ASRock Z87 Professional Series Fatal1ty Motherboard Review
Overview
Hardware: CPU & MotherboardsWHAT WE LIKED:
Aesthetically Appealing, HDMI IN port, Tons of SATA Ports, Feature Rich Software PackageWHAT WE DISLIKED:
Xsplit Software is only a 3 month Free Trial, Outdated PCI slots, Could use a visual refresh.Discuss in the Forum
Introduction
Over the last few years we have seen ASRock jump ahead in the motherboard arena. They have developed some rock solid motherboards at a very affordable price. With almost every flagship motherboard from ASRock, we have seen top performers when it comes to overclocking and stability. Not only has ASRock performed well in the past, they have great aesthetic appeal too.
Today, we have a chance to look at the new ASRock Z87 Professional Series Fatal1ty Motherboard. With Haswell now in full swing, we have seen a number of great performers out there. Let’s put this motherboard to the test and see what it can do with our Intel 4770K Haswell Processor.
Just in case you are unfamiliar with ASRock, let’s take a look at who they are first:
ASRock Inc. is established in 2002, specialized in the field of motherboards. ASRock strives to build up its own brand. With the 3C design concept, “Creativity, Consideration, Cost-effectiveness”, the company explores the limit of motherboards manufacturing while paying attention on the eco issue at the same time, developing products with the consideration of eco-friendly concept.
ASRock has been growing fast and become world third largest motherboard brand with headquarter in Taipei, Taiwan and branches in Europe and the USA. The young and vibrant company targets from mainstream to enthusiast MB segments for different kinds of users, owning reputation around the world market with its reliability and proficiency.
Moving onto the 8 series Chipset.
It’s a shame to see the inferior Creative sound core chip on this enthusiast motherboard. All of Creative’s new range of chips are 5.1 only, they do not support true 7.1 or higher surround sound. The 7.1 and higher options are only supported through virtualization, which any decent surround receiver will do a much better job of.
Even Realtek’s old ALC889 supported a true 7.1 channel encoding. Creative need to lift their game, and until they do motherboard makers should stop including these rebadged, low-end Cirrus Logic chips.