Exploiting the Skylake CPUs for their allure to gamers, ASRock's Fatal1ty Z170 Gaming K6+ is a motherboard that targets the enthusiast gaming audience by offering a wide range of the bells and whistles they may desire. Can pumped-up audio, a Killer NIC, strong multi-GPU support, and high-speed storage interfaces persuade …
Read More »AMD’s project Quantum may never make it to the market
Small form-factor multi-GPU project Quantum concept personal computer that Advanced Micro Devices demonstrated earlier this year was an impressive piece of hardware. Unfortunately, it may never really hit the market, despite of early claims by the company. Richard Huddy, chief scientist of AMD, claims that even if project Quantum will …
Read More »Asustek and Gigabyte remain world’s top mainboard makers as market shrinks
Asustek Computer and Gigabyte Technology remained the top mainboard makers in the first half of this year, according to a media report. Each company shipped about eight million motherboards globally, which was below their initial plans. In fact, the market of mainboards shrunk pretty significantly in 1H 2015. Gigabyte managed …
Read More »Asmedia and Intel cut prices of USB 3.1 chips, speed up adoption
Asmedia and Intel Corp. have started to reduce prices of their USB 3.1 controllers in a bid to gain market share. Intel Corp.’s “Alpine Ridge” chip offers Thunderbolt 3 in addition to USB 3.1, but Asmedia’s controller is significantly cheaper to make and can be sold a very low price. …
Read More »ECS is mulling to quit own-brand mainboards business – report
Elitegroup Computer Systems has reportedly announced that it will not actively promote its own-brand mainboards aimed at the DIY [do-it-yourself] market going forward. The company will continue to produce motherboards for its clients, but will eventually quit the market of platforms for enthusiasts. ECS used to be one of the …
Read More »AMD’s project Quantum systems are based on Intel Core i7 ‘Devil’s Canyon’
Advanced Micro Devices’ project Quantum small form-factor system concept is nothing but impressive. It promises to deliver leading-edge performance in all games in ultra-high-definition resolutions thanks to two AMD Radeon R9 Fury graphics processing units. Apparently, in order to provide truly uncompromised performance, AMD had to use Intel Corp.’s central …
Read More »ASRock USB 3.1: A Quick Hands-on Test
We had a chance to take a look at ASRock's USB 3.1 implementation with the company's excellent X99E-ITX/ac motherboard and a custom USB 3.1 RAID testing card. How does ASRock's 10Gbps USB 3.1 solution fare? USB 3.1 has been a huge talking point for the past few months. We have …
Read More »ASRock X99E-ITX/ac Mini-ITX Motherboard Review
The push for small yet powerful computers has been evident over the past few years. Many enthusiasts are no longer happy with an ATX motherboard and full tower chassis to house their single graphics card and pair of storage drives. Instead, budding aficionados are challenging themselves to create smaller and …
Read More »Asrock demos Z170 platforms: DDR4-3400+, USB type-C, Ultra M.2, SATAe
Several months ahead of commercial release, Asrock demonstrated its upcoming mainboards for Intel Corp.’s “Skylake-S” processors at Computex this week. The initial lineup of motherboards with socket LGA1151 from Asrock will be aimed at enthusiasts, will be powered by the Intel Z170 core-logic and will support numerous premium features and …
Read More »Asrock Beebox: Intel ‘Braswell’ NUC with USB type-C and 4K video playback
Intel Corp.’s ultra-small form-factor NUC [next unit of compute] desktops have become pretty popular on the market and many makers of mainboards, PCs and barebones are now trying to offer something similar. Asrock at Computex 2015 introduced its first NUC-like PCs that feature Intel’s new-generation ‘Braswell’ system-on-chip and boast with …
Read More »Asustek and Gigabyte remained top mainboards makers in Q1 2015 – report
Asustek Computer and Gigabyte Technology managed to remain the world’s largest suppliers of branded motherboards in the first quarter of 2015, a media report claims. Gigabyte even managed tom outsell Asus by a small margin. Unfortunately, neither of large makers of mainboards will likely hit their shipments targets this year. …
Read More »Asrock adds support of AMD ‘Godavari’ processors to FM2+ mainboards
Advanced Micro Devices plans to release its code-named “Godavari” accelerated processing units (also known as “Kaveri Refresh”) sometimes in June, but manufacturers of mainboards already add their support to their platforms. Asrock recently enabled operation of AMD “Godavari” hybrid microprocessors on its FM2A78M-HD+ R2.0 mainboard with a new BIOS release. …
Read More »Cebit 2015: ASRock showcase X99E-ITX/ac motherboard
KitGuru is busy trawling the stands at CEBIT in Hannover, Germany. Today we were able to get some time at the ASROCK stand – they were keen to show us their new ASROCK X99E-ITX/AC motherboard. This new Mini ITX board is built to very high standards, featuring ASROCK Super Alloy …
Read More »ASRock Fatal1ty X99 Professional Motherboard Review
ASRock's Fatal1ty series of motherboards caters for gaming enthusiasts and today we have the line-up's flagship in for review – the X99 Professional. With 4-card SLI and CrossFire support, Killer and Intel NICs, and enhanced audio, does ASRock's red-and-black Fatal1ty X99 Professional live up to its top-of-the-line status by carrying …
Read More »Asrock unveils ultimate mini-ITX: Intel X99, O.C. socket, USB 3.1, 802.11ac, M.2
Asrock, one of the world’s largest makers of mainboards, this week announced an ultimate mini-ITX mainboard that can not only enable small form-factor desktops with performance on par with full-size workstations, but also leading-edge functionality not found on many high-end PCs nowadays. The Asrock X99E-ITX/ac is the industry’s first mainboard …
Read More »Asrock to use O.C. socket on its Intel X99 mainboards
Just several months ago Asustek Computer started to use a special LGA2011-3 socket on its mainboards based on the Intel X99 core-logic in a bid to enhance overclocking potential of Intel Core i7 “Haswell-E” processors. Earlier this year Gigabyte Technology also started to equip its X99 “Champion” mainboards with custom sockets. …
Read More »Asrock shows off LGA1151 mainboard for Intel ‘Skylake’ processors
At the Embedded World 2015 trade-show this week Asrock demonstrated its first mainboard for LGA1151 central processing units code-named Skylake. DFI, a well-known maker of mainboards that no longer produces products for consumers, is also showcasing its embedded/industrial LGA1151 roadmap at the show. Although makers of desktop mainboards are not …
Read More »Asrock to add USB 3.1 to mainboards using add-in-cards
Asrock has announced two mainboards with USB 3.1 interconnection technologies. The motherboards will support Intel Corp.’s processors and will add USB 3.1 connectors using add-in-cards. It is unclear whether the boards will be sold separately to add USB 3.1 support to older systems. The family of Asrock’s mainboards with USB …
Read More »ASRock Fatal1ty X99M Killer mATX Motherboard Review
ASRock is aiming to offer gamers an uncompromising set of features with its micro-ATX X99M Fatal1ty Killer motherboard. Doing so will require integration of the X99 chipset's features and the plentiful PCIe connectivity of Haswell-E CPUs. How does ASRock's gaming-series mATX offering stack up to the tough competition that is …
Read More »Asrock loses mainboard market share, hopes to regain in 2015
Asrock did not manage to achieve its mainboards shipments target in 2014 because it did not want to lower prices. This year the situation on the motherboard market promises to be significantly different than last year and leading vendors are reportedly not going to start price wars. As a result, Asrock …
Read More »Asustek sells its 500 millionth mainboard, announces global giveaway
Asustek Computer, the world’s largest maker of mainboards, has announced that it had sold its 500 millionth motherboard since its establishment in 1989. To celebrate the milestone, the company announced a global giveaway. “I want to thank all of our customers for their support throughout the past 25 years. We …
Read More »Mainboard makers to cease cutting prices, to focus on gross margins next year
In a bid to maintain market shares and unit shipments this year leading manufacturers of mainboards had to cut prices and initiate various campaigns to boost sales. Such tactics lead to price-cuts as well as erosion of gross-margins, something that threats the future of the companies. However, next year motherboard …
Read More »ASRock X99 Extreme11 Motherboard Review
With the highest possible compute performance that consumers can purchase, Intel's Haswell-E processors and the X99 chipset make a viable combination for users with demanding workloads. If the price, features, and performance are right, there's nothing stopping a semi-professional buying a consumer-grade motherboard to house their LGA2011-3 CPU and DDR4 memory. Bearing that in mind, …
Read More »ASRock X99 OC Formula Motherboard Review
In case you missed our recent review of the Core i7 5960X, Intel's first consumer eight-core CPU is an all-round powerhouse with strong overclocking potential to boot. So what better way to analyse ASRock's X99 OC Formula motherboard than by pushing our 5960X as far as we can take it? …
Read More »ASRock Z97 Extreme6 Motherboard Review (w/ Samsung XP941 M.2 SSD)
Intel's 9-series chipset saw the widespread adoption of high-speed storage connections operating via the PCI Express interface. While the 10Gbps transfer speeds of SATA Express and M.2 connections were a noticeable speed boost over the ageing SATA 6Gbps interface, they were still a far cry from the bandwidth offered by …
Read More »Asrock enables Pentium Anniversary Edition overclocking
When Intel updated its Core models with the Sandybridge refresh, it turned its back on highly affordable overclocking – leaving that segment exclusively to AMD. The advent of the Intel Pentium Anniversary Edition looks to bring back at least one of these low cost options to fight with AMD. While …
Read More »ASRock Fatal1ty Z97X Killer Motherboard Review
Sitting in the middle of ASRock's current Z97 gaming motherboard line-up, the Fatal1ty Z97X Killer targets the fierce sub-£130 marketplace. Can its feature set, overclocking capabilities, and general performance allow it to stand out in a hotly-contested segment of the market? ASRock supplies its Z97X Killer with a number of popular …
Read More »Asrock boosts bandwidth of M.2 SSDs with ‘Ultra M.2’, but there is a catch
Sometimes mainboard makers come up with rather interesting solutions that truly leap performance of desktop personal computers forward by overcoming limitations of mainstream PC platforms. Unfortunately, in many cases elimination of one bottleneck just leads to creation of another… In a bid to boost performance of solid-state drives, Intel Corp. …
Read More »ASRock Z87 Extreme11/ac Motherboard Review
The 4770K offers quite possibly the highest per-clock performance numbers of any consumer-grade processor currently on the market. It’s just that fact which makes Haswell’s multiplier-unlocked Core i7 a plausible option for workstation applications. And with that possible usage scenario comes the requirement for workstation-grade LGA 1150 motherboards. Is ASRock’s …
Read More »ASRock Fatal1ty Z87 Killer Motherboard Review
Forming the entry-level Z87 board in ASRock's gaming-orientated Fatal1ty series, is the Z87 Killer able to prove itself as a good-value gaming motherboard? Designed to meet the requirements of gamers, ASRock outfits its Z87 Killer with a number of premium add-on components which it calls Gaming Armor. An audio upgrade …
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