ASRock X79 Fatal1ty Champion Motherboard
Introduction
Contents
The newly released X79 Fatal1ty Champion is the most high-end motherboard from ASRock for the LGA2011 platform. It comes with five PCI Express 3.0 x16 slots, six SATA-600 ports, 12 USB 3.0 ports, an on-board, professional-grade sound controller (Creative Sound Core3D), two Gigabit Ethernet ports, and more.
To better understand the differences between the several socket LGA2011 motherboards released by ASRock, we compiled the tables below. Prices were researched at Newegg.com on the day we published this article. “Game Blaster” is a PCI Express x1 add-on sound card featuring a Creative Sound Core3D audio chip and a Broadcom networking chip. The “Fatal1ty” motherboards have a special USB port with a higher polling rate for gaming mice.
| Feature | X79 Fatal1ty Champion | X79 Fatal1ty Professional | X79 Extreme9 | X79 Extreme7 |
| Form Factor | CEB | ATX | ATX | ATX |
| Memory Sockets | 8 | 8 | 8 | 6 |
| PCI Express x16 | 5 (x16/x16 or x16/x8/x8/x8) | 4 (x16/x8/x16/x0 or x16/x8/x8/x8) | 5 (x16/x0/x16/x0/x8 or x8/x8/x8/x8/x8) | 5 (x16/x0/x16/x0/x8 or x8/x8/x8/x8/x8) |
| PCI Express x1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Standard PCI | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| CrossFireX | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| SLI | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| SATA-300 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| SATA-600 | 6 | 6 | 8 | 7 |
| eSATA-600 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 |
| USB 2.0 | 8 | 12 | 10 | 10 |
| USB 3.0 | 12 | 8 | 8 | 6 |
| FireWire | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| Gigabit Ethernet | 2 | 1 | 1+1 | 2 |
| Audio | Creative Sound Core3D | ALC898 | Game Blaster | ALC898 |
| Voltage Regulator | 12+2 | 16+2 | 16+2 | 12+2 |
| Price | USD 400 | USD 280 | USD 345 | USD 260 |
| Feature | X79 Extreme6/GB | X79 Extreme6 | X79 Extreme4-M | X79 Extreme4 | X79 Extreme3 |
| Form Factor | ATX | ATX | microATX | ATX | ATX |
| Memory Sockets | 8 | 8 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| PCI Express x16 | 3 (x16/x16/x8) | 3 (x16/x16/x8) | 3 (x16/x16/x8) | 3 (x16/x16/x8) | 3 (x16/x16/x8) |
| PCI Express x1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 1 |
| Standard PCI | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| CrossFireX | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| SLI | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| SATA-300 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| SATA-600 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 5 | 3 |
| eSATA-600 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| USB 2.0 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 12 | 12 |
| USB 3.0 | 6 | 6 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| FireWire | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| Gigabit Ethernet | 1+1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Audio | Game Blaster | ALC898 | ALC898 | ALC898 | ALC898 |
| Voltage Regulator | 12+2 | 12+2 | 6+2 | 6+2 | 5+1 |
| Price | USD 270 | USD 250 | USD 215 | USD 225 | USD 210 |
In Figure 1, you see the ASRock X79 Fatal1ty Champion motherboard. In order to accommodate so many extra features, this motherboard uses the CEB form factor, which has the same length as the ATX form factor (12” or 305 mm), but has a higher width (10.5” or 267 mm vs. 9.6” or 244 mm).
Figure 1: ASRock X79 Fatal1ty Champion motherboard
