ASRock Fatal1ty Z77 Professional Review - IDE and Floppy on Z77
by Ian Cutress on May 20, 2012 1:30 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- ASRock
- Fatal1ty
- Z77
The effect of 'Fatal1ty' on a motherboard gives ASRock few marketing tools and several, perhaps beneficial, features for users. Our mate Wendel is not only selling his brand, but also a consultant for design on the products – as a result, we get features such as IDE ports, Floppy Ports, improved mouse sensitivity ports, and a push to be more gamer friendly. While most people can list features, it is left to ASRock on the motherboards to provide the implementation, which users hope will be top notch.
Given the Z77 space, and the willingness of other manufacturers to introduce mild overclocking enhancements at default, the Z77 Professional as shipped does not perform perhaps as well as it should when it comes to computation or throughput – and is mildly disappointing when it also doesn’t reach the upper echelons in our gaming suite either due to this fact.
For I/O, the USB 2.0 speeds on ASRock boards seem to be a distinct margin slower than other products, but USB 3.0 is very normal. ASRock rely on their XFast USB software, which applies new protocols to the USB drivers, to power through any USB test with ease and better-than-standard results.
The main selling point for ASRock on the Fatal1ty Z77 Professional is the array of extra ‘gaming level’ features on board. If the title of the review did not give it away, we have access to a Floppy port and an IDE port on board. Legacy features such as these do not come around that often on modern level, ‘high end’ chipsets, so there will be a market here for them. But I struggle to see the benefit to gamers – I once heard that the IDE port is so gamers can use old hard drives. Given that it has been a good while since SATA took hold I would be surprised if anyone wanted to carry over an IDE drive in a Z77 build (even my father who updates every 6+ years is now fully on the SATA bandwagon). The addition of the floppy drive confuses me as well.
Other gaming features I would expect on the board, such as improved audio, goes only as far as the Realtek ALC898, and the improved USB polling functionality would be limited by VSync (unless Virtu MVP + Virtual VSync is used). Certain gamers prefer a PS/2 keyboard, so at least that is here. Software wise we have the XFast LAN to prioritize gaming applications, as well as XFast RAM to provide quick swap file storage.
There are some other nice features on the board – 10 SATA ports being the main obvious one, but also dual Broadcom NICs which can be teamed for improved network throughput. ASRock continue with their ‘Combined Cooler Option’, allowing both socket 775 and socket 1155 coolers to be used.
The final point to mention is the phase count. While not really ever an issue on modern power delivery systems, it has been my observation over the past year that more phases means more power usage under lightly loaded scenarios due to multiple phase loading (depending on how they are multiplexed). In that regard, the 16+8 phase solution on the Z77 Professional storms our power usage test during 1080p HD video in at 150W, 48W more than the Z77 Extreme4 (note almost 90%+ efficiency from power supply here).
Overall, the board has some features I would love to see elsewhere – SATA ports and Combined Cooler Option are preferred. But the Z77 Professional lacks a lot of what differentiates a good board from a great gaming board – performance, intelligent layout and true gaming audio. If ASRock want to promote a board with legacy components, it may be more beneficial to have a legacy SKU rather than pile on the features on a gaming class system.
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Senti - Monday, May 21, 2012 - link
Hell yes to IDE port. It was very frustrating to find on my new motherboard no IDE but "great" SATA 6 was there. Marvell, 2 SATA 6 ports on single PCI-E 2.0 line. Who sane would use that instead of integrated Intel RST plain SATA 3? IDE controller would be way, way more useful.The same story with PCI slots on new boards: we get 0 PCI and 7 PCI-E. But hey, if you plug something in slot X then Y won't work, or if this 1x slot is used then that 4x would become 1x. How about providing fully supplied (or at least more supplied) PCI-E ports and filling space left with PCI?
hechacker1 - Monday, May 21, 2012 - link
Yeah I like the IDE port, even if I'm going to rarely use it. They might as well shrink the header and give us a breakout cable to save space.I guess with USB 3.0, they could just give us an IDE to USB cable and solve the problem.
mapesdhs - Tuesday, May 22, 2012 - link
This is why I kept buying Asrock boards, the slot layout and choice was excellent,
eg. the P55 Deluxe is really good (I have several). Loved the 3-slot spacing for
SLI/CF, has floppy/IDE (I use SAS RAID cards which usually need a floppy for
BIOS/fw updates, and I was carrying over an IDE DVDRW), good price. Infact I
didn't think Asrock's P67 boards were as good as the P55 Deluxe.
The exception is my P67 board, an ASUS Maximus IV Extreme, because I got it for
a very low price refurb, otherwise I would likely have bought a Z68 Extreme4.
Ian.
silverblue - Monday, May 21, 2012 - link
...ATi logo on the board adjacent to the top PCI port.IanCutress - Tuesday, May 22, 2012 - link
We actually see that on a lot of boards still. Perhaps it's time for a design update :)Ian
hardslime - Monday, May 21, 2012 - link
"There are six fan headers on the board – the CPU socket has two fan headers above the top heatsink, one 4-pin and one three-pin, and two above the first PCIe x1 slot (both are three pin). Other fan headers on board are at the bottom, where we find two three-pin chassis headers."One of the chassis headers is a 4-pin. I own this board, you can also see it in some of the pictures.
Matt355 - Monday, May 21, 2012 - link
They should remove the Gamer tag and brand this as what it is, a Home Server Motherboard. 10 SATA ports, IDE, Floppy, lots of fan headers, PIC slots. Not what most Gamers are looking for but it still might sell to the home server crowd.faster - Monday, May 21, 2012 - link
Gamers are hardcore competitive. There is no way I'm going to copy the setup of someone I want to beat. I'm going to do my research and build a better system to try and squeeze out those extra framerates to give me the edge.I build a lot of systems and I have never bought a "Wendel" component and I probably never will unless it clearly beats the competition, something I have never seen from a Wendel component.
ocyl - Tuesday, May 22, 2012 - link
The fact that ASRock Fatal1ty Z77 Professional has built-in IDE and floppy connectors is one of the primary reasons why I will purchase this motherboard rather than the others in the same price range. Sure, I may never need to use these connectors again after the next system migration, but if/when I ever do in the future, I won't have to spend any additional money on expansion cards, nor will I need to allocate any PCI (Express) slot or USB port for them.On the other hand, I would have liked to see dual-link DVI, DisplayPort, and D-sub, or at least dual-link DVI and DisplayPort, instead of DisplayPort and HDMI, video output connectors on this motherboard. I have invested a lot of money in professional-grade monitors, and I am not going to swap them out simply because they are equipped with DVI connectors. Passive DisplayPort-to-DVI and HDMI-to-DVI adapters can only output single-link DVI signals.
jigglywiggly - Tuesday, May 22, 2012 - link
i have better aim that fatal1tyhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=on1dT4lLuWA
i have a frag of him somewhere, and every game i've played with him, my lg and rail accs are always better, 1.5x.
I still want his stuff, he is p cool, and a great dueler.
Wat u r describing is a lozer