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The X99 marketplace has become increasingly crowded with competitive options from the four main motherboard vendors thanks to them all refreshing their portfolios in response to Intel's new Broadwell-E CPUs.
Here at KitGuru we have reviewed a number of these motherboards including the ASUS Rampage V Edition 10 and STRIX X99 Gaming, Gigabyte X99-Ultra Gaming and MSI X99A Godlike Gaming Carbon.
ASRock‘s Fatal1ty X99 Professional Gaming i7 joins the fray with its own interpretation of what it thinks consumers want in this niche and specialised market segment.
In pricing terms, the ASRock motherboard is competitive with a UK retail price of £270 ($260 in North America). It's main like-for-like price-contenders are the ASUS ROG STRIX X99 Gaming (£280/$335) and the Gigabyte X99-Ultra Gaming (£250/$280). ASRock is more competitive in North America than it is in the UK, nonetheless, pricing is still fair given what's on offer.
ASRock's warranty duration seems to vary more by retailer and region than other vendors, but typically the warranty on this product is 2 or 3 years – check with your preferred retailer before purchasing. The industry-standard for a warranty on this class of product is 3 years.
While a gaming motherboard by name, the ASRock Fatal1ty X99 Professional Gaming i7 excels in regards to connectivity with dual Ultra M.2, dual Gigabit LAN with teaming support and a plethora of USB options. Taking into account general connectivity for motherboards at this price point, no other model is better equipped than ASRock's.
For example, Gigabyte's X99-Ultra Gaming has dual-gigabit but no teaming support and only a single M.2. Both the ASUS ROG STRIX X99 Gaming and MSI X99A Godlike Gaming Carbon have single Gigabit and single M.2.
The Fatal1ty X99 Professional Gaming i7 also nails the building experience with onboard power and reset buttons, a debug LED, a rear clear CMOS button and a clear CMOS jumper, something not all vendors have managed to include.
ASRock has made some compromises to achieve the extra connectivity; the number of full-sized PCIe slots has fallen from 4 to 3 to make room for the second M.2 port. There's also been little focus on customisation which means no RGB lighting or changeable heatsink covers like is found on rival motherboards.
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Pros:
- Excellent all-round connectivity – WiFi, dual Gigabit, dual M.2, USB 3.1 and more.
- Great building experience – onboard buttons, debug LEDs, rear I/O clear CMOS
- Well rounded UEFI with sensible default turbo behaviour
Cons:
- No customisation options and somewhat tiresome red & black colour scheme
- Only 3 full-sized PCIe slots
KitGuru says: The Fatal1ty X99 Professional Gaming i7 is a connectivity-rich motherboard that delivers a great building experience.
Any idea of price?
Yes it’s discussed on the final page – around £270 in the UK and $260 in the US.
260 USD isn’t 270 GBP, even after the eu referendum bollocks.
Id more likely expect something like;
260 USD / 220 GBP
320 USD / 270 GBP
Wouldn’t make sense at all for it to be more in GBP than USD.
I know how the currency conversion (plus being British tax) works. But that’s what retailers are selling the board for. It says in the review that ASRock’s pricing is more competitive in North America than it is in the UK.
It’s 324 euros here in Belgium.
This one looks good, but if I was to go with X99 on a budget I would consider their Taichi model.
I do like the looks of Taichi. Even Fatal1ty looking good, Taichi Black and white looks really good.
I was pleasantly surprised when I got my FX990 Killer, it is one solid board with wonderful audio and I really do like the UEFI set up way more than Asus or MSi. My only complaint with mine is the rather terrible northbridge heatsink design, it’s just a stylized block of anodized aluminum with 3 grooves cut in it, I could have gone down to the 970FX board with all better heatsinks, USB 3.1 with a type C port and support for 220watt CPU’s, but I would have given up a far more superior chipset (I run multiple PCIe devices, wireless, a USB 3.1 card and 2 different graphics cards), additional power to PCIe and audio
Really good stuff coming out from them, love their mobos.