ASRock Fatal1ty X79 Champion and X79 Professional Review: From a Gamer to Gamers
by Ian Cutress on February 9, 2013 10:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- ASRock
- Fatal1ty
- X79
The X79 Fatal1ty boards had some small issues related to gaming worth noting in this section. Starting with the Champion, it should be noted that the fourth PCIe slot would never engage in PCIe 3.0 – even when set in the BIOS, it would drop down to PCIe 2.0 x8 in the operating system. On the Professional, PCIe 2.0 was enabled by default, meaning all the results here were performed at PCIe 2.0. To make matters worse, every now and again the Professional would reduce one of the GPUs to PCIe 1.1, requiring a restart to bring it back up to speed. This is an unfortunate set of events for any gaming motherboard.
Metro2033
Metro2033 is a DX11 benchmark that challenges every system that tries to run it at any high-end settings. Developed by 4A Games and released in March 2010, we use the inbuilt DirectX 11 Frontline benchmark to test the hardware at 2560x1440 with full graphical settings. Results are given as the average frame rate from 4 runs.
Dirt 3
Dirt 3 is a rallying video game and the third in the Dirt series of the Colin McRae Rally series, developed and published by Codemasters. Using the in game benchmark, Dirt 3 is run at 2560x1440 with Ultra graphical settings. Results are reported as the average frame rate across four runs.
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lukarak - Tuesday, February 12, 2013 - link
Citroen C4 by Loeb? Sporty as hell :D :DMithan - Sunday, February 10, 2013 - link
A waste of money, like all these "performance" series boards designed to get an extra $100 out of you for a 3% increase in speed.Sorry, but I will always buy a board in the $140-160 range, and take that extra money and dump it into a better video card.
CeriseCogburn - Wednesday, February 13, 2013 - link
This board appears to be not worth it, as it falls short too much, too often.Others do not.
A poor boys budget means never getting something great, and that's okay to suffer in the underclass.
althaz - Monday, February 11, 2013 - link
Where is the Day[9] CPU heatsink or the Tastosis keyboard/mouse combo? Or the JP calendar?ypsylon - Monday, February 11, 2013 - link
For starters I couldn't force myself to buy any motherboard with black&red theme. Bleeeh. Red as a color make me sick. Anyway that is only personal distaste. But that is not the only thing which is wrong with those boards. 1. 8 USB3 ports. Adding so many to the back panel is nothing short of idiotic. A lot of supposedly compatible hardware of USB2 fame doesn't work when connected to USB3. Every motherboard -equipped with USB3- I tested/owned displayed same stubbornness with one device or another. Some USB2 devices just refused to work outright on USB3. Period. 2. Board which cost 350$+ and doesn't have Intel NIC = joke. 3. Professional have better balanced I/O panel, but it is also stripped down when compared to "Champion". There is nothing "Professional" about supposed professional board. 4. Endorsement by a bloke which for most modern PC users means absolutely nothing is also nothing short of laughable. I think AsRock would do better releasing "Justin Biber" board. Then maybe some brainless teens will buy it only because it is JB board. 5. Both boards also share same problem with top 16 PCI-Ex slot (of course it is not native only to those 2 products, but must be pointed out). Can't remove memory sticks without removing VGA, large dual tower coolers also can be an issue. Think before releasing product. If you desperately want quad-SLI/CF setup release XL-ATX board. On such board there is enough space for everything.Oh and these red slots/ports, bleeeh. Did I mention that earlier? :P
lukarak - Monday, February 11, 2013 - link
You do know that you can insert DIMMs with just one latch moveable. Especially on these, where there is only one moveable to begin with.Endorsement by a bloke is no more or less idiotic than every other marketing thing. From Republic of Gamers, Lanparty series boards with UV cable sleeves and a chasis carrying strap and so on. It all adds to the price of an otherwise fine board, but that's their calculation.
You also have USB 2.0 ports on the back side, for that occasional peripheral that doesn't work. Plus six of them on headers which you can, imagine the surprise, route to the back side as well.
Peanutsrevenge - Monday, February 11, 2013 - link
The designs are always far too aggressive and garish for my tastes, which is annoying as often the products are just what I'm after - spec wise.Gamer stuff does NOT have to be all aggressive and such, opponents will only see the equipment of LAN gamers, which is a tiny percentage of us.
For the majority of us, the system sits at home and plays multiple roles and even requires the WAF in very very rare cases (usually Mum Acceptance Factor).
sking.tech - Monday, February 11, 2013 - link
I've never purchased a fatal1ty product because often they are too expensive and show no real performance gains vs a lot less expensive competitors. Now that I know it's based on some has-been gamer. Even less likely to ever buy a product with this brand on it. This Article - greatly appreciated.Bonesdad - Monday, February 11, 2013 - link
What drives me nuts is how they try to make him look like a tough guy...like he's some badass keyboard bangin, mouse clickin gangsta.maximumGPU - Tuesday, February 12, 2013 - link
Hahah