ASRock ATX DDR3 1333 LGA 1150 Motherboards FATAL1TY Z97 KILLER

When you are building a new computer from scratch, you are often a gamer who wants the absolute highest performance available, or at the least, or perhaps a "tinkerer" who wants to build a powerful home computer at less price than a retail, pre-assembled unit. This motherboard hits a "sweet spot" in between performance and price. It is about 80-90% capable compared to the most recent technology available in mid-2017, but it costs far less than other fully "up-to-date" systems. It has performed admirably for me without any problems for a couple of months now, and the build quality and component quality appears to me to be no less than the most expensive boards I've purchased. And it does come with some nice features you might not expect on a board of its price range: onboard digital sound output via a fiber optic port, support for M.2 SSD modules, a somewhat "elegant" software support tool that handles installs of major software, updates, etc., and also testing, tweaking, and so forth. It uses the slightly older DDR3 RAM, but if you put 32Gb of RAM in it, an SSD (particularly the incredibly fast Samsung 850 PRO - 512GB - 2.5-Inch SATA III Internal SSD (MZ-7KE512BW) , and then match it with an Intel i7-4790K processor and add a reasonable video card, you'll have a system that actually is very, very fast, more than capable for anyone other than bleeding edge gamers. And it will cost you a lot less because these components are mostly one generation old now. Let's face it: unless you are an avid gamer, there are, today, two major choke-points for performance, assuming a modern CPU is present: the hard drive and the video system. So, when you put an SSD (like the Samsung 850 referenced above) in your system and add even a *modest* video card, performance will soar. My last build, which I did two years ago, was all state-of-the-art, and I paid accordingly. This time, I built a system using this board for about half the price that performs roughly the same. So, all I can say is that you should first think about your needs. If you are a hard gamer, you will not even be reading this review, because this board does not support all the fancy gaming apparatuses and tops out at 32Gb of RAM. But if you are looking to build a fast performing home system at a reasonable cost, I can highly recommend this board as a quality component that will admirably fill the bill. Put the maximum 32Gb RAM in it, purchase the Intel i7 processor you want (note the processor MUST be a 1150 pin design), get a reasonable video card for about $100, and you'll have a very powerful home system that will work great and be usable for years. Five stars. Note: One shortcoming: this board does not come with Bluetooth or *wireless* networking standard (of course, it has an integrated, onboard Ethernet port). I purchased the extremely high quality and very inexpensive Fenvi Desktop WiFi 2.4G/5G & Bluetooth 4.0 300Mbps Module, 802.11 abgn, 2x2:2 Dual Band, 2T/2R Mini PCI-E Module Support windows 7, windows 8, windows 8.1, windows 10, linux , and that took care of both issues for only $17.

Alex computers did an amazing job shipping the mobo with the original io shield. The packaging was very tight and the board was in an ESD bag. 10/10. It booted up first try.

This ASRock board is oddly narrow, as you may have heard. It doesn't use the right-most set of motherboard standoffs. Never seen this before, and I've put together a few dozen systems over the years. However, it's not a big deal if you plug in the 24-pin power and your RAM sticks *before* screwing down the board. The 24-pin actually went in very smoothly. Your mileage may vary. However, if you have become accustomed to 90-degree angled SATA ports, you may not favor the conventional connectors on this board, which stick straight up and are located in a different spot. The front panel connectors are also surprisingly far away from the front panel. Because of this board's odd layout and dimensions, I cannot award it more than four stars. I can see scenarios where its shape and layout will cause some headaches. On the bright side, Windows 10 had no issues recognizing the integrated Ethernet adapter, USB ports, and audio chip. I did not have to install anything from the bundled CD. No unrecognized devices appeared in the Device Manager. Linux Mint 18.1 and 18.2 also had no issues recognizing said devices. I also like how the POST screen tells you what your keyboard shortcuts are for accessing the BIOS, your boot device menu, etc. Don't need to dig around in a manual for that. I also had no issues booting from a USB thumb drive. I previously had an Asus Sabertooth Mark 2 that was acting up -- the drive controller appeared to be on the fritz. Suddenly couldn't get any OS to load, couldn't boot from a USB thumb drive, that sort of thing. Decided to buy this board instead of going all the way to a new 7-series build that would have cost me well over $600. The 8 series is coming soon, and Intel is claiming a 30% gain over the 7 series. So far, I've been satisfied with this ASRock board. All of the problems I had with the old board went away. I did have to reinstall Windows and Linux, but that's not the board's fault.

Likes: Good features for the money (eg. optical audio out, plenty of SATA 6 and USB 3.0 connectors) Looks good in case, with large red metallic heat sinks. Bios is nicely laid out and easy to use with tons of Over clocking features. Ram was easy to overclock, just set a preset memory profile in bios and saved and reboot. Cons: None. System built with motherboard: cpu: core I-7 4790 ram: G.Skill Trident X 2400MHz 16GB video: MSI AMD Radeon R7 - 265, 2GB GDDR5 case: Antec One power: RaidMax 730Watt media: LG 16X Blu-ray M-Disc BD burner HDD 1:Samsung 250GB ssd Evo HDD 2:Seagate 3TB 7200rpm OS: Windows 7 professional This was my second z97 build, first was for personal use this one was for a niece who does video editing and was needing a faster pc. Like how fast everything was to put to together and the layout of the motherboard made cable management easy. No hiccups or problems everything worked out of the box. This is my first ASRock motherboard and I am pleased with the results.

Seems to have all the features I need, but the board I got was messed up on arrival. It wasn't dead, but I kept getting weird blue screens, usb devices not working, etc. It all stopped after swapping out the board, so I have to assume it was the board's fault.

I am having problems with the built-in NIC on this board. the NIC is not reliable and will just shutdown and restart repeatedly. I have tried the firmware update and driver updates and even rolled back drivers. otherwise this board is a great board and is very fast and have not had any other issues. Somewhat disappointed with the issue though as it was one of the reasons I bought the board.

asrock gia' la marca mi soddisfa e ho' spesso preferito questa marca invece di altre perché molto valida e competitiva nei prezzi funziona in modo efficiente anche se da parte di asrock ci vorrebbe un po' di volonta' nell'aggiornamenti bios e driver ad ogni modo per me rimane ed e' perfetta cosi' come'

la placa tiene una validad excelente, asrock a cambiado muchísimo con el tiempo, tengo otros dos equipos montados con msi y gigabyte y la verdad que no tiene nada qie envidiarle a estas otras, una bios muy intuitiva y en español, multiples conexiones y fases de potencia, además de muchos usb 3.0, la siguiente placa que compre será asrock sin duda.

Vendeur extra, avec une prise de contact pour être sur que le produit demandé correspond au notre besoin. Je recommande

AsRock ist ja bekanntlich ein Tochterunternehmen von ASUS, sozusagen die Billigmarke. Für mich macht aber AsRock sogar die besseren und auf jeden Fall preisgünstigeren Boards. Das ist bereits das zweite AsRock Board, nach einen AMD Board bin ich vor 1,5 Jahren auf dieses Intel Board umgestiegen, da ich die Leistung eines I7-4790K für die Videobearbeitung brauchte. Das Board läuft bei mir seitdem einwandfrei ohne Ausfall. Inzwischen sind am Board drei SSD Laufwerke, es bleibt also alles kühl und ruhig. Alle Zusatzgeräte konnte ich am Board problemlos anschließen und alle haben auf Anhieb funktioniert. Ich habe keine Anpassungen, ausser bei der Bootreihenfolge machen müssen. Ein Highlight ist natürlich das BIOS, dass sehr umfangreich aber trotzdem recht übersichtlich ist und komplett auf Wunsch mit Maus bedienbar ist. Das geht auch mit der drahtlosen Maus und drahtlosen Tastatur, was nicht bei jedem Mainboard der Fall ist. Mit dem ganzen Zubehör ein rundum gelungenes Board, ich würde immer wieder zu AsRock greifen.

good mobo for hackintosh build, make sure you update its bios 1st