ASRock Fatal1ty B85 Killer Motherboard

On Board Peripherals

The Intel B85 chipset is a single-chip solution, which is also known as a PCH (Platform Controller Hub). This chip has four SATA-600 ports and two SATA-300 ports, with no RAID support. The ASRock Fatal1ty B85 Killer offers all of them. Figure 4 shows the SATA ports.

Figure 4: SATA-600 (red) and SATA-300 (black) ports

The Intel B85 chipset supports 12 USB 2.0 ports and four USB 3.0 ports. The ASRock Fatal1ty B85 Killer offers eights USB 2.0 ports, four located on the motherboard’s rear panel and four available through two headers located at the motherboard; and four USB 3.0 ports, two available on the motherboard’s rear panel and two available through a header.

The ASRock Fatal1ty B85 Killer does not support FireWire ports.

This motherboard supports 7.1 audio format, i.e., eight channels. On this motherboard, the audio is generated by the chipset using the Realtek ALC1150 codec, which is an excellent audio codec, providing 115 dB signal-to-noise ratio for the analog outputs, 104 dB signal-to-noise ratio for the analog inputs, and up to 192 kHz sampling rate for both inputs and outputs, with 24-bit resolution. These specifications are good even for the user who wants to work professionally by capturing and editing analog audio (e.g., converting LPs to CDs or MP3, converting VHS to DVDs or any other digital format, etc.).

The codec chip is shielded against electromagnetic interference, and the audio interface is equipped with a TI NE5532 amplifier for the frontal headphone output. The analog audio outputs are independent only if you use a 5.1 analog speaker set. If you install a 7.1 analog speaker set, you will need to use the “line in” jack.

The portrayed motherboard has one Gigabit Ethernet port controlled by an Atheros Killer E2200 chip, a high-performance Gigabit Ethernet controller. Like the codec, this chip is also shielded, as you can see in Figure 5.

Figure 5: Audio codec and Killer E2200 chip

In Figure 6, you can see the motherboard’s rear panel with a shared PS/2 keyboard/mouse connector, four USB 2.0 ports, VGA output, DVI-D output, HDMI output, two USB 3.0 ports, Gigabit Ethernet port, optical SPDIF output, and the analog audio connectors.

Figure 6: Motherboard rear panel

Figure 7 shows the simple set of accessories that comes with the motherboard.

Figure 7: Accessories