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ASRock have used a rather fetching red and black colour scheme for the Fatal1ty 990FX Professional which gives it a similar visage to the Crosshair V Formula from Asus. This consists of a black PCB with an assortment of red and black fittings.
As it's name suggests, the Fatal1ty 990FX Professional features AMD's latest 990FX chipset which is very similar to the previous generation 890FX chipset. It does include a few extra features, though, with the most important being support for AMD's upcoming Bulldozer (Zambezi) processors.
In the centre of the motherboard we find the AM3+ socket which can be easily distinguished from the earlier AM3 socket as it is black in colour rather than white. Along one edge of the CPU socket there is a substantial heatsink that cools the V12 +2 CPU power phase circuitry. Power is supplied to the CPU via the 8-pin socket at the top of the board.
To the right of the right of the CPU socket we find four DDR3 RAM slots which support up to 32 GB of memory running at speeds of up to 2100 MHz, when overclocked. The 24-pin motherboard power connector is located in the usual place to the right of the memory slots alongside two USB3.0 front panel connectors. These allow you to connect up to four USB3.0 on the front panel.
ASRock have all the bases covered with the selection of expansion slots. There are three PCI Express x16 in total, the top two of which are spaced so that you can install two 3-bay graphics cards. The third will only run at x4 speed when the other two slots are populated. They have also included two PCI Express x1 slots and two legacy PCI slots.
There are six SATA 6Gbps connectors located in the bottom right hand corner of the motherboard, accompanied by power and reset buttons and a debug LED. Along the bottom edge of the board we find three front panel USB2.0 headers, a front panel IEEE-1394 connector and a front panel audio connector.
From left to right we find two PS2 connectors, analogue and digital S/PDIF jacks, six USB2.0 ports, two eSATA ports, two RJ-45 Ethernet jacks, two USB3.0 ports and six 2.5mm audio connections.
hard to believe that they used to be seen as a ‘budget’ model maker. Great product.
Maybe this has been asked before but some people on a forum I visit say they are actually ASUS, is this right?
Looking forward to bulldozer, but some figures leaked dont look that impress. if they are right.
ill wait until I see some bulldozer reviews before b uying, but this is on my shortlist.
Hi Francis, they used to be Asus’ “sister” company, but made the break some years ago now.
I have a 1090t and ordered this today. if bulldozer is worth the upgrade ill move over !
Excellent again. t hey seem to be on a roll lately with some great products released every week. Im an intel guy, but this is great
The only thing that puts me off this product is having to look at his face in the bios! can that be switched off?
How often do they tend to make bios updates? I had a bad time with my last gigabyte board and thats why I moved ot asus as they are more regular.
Seems to me that ASROCK are really stepping up their game. I currently have two ASROCK boards at home. One of them is about middle of the road and the other is a very budget board running a HTPC. I was very impressed with both boards and they have been running for about 6 months each 24/7 with no problems. Seems to me that both of mine come with pretty cheap looking graphics and UIs but for the feature set vs price you really can’t beat it at all.
You could set a really sh#t clock by AMD CPU releases, intel must be pissing themselves.
I am waiting on parts and will be building a system with the Buldozer and this motherboard. I would be happy to post any info on the results of the build if either Henry Butt or his readers are interested. I chose this Asrock board based on features, reviews and price. So far the board seems to be impressive in all catogories.
I am waiting on parts and will be building a system with the Bulldozer and this motherboard. I would be happy to post any info on the results of the build if either Henry Butt or his readers are interested. I chose this Asrock board based on features, reviews and price. So far the board seems to be impressive in all categories.
Hi Nate,
We would love to hear your views. good luck with the system build!