Today we will be taking a look at the ASRock Fatal1ty X99X Killer 3.1 Motherboard (LGA 2011v3), which we’ve installed in our Project Core Arancio.
It’s been a while since my last motherboard review in fact, I’ve actually missed 3 generations of CPUs… Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge and Haswell. Yes, it’s been a while, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t keep up-to-date with all the information surrounding new processor technologies. Once a techie … ALWAYS a techie, and it only took me a few days to get my head around all the different chipsets, platforms and socket types.
Before I decided to take the plunge and to get back into the “game” … I was pondering over which platform I should be using for my test rig … should I go with the cheaper Z170 or the more expensive X99? In the end, I decided to go for the X99 platform which is designed for the enthusiasts and high-end users. OK, now that I’m all charged up and ready to go, let’s see what the Fatal1ty X99X Killer 3.1 Motherboard (LGA 2011v3) is all about …
The ASRock Fatal1ty X99X Killer 3.1 Motherboard (LGA 2011v3) boast some impressive features. These include onboard reset/power-on switches, dual BIOS, Intel® LAN + Qualcomm® Atheros® Killer LAN, Audio – Purity Sound™ 2, supports Quad Channel DDR4 3000+(OC), 10 x USB 3.0, 2 x 3.1 (USB-C), 10 x SATA3 ports, 3 PCIe 3.0 x16, 2 PCIe 2.0 x1, Thunderbolt, SLI and Crossfire ready … boy the list goes on!
For stability, the motherboard comes with ASRock’s Super Alloy feature, which contains XXL Aluminum Alloy Heatsink, Premium 60A Power Choke, Premium Memory Alloy Choke, Ultra Dual-N MOSFET (UDM) and Nichicon 12K Platinum Caps.
We’ll be installing an Intel Core i7-6800K processor, which uses the Broadwell architecture, and features 6 cores/12 threads and 15Mb cache.
For those who are not familiar with ASRock, here’s a little blurb taken from their website …
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.
Like me, I’m sure all of you might get a little confused with all the different platforms, chipsets, socket types and processor names. Here’s a simple chart below, which will hopefully explain a little bit more.
For our test rig … we’re using a X99 motherboard which ONLY supports Intel processors with LGA 2011-v3 socket. And these processors are the newer “enthusiast” class with more cores, more threads, more cache and more PCI express lanes … aka Broadwell.
Anything that’s classed as “enthusiasts” always comes with a cost. Unfortunately, these processors are more than double the cost of your average desktop/mainstream processors, such as the Core i5-6600K and Core i7-6700K, which uses the Skylake architecture.
Before we move on … let’s take a look at the Intel X99 chipset on our next page …
