ASRock Fatal1ty X99M Killer Motherboard

On Board Peripherals

The Intel X99 chipset is a single-chip solution, which is also known as a PCH (Platform Controller Hub). This chip supports ten SATA-600 ports (there are no SATA-300 ports), supporting RAID (0, 1, 10, and 5).

The ASRock Fatal1ty X99M Killer offers those ten SATA-600 ports (one of them shared with an eSATA connector at the rear panel, and another port shared with the M.2 slot). All SATA ports are located at the motherboard’s edge and rotated 90 degrees, so that video cards will not block them.

Figure 4: SATA-600 ports

The Intel X99 chipset supports eight USB 2.0 ports and six USB 3.0 ports. The ASRock Fatal1ty X99M Killer offers eight USB 2.0 ports, four soldered on the rear panel and four available through two headers located on the motherboard. It also supports six USB 3.0 ports, four soldered on the motherboard rear panel and two available through a header on the motherboard, controlled by the chipset.

One of the USB 2.0 ports (the top-most one on the stack containing the PS/2 port) is a “Fatal1ty mouse port”, which allows you to manually configure its polling rate between 125 Hz and 1 kHz.

The ASRock Fatal1ty X99M Killer does not support FireWire or Thurnderbolt ports.

This motherboard supports 7.1+2 audio format, i.e., eight channels plus two independent channels for audio streaming. 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 capturing and editing analog audio (e.g., converting LPs to CDs or MP3, converting VHS to DVDs or any other digital format, etc.).

The analog audio outputs are independent and the motherboard also comes with an on-board optical SPDIF output. It also has a header labeled “SPDIF_OUT”, where you can install an adapter to have a coaxial SPDIF output or to connect a cable to older video cards that required a physical connection to have audio on their HDMI outputs.

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 two Gigabit Ethernet ports, one controlled by an Intel i218V chip and one controlled by an Atheros Killer E2200 chip.

Both the audio codec and the Killer E2200 chips are protected from interference with metallic shields, as shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5: shielded chips

In Figure 6, you can see the motherboard rear panel, with a shared PS/2 keyboard/mouse connector, a Clear CMOS button, four USB 2.0 ports, an eSATA-600 port, two Gigabit Ethernet ports, four USB 3.0 ports, one optical SPDIF output, and the analog audio jacks.

Figure 6: Motherboard rear panel