ASRock Z87 KILLER FATAL1TY Motherboard Review @ [H]

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
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ASRock Z87 KILLER FATAL1TY Motherboard Review - If you’re a long time reader of HardOCP then you probably know we are not huge fans of ASRock as a brand overall. Recently we purchased a new motherboard to spend some time with the ASRock Z87 KILLER FATAL1TY, and as a result our opinions are changing. Is that change for the better or for worse?
 
Better or worse than the Asus Z87-A or MSI Z87-G45? Trying to figure out what's the best "deal" in that low price segment.
 
kirbyrj said:
Better or worse than the Asus Z87-A or MSI Z87-G45? Trying to figure out what's the best "deal" in that low price segment.
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Current best deal IMO is the bundled Z87-A with 4670k/4770k at microcenter :D
 
I was eying this motherboard for the longest time. I think its what I need for my next build.
 
Looks like a M-ATX board stretched out to fill an ATX. Not saying that's a bad thing by the way.
 
Fixed! Thanks for the extra eyes. - Kyle
 
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I have 4 Asrock systems now, the oldest is rocking an E8400 and the newest an i7 4770. I've never had any problems with any of them, even when [H] didn't recommend them. I know anecdote doesn't equal data, but that has been my personal experience and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them if it makes you feel any better about them.
 
kirbyrj said:
Better or worse than the Asus Z87-A or MSI Z87-G45? Trying to figure out what's the best "deal" in that low price segment.
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ASUS Z87-A = Digital
MSI Z87-G45 = Analog

Not entirely sure on the Z87 Killer... advertised as digital but dunno :p like the Z77 Extreme 4, they're advertised as digital but they still used analog, a lot of their newer ones aside from the OC line were analog/hybrid so not sure anymore.. anyways digital is better, imo.
 
daglesj said:
Looks like a M-ATX board stretched out to fill an ATX. Not saying that's a bad thing by the way.
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That's quite common on cheaper asrock boards.
Extreme 3 I have also is slightly smaller than normal atx mobo - doesn't realy matter once it's inside case :D
 
kirbyrj said:
Better or worse than the Asus Z87-A or MSI Z87-G45? Trying to figure out what's the best "deal" in that low price segment.
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Do you want that PCI slot or not? MSI requires the G43 to get a PCI slot. While it's a lower end model I picked up a few for my LAN (I have 4x HT-omega PCI sound cards), I can't complain.
 
Mark this day folks. A motherboard that gets a "Gold" award and it doesn't wear an Asus badge. I'm frankly shocked and happy to see it happen finally. I guess Asus will have to up their Ad buy.
 
Great review and this is the first time I'm impressed with an ASRock product...hope this one keeps a clean track record as time goes on, as well as some indication for things to come from the brand.



Pitbully said:
Mark this day folks. A motherboard that gets a "Gold" award and it doesn't wear an Asus badge. I'm frankly shocked and happy to see it happen finally. I guess Asus will have to up their Ad buy.
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Maybe you should read some more review articles. ;) :p


http://www.hardocp.com/reviews/motherboards_chipsets/
 
Pitbully said:
Mark this day folks. A motherboard that gets a "Gold" award and it doesn't wear an Asus badge. I'm frankly shocked and happy to see it happen finally. I guess Asus will have to up their Ad buy.
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Reading is fundamental.
 
Pitbully said:
Mark this day folks. A motherboard that gets a "Gold" award and it doesn't wear an Asus badge. I'm frankly shocked and happy to see it happen finally. I guess Asus will have to up their Ad buy.
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Good thing Corsair and Newegg does not make motherboards they might not be happy either :)

All your websites are belong to corporations :)
 
Pitbully said:
Mark this day folks. A motherboard that gets a "Gold" award and it doesn't wear an Asus badge. I'm frankly shocked and happy to see it happen finally. I guess Asus will have to up their Ad buy.
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This isn't the only site that does that. And while money is always everything, there's another factor to think about.

1. ASUS usually releases more mobos than anyone. So there's always a plethora of high end products to get your hands on, and those almost always do well. They also produce more, only Gigabyte comes close.

2. On the other hand for companies like ASRock, the majority of their stuff is budget based, and obvious then doesn't stack up. The better boards aren't in the quantities of ASUS, and are thus harder to get your hands on and far less common.

3. Thus more ASUS reviews are going to be about higher end boards and more competitors reviews are going to be against lower end products.

FATAL1TY Seriously?
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While true it's not less inane than "Republic Of Gamers" or "Dragon Gaming Army" or "G1 Killer".
 
You guys realize that it's called Fatal1ty because it's endorsed by a gamer that no longer is relevant but somehow still matters in the minds of gamers right?
 
With that Keymaster utility, I sure as hell am not getting that motherboard - my next door neighbor's dog is Gozer.....

BB
 
kreno said:
You guys realize that it's called Fatal1ty because it's endorsed by a gamer that no longer is relevant but somehow still matters in the minds of gamers right?
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Matter to Gaymers yeah..
Johnathan Wendel was not relevant to anyone over 16 back in the day either. Seeing his name was/is an insta-non buy.
I'll hand it to him though he somehow manages to get his goofy nickname on all this crap he endorses years and years later even though he's old and sucks balls now :)
 
Pitbully said:
Mark this day folks. A motherboard that gets a "Gold" award and it doesn't wear an Asus badge. I'm frankly shocked and happy to see it happen finally. I guess Asus will have to up their Ad buy.
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Subtle. :rolleyes:

Plenty of motherboards get Gold awards that aren't ASUS branded. The bulk of the ASUS boards we've tested have been excellent. Most of the time MSI and GIGABYTE motherboards are too. When they haven't been it's usually been due to some type of UEFI quirk. GIGABYTE's for example tend to lock up randomly when screen capturing the UEFI using their own utility. It's usually little things that keep good boards from being great. ASUS is just largely very consistent as far as their products go. ASRock doesn't normally get awards like this for reasons which should be obvious in the reviews. They have been steadily improving and we've noted that. The tone of the reviews of those products has been less and less harsh because what we've seen from them has been better than what we saw from them originally.

And I can tell you this; My paycheck doesn't change regardless of the opinion I voice in the articles. Almost every word in those articles was written by me. In eight years Kyle has never significantly altered the text of anything I've ever stated in those articles. He's never done anything to even soften my negativity in those articles. Kyle has even had to go to bat for me on more than one occasion when a manufacturer hated the content of the articles. I've personally caught flak from some manufacturers from time to time. That even includes ASUS and Intel. We've been asked to take some of the reviews down and Kyle vehemently refused to do so.

I'm harsh. I'm probably one of the meanest bastards in the business. When ASUS puts out a piece of shit like the Striker Extreme, I've called them on it. The fact is that ASUS just doesn't screw up all that often. Now I know why some people hate them. Their tech support supposedly sucks, or you've had bad experiences with RMA's. I get that. I really do. I simply haven't experienced those things and frankly, that's not what we are reviewing. We review the product and let the data and our experiences with that product decide the outcome.
 
I never thought I'd live to see the day when an Asrock MB would get a Gold award from [H]

:D:D
 
Stoly said:
I never thought I'd live to see the day when an Asrock MB would get a Gold award from [H]

:D:D
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Gotta call it like we see it regardless of brand. ASRock does not commuicate with us or sample us. I thought this mobo looked like a good buy IF it was worth a damn. So I bought it and we reviewed it. The results are the results....
 
I've been more than pleased with their Z87 Extreme4. Pretty much the same damn motherboard without the KillerNic. It's been a boss of an overclocker for me.

Maybe my next build for my wife will have the Killer in it. I'm digging ASrock lately after being burning by ASUS and MSI.

Thanks for the review!
 
Ha Ha Dan. If you were not harsh when you need to be I would not listen to you.
 
Michaelius said:
Like they were harsh on Asus when forum members had problems with RMAs ?
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I'm harsh, but I don't rip on manufacturers for things I haven't experienced. I've owned probably a dozen or more ASUS motherboards prior to working with the [H]. In that time I've dealt with ASUS' customer service twice. Both times I had a positive experience. So while I hear tons of customer service horror stories, I haven't personally experienced such problems with them.

And back in the day we did rip on ASUS for piss poor web infrastructure and the inability for their BIOS update over the web feature flat out not working. I've personally called them on having forum performance that is so bad that you couldn't use it. We did this for months and after those issues were corrected we stopped blasting them for it in every review. If you don't believe me go look up articles written during the 680i SLI days.

I've also stated previously that while ASUS customer service allegedly sucks, odds are you won't ever need to use it. I work with more ASUS motherboards than any others due to the sheer volume of models they have and rarely experience problems with them.

This is the last I'll say on the subject. We are getting off track. But those of you who think we are biased towards anyone obviously need to do your homework. You should go back and look at some older articles. We've called out AMD, Intel, GIGABYTE, MSI, ASUS, EVGA, and just about everyone else at one time or another. If you make a bad product we will call you out on it. If you make a good product, the article will reflect that. As it did here. We've even given ECS positive marks in the past. ASRock has some good models that are performing well and offer great value. As others have noted they never thought they would see a gold award from us for one of their motherboards. This goes to show you that each motherboard will get a fair shake, regardless of brand history.
 
great review, good price on the board. Im happy with my z77 , im going to keep saving $ till next gen equiment comes out.
 
kreno said:
You guys realize that it's called Fatal1ty because it's endorsed by a gamer that no longer is relevant but somehow still matters in the minds of gamers right?
Click to expand...

Thanks for that thought from long ago!

Yes we are aware but still puzzled because his name hasn't mattered to the mind of ANY gamer since 2004. I guess the folks in Korea haven't heard.

Always amazes me at the fact PC tech manufacturers all appear to have dreadful marketing depts that still think names like this, dragons, explosions, axes and semi-naked cartoon women are in some way relevant and impressive.

Just embarrassing really.:(
 
When I click the link for Asrock the 1st word in the 1st paragraph it takes me to MSI website.
 
FWIW, It's also a pretty good looking motherboard. Now, none of my cases have windows, but it's nice to open your case to do upgrades/maintenance, and not be assaulted by neon colors or faux bullets etc.

That said, I kind of like the position of the SATA ports. By shrinking the width of the mobo and putting them above the southbridge chipset, cable management should be easier with more clearance to passthroughs.
 
Pulled the trigger on this. The feature set combined with the price is just what I was looking for to upgrade my 930 system until Haswell-E is out. I'll let you know how my build goes. I picked up this motherboard, a 4770K, an EK-Supremacy water block, and the naked chip standoffs to do direct die cooling.
 
Good to see ASrock bringing their A-game. The more competition we have the better. Asus is great, but, damn, it ain't cheap. With DFI and Abit (and Epox, for those that liked their shit) out of the game in one way or another, it's nice to see these guys coming up.

One day I might break from the MSI/Asus/Gigabyte mix I currently have, but unfortunately, I can no longer spend my free money on new PC parts. :(
 
Have to agree that this looks like a great board but they need to drop / change their branding.
 
daglesj said:
Thanks for that thought from long ago!

Yes we are aware but still puzzled because his name hasn't mattered to the mind of ANY gamer since 2004. I guess the folks in Korea haven't heard.

Always amazes me at the fact PC tech manufacturers all appear to have dreadful marketing depts that still think names like this, dragons, explosions, axes and semi-naked cartoon women are in some way relevant and impressive.

Just embarrassing really.:(
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Look at any Darthbeavis mod or paint job, then look at all the pictures on peoples walls and how they include their guns in those photos as well.

The marketing departments aren't stupid, they are selling to redneck man children and doing a good job of it. It's not as if they came up with "tits and ass in clothes nobody could fit in, tons of bombs and guns and dragons and shit" out of thin air, that's who the majority of their customers are.

Companies spend big bucks to figure who their consumers actually are, if you don't fall into it that it means you are in the minority.
 
Rizen said:
Pulled the trigger on this. The feature set combined with the price is just what I was looking for to upgrade my 930 system until Haswell-E is out. I'll let you know how my build goes. I picked up this motherboard, a 4770K, an EK-Supremacy water block, and the naked chip standoffs to do direct die cooling.
Click to expand...

One thing we can't do in reviews is test the longevity of the hardware. I'm curious to see how some of these motherboards hold up over the long haul.
 
Dan_D said:
One thing we can't do in reviews is test the longevity of the hardware. I'm curious to see how some of these motherboards hold up over the long haul.
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Been a few months since I built mine. Been running it at max overclock since pretty much day one. Not a single hiccup. We shall see though. ;) For the money, if it lasts a couple years, I'll be happy.
 
Dan_D said:
One thing we can't do in reviews is test the longevity of the hardware. I'm curious to see how some of these motherboards hold up over the long haul.
Click to expand...
Well, my 4770K is a dog and I can't get it to run anything over 4.2GHz without throwing a ton of voltage at it. This is with a custom liquid loop running a 360 rad with nothing on it but the CPU. I can keep temps below 90C even up to 1.4v, but it won't do more than 4.4 at that voltage. So I'll let you know how it holds up, but right now I'm not pushing it hard.

With my window open last night and the CPU idling it hit 16C idle, and my max temperature today has been 48C. The efficiency and power savings increases since the Nehalem line are pretty amazing.
 
Dan_D said:
One thing we can't do in reviews is test the longevity of the hardware. I'm curious to see how some of these motherboards hold up over the long haul.
Click to expand...

You really don't want to do this, it reflects incredibly badly on "enthusiast" gear.

Point blank even the best ROG stuff does not hold up compared to Supermicro, intel, and other professional products (even ASUS own line). Furthermore that ultra fast RAM running past JDEC speeds at higher voltages, that to will break down over time. All of the stuff runs really well for a period of time, and then starts to decay. It's also more about visual flash than quality, unlike fugly server boards. Plus they realize many people upgrade so quickly it doesn't matter if their products are fancy looking time bombs.

Hell enthusiast gear usually doesn't even hold up as well as the generic b85 chipset stuff that's consumer but still sold as corporate stable.

There's a massive difference between a product built for massive OC's that should be tossed the moment something else faster comes out... and a product that will go into a production or mission critical environment where it has to run 24/7 for years and years.

It's also a reason why overclocking stuff in a production environment is a huge no-no, it will break faster, end of story.
 
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