Intel S1155 by stefan @ 2011-04-21
The P67 Professional Motherboard from ASRock is the Fatal1ty branded product from the series and comes with a lot of features like Digital PWM, XFast USB Technology, V16+2 CPU Power Phases, no less than 6 USB 3.0 ports and 6 SATA3, C.C.O., THX TruStudio Pro, and the unique Fatal1ty Mouse Port, which allows us to set the desired mouse polling rate, up to 1000Hz.
At first I would like to thank ASRock for offering me a sample of their Fatal1ty P67 Professional Motherboard for review.
"ASRock Inc., established in 2002, target at entry to mainstream segment MB business, is an energetic company with the combination of technology and humanity. Devoting efforts to bring customers the innovative and reliable motherboards with the design concept of 3C, "Creative, Considerate, Cost-effective", ASRock has successfully established a well-known leading brand of the best price-performance motherboard in the industry. ASRock products' high recognition stems from company’s devotion to bring the most cost-performance products to users.
Besides creative features and solid products, ASRock engineers also pay special attention to EMI, thermal, acoustics and details to achieve complete customer satisfaction. In addition to price-performance, creative and considerate features, ASRock also pay special on the issue of eco-environmental protection with the released of ROHS products and energy saving functions to save the environment.
To succeed in this ultra-competitive industry, ASRock provides great products with speed-to-market, cost and service to customers.
Facing the constantly changing technologies of motherboard, ASRock will always keep the vision of the future and develop future-proof products upon our 3C design concept to our customers.
It is the commitment to our customers and products, like the spirit presented in our maxim:
"Motherboard, We Master It!" "
Fatal1ty Mouse Port
Fatal1ty Mouse Port is a customizable technology for PC gamers that is a part of F-Stream. After plugging the USB mouse into the Fatal1ty Mouse Port and running F-Stream, gamers can use Fatal1ty’s personal preferred mouse polling rate at 500 Hz. F-Stream also provides the flexibility for gamers to adjust the mouse polling rate from 125 Hz to 1000 Hz. This is helpful for professional gamers to experience smoother game play and faster response time to the mouse.
Digital PWM Design
By adopting digital Pulse-width modulation (PWM), the Fatal1ty Series can provide CPU Vcore voltage more efficiently and smoothly. Compared to analog PWM, digital PWM can optimize the CPU power solution and provide a proper and stable Vcore for the processor.
Fatal1ty XFast USB Technology - Faster Than Your Imagination!
Fatal1ty XFast USB Technology redefines the new standard in high performance computing. Proving once again to be the pioneer in motherboard industry, Fatal1ty XFast USB Series Motherboards integrate with the latest XFast USB Technology which delivers the world's fastest USB data transfer speed. According to the below graph, it shows that the Fatal1ty XFast USB technology can even boost USB 3.0 performance up to 97.7%!
PLX PEX8608 chip onboard
Fatal1ty Motherboard breaks the limitation and offers sufficient PCI-E lanes solution by embedding PLX PEX8608 chip onboard.
With PLX PEX8608 chip, it generates more PCI-E lanes for PCI-E devices, so that all PCI-E devices are able to work at the proper speed simultaneously!
With traditional switch, if users want to run the PCI-E x4 slot at PCI-E, then the other 3 PCI-E x1 slots can not be used. If users install device in any of the PCI-E x1 slot, then the PCI-E x4 slot will suffer to downgrade running at PCI-E x1.
V16+2 CPU Power Phase
The Fatal1ty Series motherboard is designed with a V16+2 Power Phase, featuring sturdy components and completely smooth power delivery to the CPU. The P67 Professional Series offers unmatched overclocking capability and enhanced performance with the lowest temperatures for PC gaming enthusiasts.
6 USB 3.0 (2 x Front, 4 x Back) + 6 SATA3
Coupled with six USB 3.0 and six SATA3 ports, the Fatal1ty motherboard offers plenty of storage options. Based on the concept of customization, this board is specially equipped with six USB 3.0 ports (two from external Front USB 3.0 panel, four from real I/O) and six SATA 3 connectors to satisfy PC DIYer’s various needs.
Premium Gold Caps
All the capacitors on the Fatal1ty Series gaming motherboard are luxury, Premium Gold Caps. These 100% Japan-made solid capacitors are sleek, high gloss caps with a premium gold coating representing long life and stable performance.
3 PCIE 2.0 slots - Support CrossFireX, SLI
Supporting ATI™ 3-way / Quad CrossFireX™ and NVIDIA® Quad SLI™. 3 PCI Express 2.0 graphics interfaces support both CrossFireX and SLI for ultimate graphics performance.
Dual LAN - Teaming
Dual LAN with Teaming function enabled on this motherboard allows two single connections to act as one single connection for twice the transmission bandwidth, making data transmission more effective.
C.C.O. (Combo Cooler Option)
C.C.O., stands for Combo Cooler Option, is another exclusive hardware design on ASRock boards. C.C.O. provides the flexible options to adopt different CPU cooler types and matches your socket LGA775, LGA1155 / LGA1156 CPU cooler in the respective holes. Once again, ASRock has successfully expanded the utilization of PCB by the exclusive C.C.O. design.
THX TruStudio PRO™
THX TruStudio PRO™ solution ensures you the premium audio quality, effects and features for PC systems equipped with onboard audio. For instance, the TruStudio Surround technology expands your stereo content into surround sound; the TruStudio Crystalizer technology restores the compressed sound source and can let you hear every detail in riveting surround sound. Combined with the THX TruStudio PRO and the ASRock high performance HTPC system, you will be assured to enjoy a rich variety of PRO gramming and be entertained by a better way!
Fatal1ty F-Stream – The All-in-1 Tuning Software
The Fatal1ty F-Stream tuning program is an all-in-1 software utility that supports overclocking and hard-ware tuning such as energy usage, H/W monitor, fan speed control and Fatal1ty Mouse Port Configuration. In Hardware Monitor, it shows the major readings of your system. In Fan Control, it shows the fan speed and temperature for you to adjust. In Overclocking, you are allowed to adjust the CPU frequency, ratio and some voltages for optimal system performance. In Mouse Polling, gamers can freely adjust the mouse polling rate. In Energy Saving, the voltage regulator can reduce the number of output phases to improve efficiency when the CPU cores are idle without sacrificing computing performance.
Graphical UEFI – The Revolutionary BIOS Interface
Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) is a revolutionary BIOS utility which offers tweak-friendly options in an advanced viewing interface. Compared with traditional BIOS design, the latest UEFI utility provides lots improved functions. The major features of UEFI include:
1. Graphical Visual Experience – UEFI provides an improved visual interface with colorful icons and makes your computing environment more versatile to replace the traditional dull BIOS page.
2. Mouse Enabling – Besides keyboard control, you can freely use mouse to select your ideal settings in UEFI as well.
3. Support bootable HDD over than 2TB – UEFI breaks the limitation of 2TB bootable HDD on traditional BIOS. With UEFI, you can enjoy the bootable HDD size over than 2TB!*
Front USB 3.0 Panel
The Front USB 3.0 Panel supports 2 x USB 3.0 ports and provides a 2.5” SSD/HDD rack.
ASRock SmartView
It is the smart start page for IE that combines your most visited web sites, your history, your Facebook friends and your real-time newsfeed into an enhanced view for a more personal Internet experience. ASRock motherboards are exclusively equipped with the SmartView utility that helps you keep in touch with friends on-the-go.
The P67 flagship board from ASRock is the Fatal1ty Professional model, featuring a photo of Johnathan Wendel on the front of the box, along with the Fatal1ty logo:
On the top right corner we can find the ASRock logo, along with a small sticker which informs us that the board comes with 1 year extended warranty:
The bottom right corner is populated with more pictograms;one of them lets us know that the board comes with the B3 (revised) P67 chipset, which doesn't have any more issues with SATA ports degradation:
The frontal side opens up even further, to reveal more information:
On the left side we can see a small story about Fatal1ty and some product highlights:
On the right we can see how the board looks like, without the need to open the box:
On one of the laterals, we can find a small sticker, with the board serial number, its code name, dimensions and weight:
The back side of the box gives us details about the board components, supported technologies and product specifications:
Inside the outer box, there is another protective black box, which holds the motherboard and its accessories:
The motherboard accessories are held in a separate enclosure:
The box contents are the following:
1x 3.5-in Floppy Drive Ribbon Cable
1x 80-conductor Ultra ATA66/100/133 IDE Ribbon Cable
6x Serial ATA Data cables
2x Serial ATA HDD Power cables
1x SLI_Bridge_2S Card
1x I/O Panel Shield
1x Front USB 3.0 Panel
1x Rear USB 3.0 Bracket
The documentation is composed from one UEFI Setup Guide, a Quick Installation Guide in multiple languages, but we can also find a CD with drivers, applications and the manual in electronic format:
The I/O Panel Shield is customized with the Fatal1ty logo, and here we can also observe where the Fatal1ty Mouse Port is located:
The ribbon cables are also customized with the Fatal1ty pictogram:
The Front USB 3.0 Panel is a 2-in-1 device; on its frontal side we can connect two USB 3.0 devices, and it also acts as a 2.5'' HDD/SSD rack:
The necessary screws to fix the HDD but also the ones to install the Panel in the case are provided in two separate plastic bags:
The panel header goes right into the USB 3.0 header present on the Fatal1ty Professional motherboard:
Inside the Quick Installation Guide, we can find useful information on how to install the motherboard in our system, along with the other components:
Details regarding the UEFI can be found in a separate manual:
The board is held in a separate enclosure, with a plastic transparent cover on top:
The Fatal1ty Professional has a very catchy look, much better than the Extreme4 or Extreme6 with the same chipset; the cooling system is divided in 4 separate parts and linked with a heatpipe:
On the top left corner of the PCB we can find another sticker which reminds us about the new B3 P67 chipset revision:
The board has 3 USB 3.0 EtronTech EJ168A controllers; one of them is placed near the 8-pin ATX 12V connector, the second one is in the back of the audio connectors and the third is located near the bottom PCI slot:
The board also features two Realtek RTL8111E Gigabit Ethernet controllers, placed between the I/O shield connectors and the VRM:
One of the fan headers can be found right near the first PCI-Express x1 slot:
The audio interface on this motherboard is provided by a Realtek ALC892 HD Codec:
Near it, we can find the Nuvoton NCT6676F Super I/O chip:
ASRock did not want to drop PCI support on this board, so they have included the Asmedia ASM1083, which is a x1 PCI Express to 32-bit PCI Bridge:
On the bottom of the motherboard PCB, we can find a HDMI_SPDIF header, an Infrared Module header, the Front Panel Audio header, a Floppy Connector, the COM Port header, one USB 3.0 header, no less than four USB 2.0 headers, the Front Panel IEEE 1394 header, two Chassis Fan headers, the Clear CMOS jumper, System Panel header, a Chassis Speaker header and a Power LED header:
The Power and Reset buttons have a nice rounded design, with the Fatal1ty logo on top:
Near the Reset button, we can locate the Dr. Debug status LED display:
On the right side of the PCB, we can find 10 SATA ports, 6 SATA 3 and 4 SATA 2:
Next, we can find the IDE connector and the ATX Power Connector:
The memory slots are color coded and have clips only on one side:
On the top right corner, we can find another Chassis Fan header:
The two CPU Fan headers are placed one near the other, between the VRM and the memory slots, on the upper side of the PCB:
The UEFI chip is located in the center of the PCB, near the P67 chipset heatsink:
The individual heatsinks have a modern design; these add a lot of style to the whole system if the motherboard is installed in a case with a Plexiglas window side:
All motherboard is populated with Premium Gold Capacitors, made in Japan:
Even at this high-end board, ASRock did not eliminate the C.C.O. (Combo Cooler Option), so we are able to install our old CPU coolers or water blocks on the new system:
The spacing between the first two red PCI-Express x16 slots is reasonable, so we can install without problems video cards in SLI/Crossfire configurations, with beefier cooling systems:
On the back of the PCB, we can find the CHiL CHL8328 dual-loop digital multi-phase buck controller:
The I/O Panel connectors/buttons are the following:
-PS/2 Mouse and Keyboard Ports
-Clear CMOS Button
-Coaxial SPDIF Out Port
-Optical SPDIF Out Port
-4x USB 3.0 Ports
-4x USB 2.0 Ports (the top red one is the Fatal1ty Mouse Port)
-2x LAN RJ-45 Ports
-IEEE 1394 Port
-Audio Jack Ports
The Power and Reset buttons light up very nice when the system is operating:
The UEFI from the ASRock P67 Professional is similar to the one we could see on the Extreme4 and Extreme6 motherboards, but comes with a different background and upper menu buttons textures; the Main section of the UEFI contains information regarding the currently installed UEFI version, the CPU name along with its rated speed, the current processor speed, microcode update, the CPU cache size, total memory installed and how the memory is distributed in the slots:
The OC Tweaker is the menu where most of the options to fine-tune the system performance are located; here we can modify the CPU multiplier (only for K CPUs), set custom voltages, enable/disable the SpeedStep Technology, set the Turbo Boost power limits, or enable/disable the Internal PLL Overvoltage option:
The voltages can be set for the VCore, DRAM, PCH, PLL, VTT (VCCIO), VCCSA or we can select the Load-Line Calibration levels; the modifications we've made can be then saved with a name of our choice, in 3 different slots:
The DRAM Configuration menu allows us to customize the advanced memory timings, or we can simply enable the embedded XMS profile (if our memory modules have it):
The Advanced section comes with more sub-menus that can be customized:
In the CPU Configuration sub-menu, we can adjust the number of cores we want to have active, enable/disable the Hardware Prefetcher or the Adjacent Cache Line Prefetch; here we can also enable or disable the CPU Thermal Throttling, Intel Virtualization Technology or No-Execute Memory Protection:
In the North Bridge sub-menu, we can customize the Low MMIO resources alignment, the Intel VT Tech for Directed I/O can be enabled or disabled, and we can also specify which is the first Primary Graphics Adapter to initialize:
In the South Bridge Configuration menu, we can enable/disable some of the onboard components , like the LAN controllers, Firewire interface, HD Audio Codec, or we can enable/disable the Front Panel Audio header; by enabling the Good Night LED in BIOS, the Power and Keyboard LEDs will be automatically switched off when the system is under Stand-by/ Hibernation mode. Also, we can set the Onboard Debug Port LED to On position, in case we want for it to continue to function after the system has booted successfully:
In the Storage Configuration menu, we can change the functionality of the onboard SATA3 Marvell controller, we can set the SATA mode for the SATA2 ports, enable/disable the S.M.A.R.T. capability and so on; the same menu holds a list of the detected drives connected to the motherboard:
In the SuperIO Configuration menu, we can enable/disable the FDD controller, the Serial Port or the Infrared one:
The ACPI Configuration sub-menu, we can modify some of the usual power management settings:
In the USB Configuration sub-menu, we can enable/disable the onboard USB controllers, or enable Legacy USB support for older devices:
The H/W Monitor menu section gives us updated information regarding the live temperatures, connected fan speeds or the voltages; in the same menu we can set the fan speeds on different levels, or we can enable/disable the Over-Temperature Protection feature:
The Boot section holds the options to adjust the boot option priorities, we can enable/disable the Full Screen Logo, LAN boot capability or the Boot Failure Guard option:
In the Security section, we can set two different passwords, one for the Supervisor and one for the User:
Finally, in the last menu, the Exit section, we can choose to save, discard or load the default UEFI values; the EFI shell can be also launched from another filesystem device:
CPU : Intel I5 2500K Retail
CPU Cooler: Noctua U12P SE2
Motherboard : ASRock Fatal1ty P67 Professional
RAM : G.Skill Ripjaws F3-12800CL8D-4GBRM
Video : Sparkle X460 Calibre 1GB
Power Supply : Cooler Master 850W
HDD : Seagate Barracuda 320GB 7200.10
Case: Cooler Master ATCS 840
As with the Extreme6 motherboard, I was amazed to see that my CPU was stable at the same 4.8GHz frequency, but at a much lower voltage compared to the Extreme4 model (1.265V on the Extreme4 and 1.255V on the Extreme6 and Professional, values set in the UEFI interface):
Here is also the 4.8GHz validation:
With the latest version of AIDA64, we can extract more information regarding the motherboard, the CPU IMC and the P67 chipset:
The ASRock Windows system customization utility is named F-Stream Tuning and offers monitoring, fan control, overclocking capabilities or Energy Saving options. In the first tab, we can find the Hardware Monitor, where we can see the current clock speeds, temperatures, fan speeds and voltages in real time:
The Fan Control tab allows us to customize the speed of the installed fans:
The Overclocking tab permits us to modify the clock frequencies, CPU ratio and voltages on the fly:
In the place of the OC DNA tab, we can now find the Fatal1ty Mouse Port customization menu, where we can set our preffered Polling Rate, up to 1000Hz; if we do not have the mouse installed in the appropriate port, these options will not be available:
Finally, in the Energy Saving tab, we can turn on the big green button. This option works when the system is at stock settings:
The Fatal1ty XFast USB is another interesting application that comes with the motherboard and permits to boost the read/write transfer speeds of any USB storage device:
To see if this application has some impact to the transfer speeds, I have inserted a USB 2.0 flash drive and performed some read and write tests:
Xfast USB Read Normal
Xfast USB Read Turbo
Xfast USB Write Normal
Xfast USB Write Turbo
SmartView is another application on the ASRock CD, that acts like a portal with multiple functionalities:
The Fatal1ty Professional motherboard does also come with the Instant Boot application, which boosts considerably the computer boot time:
ASRock AIWI is another feature the Fatal1ty motherboard supports and is the world's first utility to turn our iPhone/iPod touch or Android phone into a game joystick to control our PC games. All we have to do is just to install the ASRock AIWI utility either from ASRock official website or from the DVD that came with the motherboard, and also download the free AIWI Lite from App store to our iPhone/iPod touch:
The Fatal1ty motherboard also comes with the full version of the THX TruStudio Pro application, which needs an active Internet connection for activation purposes:
AIDA64 CPU Queen
AIDA64 PhotoWorxx
AIDA64 Zlib
AIDA64 AES
AIDA64 CPU Hash
AIDA64 FPU VP8
AIDA64 FPU Julia
AIDA64 FPU Mandel
AIDA64 FPU SinJulia
Cinebench R10
Cinebench R11.5 CPU Score
CrystalMark
PCMark05 System Suite
PCMark Vantage Suite
3DMark 2001 Default Run
3DMark 2003 CPU Score
3DMark 2005 CPU Score
3DMark 2006 CPU Score
3DMark Vantage CPU Score
3DMark11 Performance Score
PerformanceTest 7 CPU Mark
SuperPI 1.5 XS 2MB
wPrime 32M
Crysis Very High DX10 1920x1200
Street Fighter 4 1920x1200
Far Cry 2 Ultra DX10 1920x1200
The Fatal1ty Professional P67 is another product to consider from ASRock when building a system, and features the same solid VRM from the Extreme6 but much better looks and to take advantage of this we should install it in a case with Plexiglass window. The Fatal1ty Professional P67 PCB may look the same as the Extreme6, but on a closer look we can spot some differences:
- the CD_1 header is present only on the Professional P67
- there is no extra MOLEX header on the Professional P67
- the retention mechanism (clips) for the memory slots and PCI-Express slots are different on the Professional P67
- PWR_FAN1, CHA_FAN3, 1394 headers are placed differently on the Professional P67
- the IDE header is present only on the Fatal1ty
In the stability tests, the 4.8GHz frequency could be obtained only at 1.255V, the same value as on the Extreme6; on the Extreme4, however, we needed to set 1.265V in UEFI. As with the previously tested ASRock motherboard, it is very easy to take snapshots in the UEFI interface (by pressing the F12 key); this is helpful in case we have a problem with our system and we need to send some details to the support team. The UEFI is also equipped with the Boot Failure Guard feature, useful in case we are often overclocking, and we can also save our settings in 3 different profile slots (that can be restored later). One thing I have noticed and would be nice to be changed in the next UEFI revisions is the background, which can be distracting when navigating through the menus.
The F-Stream Tuning (renamed from ASRock Extreme Tuning Utility) application is useful for easy overclocking, monitoring the temperatures, voltages or fan speeds; here we get a new tab, to configure the Fatal1ty Mouse Port; if the mouse is not connected to the respective port, we will be warned and the tab will be inactive. The ASRock Extreme Tuning Utility had another interesting option, the OC DNA, which seems to be missing from the F-Stream, which let us work with the User Profiles (save or load them from other computers with identical configurations).
The ASRock XFast USB application has been renamed into Fatal1ty XFast USB and has now a new skin. Another useful application that we get for free (the first time activation must be done through a live Internet connection) with this motherboard is the THX TruStudio Pro, which features effects like Surround, Crystalizer, Speaker, Smart Volume or Dialog Plus.
The Fatal1ty P67 Professional model can be found in shops for about 171 Euros, more expensive than the Extreme6 variant.
I would like to thank again to ASRock for giving me the chance to review one of their latest products!