ASRock Fatal1ty X79 Champion and X79 Professional Review: From a Gamer to Gamers

ASRock X79 Fatal1ty Champion Conclusion

The Champion is a hard product to fathom out.  Sitting at $360 at the time of review, it is within striking distance of the ASUS Rampage IV Formula ($370), a motherboard that crosses the boundary between gaming and overclocking.  The Champion is designed (and endorsed) by users specifically for gaming, and so we would expect the Champion to deal a better hand on that front.

Going by PCIe configuration, the Champion wins – the odd combination of five full length PCIe slots allows users of triple-slot GPUs to use up to three onboard without PCIe risers, whereby the Formula will have to resort with two.  The Champion also wins on memory configuration, having access to all eight memory slots, whereas the Formula has only four (although anecdotal evidence would suggest that those gamers that use more than four tend to go big and high end anyway).

Looking through the specifications, the Champion gets the nod over the Formula in onboard SATA 6 Gbps ports (6 vs. 4), USB 3.0 ports (12 vs. 6), network ports (2 vs. 1), and IEEE1394 connectivity.  The Formula takes the upper hand on NIC branding (Intel vs. Broadcom), and fan headers (8 vs. 6).  While the Champion gets a Creative Core3D audio chip, the Formula also gets improved audio via the SupremeFX III (an actively enhanced ALC898). In terms of Software and BIOS, we would have to give that to the Formula, on the basis of the automatic overclock settings, depth of fan control, memory compatibility and ease of use which the Champion does not have.

In terms of our performance testing, the Champion is 10% down on the Formula in multithreaded benchmarks at stock, due to no implementation of MultiCore Turbo, although this point is moot given that both systems are likely to see an overclock.  For overclocking, our Champion sample had a rough time with our processor, as it required 1.525 volts in the BIOS (1.520 volts at load) just to hit 4.7 GHz, which gave 90C at load.

The battle between the Champion and the Formula is more of a direct face off than the Professional and the Gene, primarily by virtue of board size.  It is a tough decision – almost all that the Formula has, the Champion has more, but the execution is better on the Formula.  XFast is a core feature of any ASRock product, but this has competition with the fan controls, features like USB BIOS Flashback and automatic overclock settings on the Formula.  Not to mention the ROG board also offers ASUS Premium Service as part of the warranty package.

The Champion technically gets more ‘stuff’ for your money, whereas the Formula will give you a better user experience.  How much that is worth is up to what you really want from an X79 product if your budget is near $360.