ASRock Fatal1ty x79 Professional Intel 2011 Motherboard

With the release of Intels X79 chipset and new 2011 socket it was only a matter of time before we saw Motherboards aimed at the gamer.  X79 brings Quad Channel memory architecture and PCI 3.0 supporting the RAM and Video Cards respectively.  Finally we get to take a look at the infamous ASRock Fatal1ty Professional Motherboard with the new X79 Chipset.  The new X79 chipset brings PCI3.0 and Quad Channel Ram onto the Intel market.  PCI3.0 is aimed squarely at gamers because of its throughput for the latest high end GPUs and this board has 4x of them.  Fatal1ty has always been aimed at the power-user and gamer and they have (seemingly) not disappointed at first glance. All of this leaves us excited to get our hands on the board.  ASRock has given us this boiled down spec sheet which leave us drooling…

• Premium Gold Caps (2.5 x longer life time), 100% Japan-made high-quality Conductive Polymer Capacitors
• Digi Power Design, 16 + 2 Power Phase Design
• Supports Quad Channel DDR3 2600+(OC)
• 4 x PCI-E 3.0 x16 slots, supports AMD 4-Way CrossFireX™ , NVIDIA^® 4-Way SLI™
• Dr. Debug, Smart Swith Design: Power/Reset/Clear CMOS Switch with LED
• 8 x USB 3.0 (4 Front, 4 Back), 6 x SATA3, 1 x Fatal1ty Mouse Port (USB 2.0)
• Supports Fatal1ty XFast USB, XFast RAM, XFast LAN, XFast Charger
• Supports Fatal1ty F-Stream, Graphical UEFI, UEFI System Browser, APP Charger, SmartView
• 7.1 CH HD Audio with Content Protection (Realtek ALC898 Audio Codec), Supports THX TruStudio™
• Free Bundle : 1 x Front USB 3.0 Panel, CyberLink MediaEspresso 6.5 Trial, MAGIX Multimedia Suite

This board seems to have everything you could want in a Motherboard: Support for quad Crossfire/SLI, unmatched RAM Speed (up to 2600), Plenty of SATA and USB 3.0 Ports, and a Superior Software Suite including Fatal1ty Mouse Port.  Lets move on and lay eyes on this Motherboard.

Packaging and Accessories

	Keep in mind that the the Fatal1ty x79 Professional Includes 2 x ASRock SLI_Bridge Cards 1 x ASRock SLI_Bridge_3S Card 1 x ASRock 3-Way SLI Bridge Card Quick Installation Guide, Support CD, I/O Shield 6 x SATA Data Cables (optional) (3x right angled 3x straight) 2 x SATA 1 to 1 Power Cables (optional) 1 x Front USB 3.0 Panel 4 x HDD Screws 6 x Chassis Screws 1 x Rear USB 3.0 Bracket

Overall solid packaging.  Initially I love the Fatal1ty theme of this board and the overall clean look. The glossy finish really makes the black and red contrast pop.  The included accessories allow for easy integration of a SLI/Crossfire build as well as USB 3.0 accessibility through a chassis that doesn’t support it with the included USB3.0 Bay that doubles as a SSD Bracket.

Still, we have no doubts about the overall layout and design of the Fatal1ty Board.  To break it down, our 4 ram ports supporting Quad Channel Ram are split into a 2-by-2 configuration seemingly due to the large CPU slot.  Next to the right 2 DIMM slots are our USB 3.0 ports with the outer most one supporting EZ Charger.  Moving down our 10x SATA Ports are all right angled making cable management a breeze.  In the bottem right corner we have our Easy Power and Easy Reset switches.  Along the bottom (from right to left) we have a fan port, case inputs for reset and power, Dr Debug, 2x USB headers, Another USB header above the IR header,  the SLI/Crossfire Power port, a COM header, a Fireware Header, and HD Audio.  On top of seemingly having everything that a gamer needs it has looks to kill.  Classic Fatal1ty hasn’t missed a beat.

A couple quick notes to make here:

• This board comes with 6x SATA III ports (2x run by the x79 Chipset and 4x by the Marvell SE9172 chipset).  This means if you have a RAID array larger than 2 drives(that requires SATA III) you are forced to boot either primarily or completely  from the secondary SATA Chipset which can lower boot timings.
• This motherboard does support both Quad SLI and Quad Crossfire in x16, x8, x8, x8 mode.  Other x79 boards only offer quad in x8, x8, x8, x8 mode showing another reason why this board is aimed at the extreme gamers.
• DR.Debug, onboard power/reset switches, and Clear CMOS button make for easy debugging and problem solving if one were to come up.

UEFI Bios

The Bios included with the Fatal1ty X79 Professional is nothing short of perfect.  Simple Layout and easy to understand but includes every option needed to tweak the latest and greatest.  One of the Unique Features of Fatal1ty boards is the system browser which allows you to see which ports are populated in the Bios.  This is also one of the great features for problem solving this board offers.  Aside from functionality I generally love the overall scheme of the bios.  Nice thumbnails on top of a black and red themed background really shows the pop that Fatal1ty boards boast.

F-Stream

F-Stream is, in my opinion, the Coup de Gras of ASRocks’ Software package.  F-Stream is a simple implementation of a hardware monitor and overclocking tool with the added features of XFast RAM, Fan Control, and Overclocking.  Both easy to understand and informative this is a must have for any serious user.

*F-Stream is the equivlent of AXTU just branded towards Fatal1ty.

XFast RAM

Part of the F-Stream Suite, XFast RAM is something new to the Fatal1ty Motherboard Line.  It’s sole purpose is to allow you more control of your RAM.  For instance, if you’re running a 32-bit version of Windows (meaning you’re capped at 4GB.  This works on 64-bit too) XFast Ram allows you to create a Virtual Disk withen the RAM for Caching.  This will speed up an existing hard drive by lowering the number of I/O calls.  As you can see in the screenshot I have a 4GB drive (O:) that I use for caching Firefox and Photoshop Files.  This has made a large difference in load times for both applications.

Fatal1ty Mouse Port

Lets take a look at what ASRock says about the Fatal1ty Mouse Port before we continue:

A customizable technology for F-Stream PC Gamers; with a wide range from 125Hz to 1000Hz to make adjustment, gamers can obtain more precise control of their mouse.

Basically it allows you to Overclock the polling rate of your mouse meaning it is reporting locations faster.  This allows for more accurate results during intense gaming situations.  Now, I was a little skeptical at first: “Will I really notice a difference between 500Hz and 1000Hz?”  Amazingly I have.  I get less unreported clicks and better control and accuracy of mouse movement.

Test Rig

• ASRock x79 Fatal1ty Professional Motherboard
• Intel i7-3820 Processor
• 16GB G-Skill Ripjaws-Z @1600 stock (F3-12800CL9Q-16GBZL)
• Corsair H100 CPU Cooler
• Sapphire 7950 Video Card
• 1x 128GB Crucial M4 and 1x 64GB Kingston SSDNow
• Windows 7 Professional 64 bit
• Thermaltake Level 10 GT Snow Chassis

*Stock benchmarks: 3.6GHz CPU, 2133MHz Ram( 12-12-12-32), 100MHz bus

Aida64

AIDA64 Extreme Edition is a streamlined Windows diagnostic and benchmarking software which provides a wide range of features to assist in overclocking, hardware error diagnosis, stress testing, and sensor monitoring. It has unique capabilities to assess the performance of the processor, system memory, and disk drives. For our purposes today, AIDA64 is able to test the limits of the CPU with a collection of tasks such as AES data encryption and gives us performance based on numbers. These numbers allow us to compare the Intel® 3rd Gen Core i7 3820 to other processors available on the market. The 8 CPU tests provided in AIDA64 are Queen, PhotoWorxx, ZLib, AES, and Hash, MemRead, Memwrite, and Memory Benchmark

Score Overview:

AES: 756607pts.  TOP SCORE

Hash: 2617MB/s Top 4 Core Score

Memory Read: 18230 MB/s TOP SCORE

Memory Write: 14477 MB/s

PhotoWorkx: 75118 Pts. Top 4 Core Score

Queen: 44967 Pts

ZLib: 281MB/s.  Top 4 Core Score

Performance Test

Another performance benchmark suite in our arsenal is PerformanceTest from PassMark. PassMark PerformanceTest allows you to objectively benchmark a PC using a variety of different speed tests and compare the results to other computers. We will use this suite to show the performance of the i7 3820 processor, Crucial M4 SSD, and GSkill memory with the ASRock X79 Fatal1ty Professional Intel Motherboard. This benchmark will also provide a clear indication of performance increases gained from overclocking later in this article.  Our final score at Stock settings is 3696.9.

SiSoft Sandra

Score Overview:

Processor Arithmatic:  112.84GOPS Aggregate TOP SCORE

Cryptography: 3.63GB TOP SCORE

Memory Bandwidth: 41.4GB/s TOP SCORE

Multi-Core Efficiency: 30.27GB/s TOP SCORE

4.3GHz CPU, 2133MHz Ram( 12-12-12-32), 100MHz bus

Aida64

Score Overview:

AES: 853462pts. TOP SCORE

Hash: 3126MB/s Top 4 Core Score

Memory Read: 20180 MB/s TOP SCORE

Memory Write: 17299 MB/s

PhotoWorkx: 88815 Pts. Top 4 Core Score

Queen: 53800 Pts

ZLib: 337.1MB/s. Top 4 Core Score

Performance Test

SiSoft Sandra

Score Overview:

Processor Arithmatic: 134.55GOPS Aggregate TOP SCORE

Cryptography: 4.18GB TOP SCORE

Memory Bandwidth: 44.44GB/s TOP SCORE

Multi-Core Efficiency: 34.15GB/s TOP SCORE

As with choosing any computer hardware these days, picking a Motherboard is a trade-off.  Price vs. Functionality vs. Looks vs. Brand.  This motherboard is no exception: My only complaint about this board is having only 4 ram DIMMS (other boards have 8).  I love the split-DIMM design but would love a fully populated 8 DIMMS (or at least the option to have).  The Price (at time of writing) is $279 putting it just under ASRocks Extreme9 Motherboard but firmly in the middle of the price range for an X79 Board.  Functionality is not a question as I have had 0 problems with this board in terms of stability.  Looks are where this board comes into its own: This board should come with a disclaimer saying it doesn’t belong in a case without a side window.  At first I really wasn’t a fan of having “Endorsed” hardware: it strikes me as being more about the endorser and less about quality.  I stand corrected.  This board is completely aimed at the gamer/power user supporting Quad SLI/Crossfire in (x16, x8, x8, x8) where the Extreme9 only supports in (x8, x8, x8, x8).  So in that respsect it hits its mark.  Of the Cons that I have listed below, the only one that ASRock has any control over is the amount of RAM DIMMS.  The fact that the X79 chipset only supports 2x SATA III ports is more of an Intel “Flaw” than one regarding ASRock.  Still it is something to think about.  With quality, looks, Functionality, Stability, and versitility in mind I have no reservations about awarding the ASRock X79 Fatal1ty Professional Motherboard our Editors choice Award.

• Supreme Crossfire/SLI Support
• Included Software / BIOS
• Looks
• Extremely fast ram support

Cons

• “Only” 4 DIMM Slots
• Only 2 SATA III supported by X79

  Previous Page         1. Introduction2. A Closer Look3. Hardware Features4. Software Features and BIOS5. Benchmarking Pt1: Stock6. Benchmarking Pt2: Overclocked7. Conclusion8. Full Gallery9. View All         Next Page