ASRock Fatal1ty Z77 Professional Review - IDE and Floppy on Z77
by Ian Cutress on May 20, 2012 1:30 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- ASRock
- Fatal1ty
- Z77
USB Speed
For this benchmark, we run CrystalDiskMark to determine the ideal sequential read and write speeds for the USB port using our 240 GB OCZ Vertex3 SSD with a SATA 6 Gbps to USB 3.0 converter. Then we transfer a set size of files from the SSD to the USB drive using DiskBench, which monitors the time taken to transfer. The files transferred are a 1.52 GB set of 2867 files across 320 folders – 95% of these files are small typical website files, and the rest (90% of the size) are the videos used in the Sorenson Squeeze test.
While the XFast implementation clearly makes the ASRock pull ahead of all the standard solutions of other motherboards, the default performance of the ASRock is a little disappointing. The USB 2.0 results in particular, as all the other manufacturers have at least another 1 MBps read speed on the ASRock implementation.
SATA Testing
We also use CrystalDiskMark for SATA port testing on a C300 drive. The sequential test (incompressible data) is run at the 5 x 1000 MB level. This test probes the efficiency of the data delivery system between the chipset and the drive, or in the case of additional SATA ports provided by a third party controller, the efficiency between the controller, the chipset and the drive.
Nothing much to compare with regards to the SATA implementations between the boards.
DPC Latency
Deferred Procedure Call latency is a way in which Windows handles interrupt servicing. In order to wait for a processor to acknowledge the request, the system will queue all interrupt requests by priority. Critical interrupts will be handled as soon as possible, whereas lesser priority requests, such as audio, will be further down the line. So if the audio device requires data, it will have to wait until the request is processed before the buffer is filled. If the device drivers of higher priority components in a system are poorly implemented, this can cause delays in request scheduling and process time, resulting in an empty audio buffer – this leads to characteristic audible pauses, pops and clicks. Having a bigger buffer and correctly implemented system drivers obviously helps in this regard. The DPC latency checker measures how much time is processing DPCs from driver invocation – the lower the value will result in better audio transfer at smaller buffer sizes. Results are measured in microseconds and taken as the peak latency while cycling through a series of short HD videos - under 500 microseconds usually gets the green light, but the lower the better.
The DPC timings on Ivy Bridge are exceptional – not one board has yet achieved slower than 120 microseconds. The Fatal1ty puts in a good show, just missing out on a sub 100-microsecond timing.
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Matt355 - Monday, May 21, 2012 - link
I hear you, I have a full size ATX case but have started buying Micro ATX Motherboards to avoid junk I don't want. If your running a SSD and a 3TB drive drive as a gamer your not looking for 10 SATA ports, your not running your video card off PCI slot or your hard drives off IDE. you probably don't even need an optical drive so why would you want a Floppy drive.fausto412 - Sunday, May 20, 2012 - link
I met the guy last year at an event, he was there to support ASRock. To start off a review of a product by being a hater is just sad. I have own Fatal!ty branded sound cards and Headsets. Never once did it bother me. Fatal!ty was the guy living the dream, no different than playing basketball...you still wish you was MJ for just a second. Don't hate congratulate!madmanjasper - Sunday, May 20, 2012 - link
In fairness he seemed to be using his experience to draw a comparison between marketing in different regions. Not blind hate.shin0bi272 - Sunday, May 20, 2012 - link
he's living the dream of dropping out of college and living in his parents basement and being one of the only people to win prize money while they were still paying people to compete. When they tried to make competitive video game playing a "sport" no one wanted to watch and it floundered.Please also note all the games he played (after practicing 8-12hrs a day mind you) had no recoil in the weapons. Games like pain killer and UT3 which are fun but have relatively low skill involved in racking up kills... you just spray and pray... and for a short time in the early to mid 2000's youd get paid.
Now he spends his entire day running around getting companies to put his face on their hardware and add useless features (anyone remember the 64mb of audio ram on his version of the first x-fi?) to them and jack up the price so he can make millions. And you compare him to MJ? Not to mention the horrible use of the english language in doing so. A kid who sits on their butt playing video games is not an athlete they are an occupy wall street member.
atticus14 - Monday, May 21, 2012 - link
lol @ games that lack recoil involve less skillso i suppose you would be a complete boss at a game like Q3 then since its so easy with no recoil. I guess you fail to realize that games like UT and Q3 faded from the spotlight because they were too damn hard for the majority of people as veterans constantly wiped the floor with them as noobs barely managed to put a point on the bored if not go into the negatives (UT was not AS harsh but you failed to mention Q3 which made Fat's name). They made it a hair easier with Quake Live's matchmaking but being "too hard" is still the reason why it has a small community; feel free to try, just dont get over confident in the noob tier quakelive.com
Lord 666 - Sunday, May 20, 2012 - link
Just like the Fatl1ty name was an albatross for Abit, ASRock has lost touch its roots and more importantly relevant features.shin0bi272 - Sunday, May 20, 2012 - link
When are people going to stop giving this dbag money to put his ugly face and retarded gamer tag on their hardware? No one gives a damn about this guy and yet people keep paying him to put his name on their stuff and overcharging us for it.kevith - Monday, May 21, 2012 - link
Not his biggest fan, are you?prophet001 - Monday, May 21, 2012 - link
^^ Creepers gonna creepjabber - Monday, May 21, 2012 - link
....was take a full featured ATX board and then they put a custom heatsink on it and some custom decals.Job done.
Should have taken maybe two weeks to sort out. No real product plans went into this product.
What's the non Wendelised SKU for this board?