If you’re stuck with an AMD AM3+ setup then the ASRock Fatal1ty 990FX Killer/3.1 Motherboard is probably one of the best board you can get, especially now that it comes with USB 3.1 capability.
Being part of ASRock’s gaming series, it’s no surprise that the board is black and red in color, a matching theme for AMD setups too and works great with any red and black looking components.
The board comes with ASRock’s Digi Power , 8 + 2 Power Phase Design and as you can see the socket area is clear of large heatsinks.
Nothing spectacular to highlight about the area where the DIMM slots are located either.
Going further down, one starts to realize – where da heck are the POWER / RESET buttons? This is a high-end board from ASRock and why aren’t those buttons around? And is there even a debug LED? Nope there isn’t any, which is rather sad because those features have always been around for many ASRock higher range boards for Intel camp.
Not only that the board has limited SATA connection, no SATA Express connectivity but it does come with M.2 Socket 10Gb/s (PCIe Gen2 x2 & SATA3).
Here are the PCI-E slots, supporting both AMD CrossfireX and Nvidia SLI configurations.
The board comes with additional PCIe Power Connector at the other end of the board, just in case you need additional power to reach PCI-E slots.
I/O ports are important and the ASRock board does not fall short in this aspect.
– 1 x PS/2 Mouse Port
– 1 x PS/2 Keyboard Port
– 1 x Optical SPDIF Out Port
– 5 x USB 2.0 Ports (Supports ESD Protection (ASRock Full Spike Protection))
– 1 x Fatal1ty Mouse Port (USB 2.0) (Supports ESD Protection (ASRock Full Spike Protection))
– 4 x USB 3.0 Ports (ASMedia Hub) (Supports ESD Protection (ASRock Full Spike Protection))
– 1 x eSATA3 Connector
– 1 x RJ-45 LAN Port with LED (ACT/LINK LED and SPEED LED)
– HD Audio Jacks: Rear Speaker / Central / Bass / Line in / Front Speaker / Microphone
Last but not least, the star of the package – the USB 3.1 add-on card.
More details at the official product page.
User Experience
The board works as it should, I had no issues going about the UEFI and even to overclock the processor.
Besides the lack of on-board buttons and debug LED, I can’t fault the board on any other matter.
The Verdict
The ASRock Fatal1ty 990FX Killer/3.1 Motherboard retails at RM 673, if USB 3.1 isn’t something you require then there’s the model without the USB 3.1 add-on card retailing at RM 614.
There are models that are of lower price than the 2 mentioned but they do not come with the power delivery design such as these 2.
One thought on “ASRock Fatal1ty 990FX Killer/3.1 Motherboard Review”
Comments are closed.