ASRock Fatal1ty X79 Professional LGA 2011 Intel X79 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: nice board when its new

Cons: I have had this board for 4 months and now the last 2 dim slots have failed, I even put new memory in it...

Manufacturer Response:

Dear ASRock Customer

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. Sorry to hear the the memory slots has malfunctioned after 4 months which due to nature of electronic product it can happen.
Please turn the power off, clear the CMOS.
Reseat the CPU and cooler.
Test with known good memory on A1, B1, C1 then D1 (if 8 sticks A2,B2,C2 and D2) one at the time to check if the symptom still occurs.
If you have any technical questions or warranty issues please contact our Tech Support at http://www.ASRock.com/support/tsd.asp. We can assist you shortly.

Thank you

ASRock SUPPORT
Tech Support Email: user@ASRockamerica.com

Pros: lots of SATA 3 and USB 3 ports
OC easy
customer service

Cons: none so far

Other Thoughts: nice board, I had an issue with the CPU showing the multiplier at 12, sent Asrock an email, received an answer the next day, gotta love fast customer service. Most OEM will not respond back to you.

Pros: looks nice

Cons: the CPU multiplier keeps changing back and forth from 12 to 37, making the CPU change from 1.2 ghz to 3.7 ghz, I am running a i7 3820 CPU, I have the latest bios, I see there is a beta bios addressing this issue but it was a few days older then the release bios.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear AsRock Customer

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. The CPU multiplier/speed will be change upon CPU usage to conserve the power which is designed by Intel. Please test with WEI (Windows Experience Index) to check if the multiplier remains at max speed. If you have any technical questions please contact us at http://www.asrock.com/support/tsd.asp. We can assist you shortly.

Thank you

AsRock SUPPORT
Tech Support Email: user@asrockamerica.com

Pros: The board is easy to setup and the overclocking is so easy a cave man can do it. 4.8 cpu 2400mhz ram using auto settings!

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: I never expected the board to be this good!

Pros: This board had all the things i wanted and 4 PCI-e slots for four double slot gpus. Cheapest priced board for the 4PCI-e slots i needed.

Cons: The board would lock up every other day, but i assumed it was because i was running four 7970s and the bios and drivers weren't mature enough. Today, the computer locked up three times in an hour. Now it will not boot. No display, no bios beeps.. no beeps... dead. only the fans spin and the power and reset buttons are illuminated on the board. removed parts one at a time to no avail. system isn't overclocked.

Other Thoughts: I'm thinking i should have spent the extra $40 for a different board.

going to try to RMA with asrock

Manufacturer Response:

Dear AsRock Customer

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. Please trouble shooting the mainboard for below steps with known good components; remove the mainboard from inside computer to outside. Place the mainboard on empty mainboard box, clear the CMOS, reseat the CPU with heatsink fan as well, inserts 1 memory module only in A1 slot, video card with 6+6 power (if applied), power supply with connecting 24 pins + 8 pins ATX power to the mainboard, plug the computer case’s power switch to mainboard's front panel header and try again.
For the lock up issue, please set the UEFI BIOS default, test with 1 stick memory in A1 slot, try with another memory if its same issue. If you have any technical questions please contact us at http://www.asrock.com/support/tsd.asp. We can assist you shortly.

Thank you

AsRock SUPPORT
Tech Support Email: user@asrockamerica.com

Pros: Plenty of features, everything that 99% of gaming rigs will need. The UEFI is easy to navigate and use. Everything was recognized without issue, no messing around with drivers or firmware updates just to get things to work at all. Comes with plenty of SATA cables and hardware. Finally, it's a very cool looking board. The red is a nice color to go with a black case in my opinion and the board's heatsinks are a unique look. The price also compares favorably to other ASrock and ASUS boards that are probably a little bit overloaded.

Cons: I'm not sure how other LGA2011 boards are (It's a huge socket and heatsink plate assembly) but you may have CPU cooler clearance issues if you're using air cooling. A Noctua NH-D14 will fit if you have the fans facing the back of the case but it will just touch the memory a bit if they have any top heat spreader fins. I also had to use the third PCI-E slot for my video card as the cooler would have touched the back of it.

Mounting the cooler to blow bottom to top would not work unless you only had 1 DIMM.

Again, I haven't used another LGA2011 board so I can't say if this is unique to this board. I didn't knock an egg off because it is a minor inconvenience in the grand scheme of things. I'm still able to overclock my CPU some while keeping temperatures at very safe levels.

Other Thoughts: This was my first ground up PC build and I had zero issues getting it up and running. The BIOS did its job perfectly and the users manual made connecting the front panel easy. I would definitely go with ASrock again for my next build.

Pros: Awesome software lots of extras for gaming solid board easy hardware install the code reader works awesome helped with my trouble shooting.

Cons: This board does not work out of the box you need all updated drivers for 100% proper function and detection.Would not detect 16 gigs of G skill ram it didnt read any when I put all 4 sticks in had to put in one at a time played with that for a few days.In order to use all the pci slots for sound card or nic card ect ect you have to go with water cooled video cards because fan cooled video cards are to fat for everything to fit if your going 3 X 4 SLI. You can go with external PCI slots for your extra hardware for a lot less then water cooled video card which are at insane prices.

Other Thoughts: The board works awesome once you trouble shoot all the problems but for sure get that updated software and windows updates in there for everything to work right

Pros: No problems. Everything worked.

The graphic BIOS is a neat change. What would make it a significant, and impressive change would be if you select an item, and got an informative explanation as to what the setting controlled, did, meant, anything other than the meaningless repetition of the same thing on the left side of the screen, as we're used to seeing. I'll check that out as I play with the BIOS more.

Cons: I bought a water cooling system for the first time. I have a huge Thermaltake Xaser VI case that I could fit my car into, so I was confident that unless I purchased something with a car sized radiator, I would be able to make it fit in the standard location. Guess again.

Because the memory is on either side of the CPU, the memory on the back end side, if it has nice, large cooling fins, will bump into the radiator/double fan combo (I bought a Corsair H80). Not only that, but it also bumped into part of the internal support structure of the case. Geez.

I ended up having to hang the radiator down to the bottom of the case. I'll have to move the video card to see if I can get the hoses around it to allow the amount of length I need to affix the radiator fan combo the the bottom of the case.

I have to mention that this is the second time that I have had to revamp my cooling with Corsair Dominator memory. Last time I had to replace my CPU cooler with a unit that had the fan and fins lined up vertically because of the high fins.

Other Thoughts: My cons about the fit, are in large part a memory issue. I'm sure the engineers had good reason to put the memory slots on either side of the CPU. Well, one can hope it wasn't a marketing decision.

Pros: Great board, tons of features, cheap, read my other review about the whine. AsRock has great customer service, which is why I am writing this review.

Cons: This is an update on a review I posted a couple days ago. I know that AsRock does indeed frequent these Newegg reviews, so I would like to make it clear to them that the BIOS on this board has broken PCI-E 3.0 support. On these reviews, other reviews for this board across other etailers, and in troubleshooting forums, users have reported problems with PCI-E 3.0. The board will not post when 3.0 is turned on, even when using the latest BIOS. I, and I'm sure many others, would like to see this problem addressed soon, hopefully within the next BIOS update. Please take note of what I've said here AsRock, it is a confirmed problem with this board right now.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear AsRock Customer

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. For the PCIE 3.0, please set the UEFI BIOS default (press F9 in BIOS), test with the GPU-Z utility under Windows to verify that PCIE is shown PCIE 3.0. If you have any technical questions please contact us at http://www.asrock.com/support/tsd.asp. We can assist you shortly.

Thank you

AsRock SUPPORT
Tech Support Email: user@asrockamerica.com

Pros: Full of features
Everything it has under the specs sheet is absolutely true. This board has nearly all of the amazing features of the RIVE, yet at only a little over half the price. ASRock is growing to be a huge competitor in the motherboard market, and this board is no exception. Performs well, onboard overclock options took my CPU up to 4.4 GHz with no problems, yet I didn't have much time to try to fine tune the OC and push it further.

Cons: I've gone through an extensive amount of RMAs, replacements, and other such purchases to try and get rid of this ***-awful coil whine that only this board causes to come out of my PSU. I tried 3 different power supplies, 2 different GPUs, and even RMAed the motherboard yet it persists. The only explanation is that this motherboard causes the whine, even though it does not come from the motherboard. The other 3 power supplies do not whine in other systems I have, some with even higher power requirements.

Other Thoughts: The board is fantastic, and for its price/performance rating I would definitely recommend it to anyone. Just beware of the whine. I could be the world's most unluckiest man and got 2 with the same problem, or it could just be this board. It's very high pitched and doesn't sound exactly like coil whine, but it irritates the heck out of me and gives me headaches running this otherwise quiet system. I have always had pretty good hearing though, so I may just need to blast some music in my headphones and deafen myself a little to get rid of it.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear AsRock Customer

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. We're sorry to hear that second mainboard having same issue with noise (whine) which might be other components causing it. Please remove the mainboard from computer case, place the mainboard on an empty box to avoid static causing damage the mainboard, test only with CPU, CPU cooler, memory and VGA card to check if the symptom still occurs. Test with another known good power supply to eliminate the issue. If you have any technical questions please contact us at http://www.asrock.com/support/tsd.asp. We can assist you shortly.

Thank you

AsRock SUPPORT
Tech Support Email: user@asrockamerica.com