ASRock Fatal1ty Z97 Killer LGA 1150 Motherboard Review @ [H]

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
Staff member
Joined
May 18, 1997
Messages
55,634
ASRock Fatal1ty Z97 Killer LGA 1150 Motherboard Review - The ASRock Fatal1ty Z97 Killer offers very little frills and boasts tons of performance at a very low cost. ASRock with us has been hit and miss in the past in terms of reviews. This $125 has all the features though that are needed to get you overclocking though. We put the ASRock Z97 Killer Fatal1ty to the test.
 
Loved the review.
Got to love the underdog that forces you, grudgingly, to give it the recognition it deserves.

But those legacy ports...
 
I currently have an ASRock Fatal1ty Z77 Professional-M and I just wanted to voice that I agree with the conclusion of the review (in regards to ASRock Fatal1ty stuff in general). Build quality is a bit suspect and the branding is atrocious but it's rock solid, overclocks pretty decently and was priced well when I bought it.
 
Forgive me on this question since I haven't been to up on the new stuff..The caps on this board, and I noticed on a MSI board in a Maximum PC mag review, they look like the old style caps that were a problem a few years back..Lower left hand corner is the ones I am talking about..didn't they move away from them at one point?
 
"The heat sinks aren’t particularly well made, these are loose and don’t appear to make contact with everything these should. The color is a bit off from the rest of the red items on the motherboard. The top mounted SATA ports take me back to the days when ribbon cables were common and SATA was brand new and usually went unused"

"Upon lifting the Fatal1ty Z97 Killer from the box the thing stabbed me. The solder joints are long, uneven, and roughly cut. The edges of the PCB have some sharp spots too. Many PCB’s do, but these are extreme. Speaking of the PCB as I mentioned before it’s about as straight as undercooked bacon and feels more prone to breakage than the crispiest strips of bacon"

So are these quotes also true for the z97 Extreme 4 or 6 series? Are the pcb still thin and paint low quality? Are the heat sink low quality as well? Does it scream CHEAP?
 
Last edited:
I have the Fatal1ty Z87 Killer and love it. Yeah it's not as high quality as say an MSI, Gigabyte or Asus in the ~200 range but it's also nearly half the price. My i5 is going strong months later!
 
Have a z77 and 990FX killer/fatality boards. Very happy with them. Being kind of old school back to the physical jumpers on motherboards in the k6-3 days, I can only applaud asrock for giving me what I want at a good price. Something Asus, gigabyte etc are forgetting by throwing so many features onto the better ocing boards and charging more. Sure many may want those features and more power to you. For me, I like it more bare bones but still
Oc well
 
I am guessing ASRock's "lower end" boards must be the ones with thinner PCBs. I have both an x58 Deluxe and an x79 Extreme 6 and both have nice thick PCBs.

Reading this review made me want to tweak my O/C of my rig sig some more.
 
Lots of hard work there, thank you.

Just one thing, though: are you really surprised that you had to make the Red Sacrifice? :D
 
Dave65 said:
Forgive me on this question since I haven't been to up on the new stuff..The caps on this board, and I noticed on a MSI board in a Maximum PC mag review, they look like the old style caps that were a problem a few years back..Lower left hand corner is the ones I am talking about..didn't they move away from them at one point?
Click to expand...

Probably find they are for the audio side. Therefore, not an issue. It's only power you have to worry about.
 
Very interesting review for me since I have the Z97 Professional version of this sitting here ready for installation. The PCB on this is also very thin. No bad solders, but dirty as heck on the back side (old flux or what ever it was bathed in).

I wonder if [H] considered reviewing this board when deciding on the Killer version and if, what deterred you? The Pro features both Killer NIC and Intel I218V LAN for optional teaming etc. I have no Killer NIC experience but after reading this review I am going to go with Intel for my network connection.

Also the Pro features Creatives new Sound Core3D which is very scarcely covered online so far. I will give it my impressions coming up. The Pro could be a better OCer aswell with the 12 phase design compared to the 8 on the Killer, but I am no expert. And then the 3 PCIE 3.0 x16 ports instead of one..

My guess is that [H] picked the Killer, because of what it does at this atypical price point. Anyways, good read!
 
I have the Z87 version of this motherboard and it's a solid performer. It's cheap, and feels like it - but it's pretty great that there is a good product at this price point. I bought it with the intention of passing this system along to my girlfriend when Haswell E comes along but it's served me great so far over the past 7 months.
 
Psulover said:
"The heat sinks aren’t particularly well made, these are loose and don’t appear to make contact with everything these should. The color is a bit off from the rest of the red items on the motherboard. The top mounted SATA ports take me back to the days when ribbon cables were common and SATA was brand new and usually went unused"

"Upon lifting the Fatal1ty Z97 Killer from the box the thing stabbed me. The solder joints are long, uneven, and roughly cut. The edges of the PCB have some sharp spots too. Many PCB’s do, but these are extreme. Speaking of the PCB as I mentioned before it’s about as straight as undercooked bacon and feels more prone to breakage than the crispiest strips of bacon"

So are these quotes also true for the z97 Extreme 4 or 6 series? Are the pcb still thin and paint low quality? Are the heat sink low quality as well? Does it scream CHEAP?
Click to expand...

PCB's on all ASRock boards are always thinner than their competitors. Its where ASRock prefers to cut costs in order to undercut ASUS, GIGABYTE and MSI. Going past that the higher end motherboards tend to have better build quality in the other areas. Solder joints could be prettier on virtually all of them though. As for the Killer NIC, I hate it because of the software. The hardware is fine.
 
I've got the Fatal1ty Z87 Killer. Without the extra software installed the Killer NIC is just another NIC, so that never bothered me.

The board auto-OCed my i5 4670k to 4.3GHz, and it's been running stable for a couple months.

I'm with you, though: Asrock boards tend to feel cheap, but I'll be damned if it's not a great performer, especially since I got it for under $100 after a mail-in rebate.

If I were in the market, I'd snatch up this board for sure.
 
Last edited:
Well on these boards, at least using the stuff on disc if I don't install the Killer NIC software they don't load the driver for it. Of course you can download the driver from the manufacturer's website and avoid that. I've also been able to remove the software afterwards and keep only the driver. So yes, there are ways around it. I'm also not a fan of the high CPU usage the Killer NIC seems to generate. It's definitely not typically as good as Intel's NICs on that front. So I wouldn't personally take a Killer NIC over an Intel solution but that's just me.

Right now GIGABYTE and ASUS trade blows for auto-overclocking. I've seen 4.5GHz+ on some of their boards lately. 4.3GHz isn't too bad by any means and it's certainly ahead of MSI's pathetic auto-overclocking as of late. Each generation of MSI does that worse and worse. They used to be the best in the business by far for that.
 
Great review, very informative and entertaining, and consistent with previous reviews - that helps so much.

Really liked that you show your feelings about things during the review process - presenting the facts with your feelings based upon experience:

"Aw man, look what I'm stuck with - this is crap! OK, let's do the process, they deserve it too... Well how about that, this thing is really alright - really good actually..."

Pintos sold in the millions.

Thanks again!
 
This must be some fake counterfeit board, everyone knows a real fatal1ty product has this guys image plastered all over the box.

fatal1ty.jpg
 
I picked it up on the frontpage slickdeal last night *fingers crossed*. To be honest I always liked asrock ever since the goofy dual sata 2. Yes I did actually make use of that sdram/ddr feature.

I'm really hoping this thing is all it's cracked up to be. I'll use the auto-oc but no plans to put it through anything rigorous.
 
good:
Reasonably priced, okay OC, Stable.

bad:
?

Ugly:
Thin PCB, poorly attached heatsink, 16/4 PCIE split, bummy NIC software.

I think this board screams silver not gold.
 
I don't understand the two new internal sata ports, are we able to use them with normal sata drives? If not, then I see no reason to ever buy a z97 board. My Z87 board has 8 regular internal sata ports and that still isn't enough as it is for all the drives I have. I would have to throw some drives out otherwise which would seem a waste.

I have a gigabyte z87 but am starting to really hate it due to all the bugs and the fact that Gigabyte never updates the bios. I doubt I would ever buy Gigabyte again due to the lack of updates.
 
ecktt said:
good:
Reasonably priced, okay OC, Stable.

bad:
?

Ugly:
Thin PCB, poorly attached heatsink, 16/4 PCIE split, bummy NIC software.

I think this board screams silver not gold.
Click to expand...
It's $120. That's a bit better than "reasonably priced" in my opinion.
 
forcefed said:
This must be some fake counterfeit board, everyone knows a real fatal1ty product has this guys image plastered all over the box.

:eek:
Click to expand...

Does anybody give even half a shit about that guy any more? He sure managed to stretch his 15 minutes of fame out. As far as I can tell, he hasn't done jack (other than hawking his mug/stupid fake name) for 8+ years now...
 
CharonPDX said:
Does anybody give even half a shit about that guy any more? He sure managed to stretch his 15 minutes of fame out. As far as I can tell, he hasn't done jack (other than hawking his mug/stupid fake name) for 8+ years now...
Click to expand...

Not really.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatal1ty#Notable_accomplishments
2006 is the last time he has apparently won anything. That said, I have to give him credit, he's the only 'pro' gamer with a serious line of endorsements. I'm curious what his royalty rates are, but with ASRock, Creative and PSUs from Firepower (?), and food it must be a decent supplement to his day job.
 
I was looking at the fatality line of boards but i decided against at after hearing how flimsy the motherboard is. I'd rather pay 50$ more for a board that doesn't flex like crazy and I can do a hackintosh dual boot with (GF's need, not mine)

How long can the fatility brand keep going though? I mean seriously?!
 
How many people are out playing frisbee or using their motherboard as a pry bar? I've been running my Z87 for a year now with not one issue. It sits in my case, secured to the case and doesn't move at all. Don't man handle the thing and you won't have an issue with it.
 
HydroBudz said:
How many people are out playing frisbee or using their motherboard as a pry bar? I've been running my Z87 for a year now with not one issue. It sits in my case, secured to the case and doesn't move at all. Don't man handle the thing and you won't have an issue with it.
Click to expand...

I'm sorry but hearing loud cracking noises when I install RAM modules doesn't exactly instill confidence in the product. I'd rather avoid that experience when possible. It's my biggest complaint with the ASRock boards.
 
Dan_D said:
I'm sorry but hearing loud cracking noises when I install RAM modules doesn't exactly instill confidence in the product. I'd rather avoid that experience when possible. It's my biggest complaint with the ASRock boards.
Click to expand...

Did the board work? Was there any damage? I hear the same thing when installing RAM in HP DL360 G7 servers that we have.

Not saying it's good to hear that. I know my Z87-Extreme4 is a thin board. But it's been flawless for a year now heavily overclocked 24/7.
 
HydroBudz said:
Did the board work? Was there any damage? I hear the same thing when installing RAM in HP DL360 G7 servers that we have.

Not saying it's good to hear that. I know my Z87-Extreme4 is a thin board. But it's been flawless for a year now heavily overclocked 24/7.
Click to expand...

Like I said in the review, it worked and there is something to be said for that. Still hearing that bone breaking noise isn't comforting. You don't have to hear that from ASUS, MSI or GIGABYTE motherboards. For some people they'll take a more fragile board if it means getting it at a lower price. Many people won't even know the difference. Others would like the peace of mind that comes from having a PCB that's thicker than construction paper and stronger and straighter than cooked bacon.
 
Good review !!
I read many say and confirm to be very stable at high clocks .
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top