They have a black and red color theme and are set apart by the PCI Express support

Apr 26, 2014 07:01 GMT  ·  By

The other day, ASRock released a fair few Z97 motherboards, five to be exact. We've already looked at three of them, including the mini-ITX model, which means that we only have the gaming-oriented Fatal1ty models left.

Not that the other motherboards aren't good for gaming. They are, even the mini-ITX one, if you know how to make a good LAN party computer.

However, the Z97 Extreme 4 is more of a mid-range mainboard, while the Z97 OC Formula is intended for overclocking runs.

We have no doubt that ASRock hopes the OC Formula, at least, will be used to set a new overclocking record on Intel CPUs sometime in the future.

That leaves only the Z97 Extreme 6 to compete against the Fatal1ty series on the gaming front. We'll leave it to you to decide which is best.

There are two Fatal1ty Z97 motherboards, Fatal1ty Killer mainboards to be precise. One of them is called Fatal1ty Z97X Killer and the other Fatal1ty Z97 Killer.

There are some differences between them, like the number of USB 3.0 ports, storage connectors, but the most obvious one is the expansion support. But we'll provide the specs for each platform, for the sake of clarity.

The Z97X Killer has three PCI Express 3.0 x16 slots, the same number of PCI Express 3.0 x1 slots, six USB 3.0 ports, 2 USB 2.0 ports, an M.2 SSD interface and an extra power connector for PCI Express stability.

Speaking of power, there is an 8 Phase Digi supply for the LGA 1150 socket (an 8-pin connector gives the energy).

ASRock Fatal1ty Z97X Killer also has Killer E2200 LAN, 7.1 channel Purity Sound audio, DVI/VGA/DisplayPort video outputs, and heatsinks colored red and black (cover the VRM and chipset). As for internal storage, you get six SATA 6.0 Gbps ports.

The ASRock Fatal1ty Z97 Killer has only 4 SATA 6.0 Gbps ports and a SATA Express port, two of each PCI Express x16, x1 and legacy PCI slots, M.2 SSD interface, four USB 3.0 ports, and the same number of USB 2.0 connectors. The video output, LAN and audio capabilities are the same as on the Z97X Killer mainboard.

As was the case with the other ASRock platforms, the company did not provide the prices of these two. Sales will start on May 10 though, so we don't have too long left to wait. That's when all 9-Series motherboards are supposed to come out, though some may jump the gun. But we'll look into that separately, so stick around.

ASRock Fatal1ty Z97 Killer
ASRock Fatal1ty Z97 Killer

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ASRock Fatal1ty Z97X Killer
ASRock Fatal1ty Z97 Killer
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