrock.com

5. Due to the operating system limitation, the actual memory size may be

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less than 4GB for the reservation for system usage under Windows

7 /

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Vista

/ XP. For Windows

64-bit OS with 64-bit CPU, there is no such

limitation.

6. For microphone input, this motherboard supports both stereo and mono

modes. For audio output, this motherboard supports 2-channel, 4-chan-

nel, 6-channel, and 8-channel modes. Please check the table on page 3

for proper connection.

7. ASRock Extreme Tuning Utility (AXTU) is an all-in-one tool to ne-tune

different system functions in a user-friendly interface, which is including

Hardware Monitor, Fan Control, Overclocking, OC DNA and IES. In Hard-

ware Monitor, it shows the major readings of your system. In Fan Control,

it shows the fan speed and temperature for you to adjust. In Overclock-

ing, you are allowed to overclock CPU frequency for optimal system

performance. In OC DNA, you can save your OC settings as a prole

and share with your friends. Your friends then can load the OC prole to

their own system to get the same OC settings. In IES (Intelligent Energy

Saver), the voltage regulator can reduce the number of output phases to

improve efciency when the CPU cores are idle without sacricing com-

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puting performance. Please visit our website for the operation procedures

of ASRock Extreme Tuning Utility (AXTU).

ASRock website: http://www.asrock.com

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ASRock 970 Extreme3 Motherboard