ASRock X99M Extreme4 And Fatal1ty X99M Killer Review

[Crashman]

ASRock is ready to take on EVGA in the battle for enthusiast-oriented microATX motherboards. Can the company best known for value conquer its gaming-centric competitor in overclocking and features, or will this be a pure pricing play?

ASRock X99M Extreme4 And Fatal1ty X99M Killer Review : Read more

 

[Mac266]

Just a quick error,
Chipset for all X99 boards is listed as Z97

 

[Crashman]

Just a quick error,
Chipset for all X99 boards is listed as Z97

Fixed, thanks. In case you're wondering, that type of error occurs from continuously recycling tables.

 

[Calculatron]

Go ASRock!

 

[ocer9999]

Whoa, both are really tempting! Need to start saving!

 

[HideOut]

To bad the killer model seems to suffer a high markup at amazon according to the green link.

 

[Lutfij]

Nice work Thomas! Guess you were sitting on this board in your lab for some time now huh ?

Anyways, good writeup and keep em coming. Now to find someone crazy enough to shell out on a X99 platform inside an N200 ... hmmm.

 

[Crashman]

Nice work Thomas! Guess you were sitting on this board in your lab for some time now huh ?

Anyways, good writeup and keep em coming. Now to find someone crazy enough to shell out on a X99 platform inside an N200 ... hmmm.

It takes a couple weeks to get stuff published, unless there's an NDA and everyone puts everything else to the side. These would be among the stuff put to the side though
At least you knew it was coming

 

[Mac266]

Fixed, thanks. In case you're wondering, that type of error occurs from continuously recycling tables.

Onya Crash. Nice review as well.

 

[m32]

The ASRock Fatal1ty X99M Killer LGA 2011-v3 is selling for $250 ($230 AMIR) on Newegg. Amazon currently isn't selling it on Amazon, and 3rd parties are known to over mark products.

 

[RedJaron]

Tom, what would it take to get ASRock to start putting more 4-pin fan headers on their boards? I love their products, been using a Z68 Ex4 Gen3 for three years and just built a friend's machine on an H97M Pro4. But I love quiet PCs. Having PWM signalling for all the chassis fans, and not just the CPU coolers, means it runs as quiet as possible during web surfing and other downtime.

 

[Crashman]

Tom, what would it take to get ASRock to start putting more 4-pin fan headers on their boards? I love their products, been using a Z68 Ex4 Gen3 for three years and just built a friend's machine on an H97M Pro4. But I love quiet PCs. Having PWM signalling for all the chassis fans, and not just the CPU coolers, means it runs as quiet as possible during web surfing and other downtime.

I don't know, but we have an ASRock guy who can pop in and read this stuff.

And you're experienced enough to know that some boards offer voltage-level fan speed control on 3-pin.

 

[RedJaron]

And you're experienced enough to know that some boards offer voltage-level fan speed control on 3-pin.

Yes, and I've set those on my board to keep the other fans as quiet as practical. But those are static settings. I'd much rather have a thermal controlled fan that can throttle up and down as needed. I'm fortunate enough to have a case with a built-in fan controller ( Raven 3, ) but that's only for the two bottom intakes. And they stay on low 99% of the time. But the top fan is the one that's more audible since it's closer to my ears. I'd love that one to be on a PWM header, but to do that I'd need to get a splitter for my two CPU cooler fans. It's not a big expense or trouble, but I'd rather not have to deal with it.

 

[Crashman]

And you're experienced enough to know that some boards offer voltage-level fan speed control on 3-pin.

Yes, and I've set those on my board to keep the other fans as quiet as practical. But those are static settings. I'd much rather have a thermal controlled fan that can throttle up and down as needed. I'm fortunate enough to have a case with a built-in fan controller ( Raven 3, ) but that's only for the two bottom intakes. And they stay on low 99% of the time. But the top fan is the one that's more audible since it's closer to my ears. I'd love that one to be on a PWM header, but to do that I'd need to get a splitter for my two CPU cooler fans. It's not a big expense or trouble, but I'd rather not have to deal with it.

Really...I hate to add fan controller tests, but it appears that some onboard fan controllers are capable of dynamic voltage adjustment while others are not. And then there are those that are not controlled at all (wide open all the time).

 

[Lutfij]

Most high end boards will feature a suite to setup your fan profiles with a voltage/temperature curve. I haven't used ASrock boards extensively but I know that is a feature set found on Asus' boards.

RedJaron,
You could perhaps look into the 8 way PWM splitter by Swiftech... ?

It takes a couple weeks to get stuff published, unless there's an NDA and everyone puts everything else to the side. These would be among the stuff put to the side though
At least you knew it was coming

The teaser was given away by non other than you on the EVGA X99 Micro thread mate...so if anything, thank you for fulfilling my expectations

Honestly speaking, I must agree with matx boards as they offer better flexibility than an atx board and is a step up from a mitx pcb.

 

[ocer9999]

And you're experienced enough to know that some boards offer voltage-level fan speed control on 3-pin.

Yes, and I've set those on my board to keep the other fans as quiet as practical. But those are static settings. I'd much rather have a thermal controlled fan that can throttle up and down as needed. I'm fortunate enough to have a case with a built-in fan controller ( Raven 3, ) but that's only for the two bottom intakes. And they stay on low 99% of the time. But the top fan is the one that's more audible since it's closer to my ears. I'd love that one to be on a PWM header, but to do that I'd need to get a splitter for my two CPU cooler fans. It's not a big expense or trouble, but I'd rather not have to deal with it.

Really...I hate to add fan controller tests, but it appears that some onboard fan controllers are capable of dynamic voltage adjustment while others are not. And then there are those that are not controlled at all (wide open all the time).

Just try the Swiftech splitter, I think its under 10 bucks

 

[Eggz]

Where is Asus on this?!

The Rampage IV Gene is one of my favorite all time boards.

I hope they make an Asus Rampage V Gene!

The IV Gene came out two years after the ATX version, so hopefully they'll move faster on LGA2011-3 than they did on LGA2011.

 

[FritzEiv]

Chin1Chu: For whatever reason it looks like you got caught in our process to ensure bots don't get in here. Not sure why but looking into it. Meanwhile, you can send an e-mail from that contact page. It's not to Crashman directly, but if you specify your purpose it should get to him.

 

[RedJaron]

Really...I hate to add fan controller tests, but it appears that some onboard fan controllers are capable of dynamic voltage adjustment while others are not. And then there are those that are not controlled at all (wide open all the time).

Most high end boards will feature a suite to setup your fan profiles with a voltage/temperature curve. I haven't used ASrock boards extensively but I know that is a feature set found on Asus' boards.

RedJaron,
You could perhaps look into the 8 way PWM splitter by Swiftech... ?

Just try the Swiftech splitter, I think its under 10 bucks

My old-ish board does not support dynamic voltage on the 3-pin headers. It simply gives a static level option. The 4-pin of course allows me to set target speed and temp. I didn't extensively look at the fan levels on the H97 rig I just built since we were using a 4460 with all stock fans so PWM on the CPU and chassis fan was good enough. I may have my buddy poke around and tell me what he finds. I'd love it if that became a standard-ish feature on most current and new boards.

I wasn't aware of that splitter, but I will look into it. Their site currently says it's out of stock. Yes, it's inexpensive, but my whole point is that other manufacturers offer more PWM headers for comparable prices already, thus not needing fan splitters in the first place.

 

[ralanahm]

I thought for a second Intel released another version, Core i7-5960"K" at 1.28v that was for overclocking.
I think like you said before reused table.. maybe you can make you tables have references (cpu) so you type it in once and it will be correct on all the pages. so you don't have to reread every digit/char 3 times over.

 

[hornedfrog86]

Thank you, would 4.45 GHz make this an average 5960X?

 

[r0llinlacs]

I have been more than happy with my Asrock Fatal1ty 990FX Killer. But AMD gets no love around here. Killer ethernet DID drop my pings from 50's to 20's. Everybody thinks Asrock is cheap. Maybe they used to be. But now it seems they make the best boards for the money. Mine 990FX Killer was only $130 and everything else in that price range was basically absolute junk for what I wanted and junk specs compared to this board.

 

[thehax]

It's the better sound-solution, not the gaming-stuff, that made me choose the Killer over the Extreme4.