Forming the entry-level Z87 board in ASRock's gaming-orientated Fatal1ty series, is the Z87 Killer able to prove itself as a good-value gaming motherboard?

Designed to meet the requirements of gamers, ASRock outfits its Z87 Killer with a number of premium add-on components which it calls Gaming Armor. An audio upgrade is supplied in the form of ASRock's Purity Sound which utilises the Realtek ALC1150 codec.

The high-end Killer E2200 series NIC is used to reduce lag and ping during games. Power components form the remaining features of ASRock's Gaming Armor.

Featuring underlying support for 3-way CrossFire and 2-way SLI, a red and black colour scheme, and premium add-on gaming components, can ASRock's Fatal1ty Z87 Killer deliver the performance that budget-conscious gamers will demand?

Features:

ASRock ships the Fatal1ty Z87 Killer in a box which is filled with information regarding the board's specifications and features.

A pair of manuals, a code for ASRock's XSplit broadcasting service, a drivers disc, and a case sticker form the supplied documentation.

The Z87 Killer's scarce bundle consists of four SATA cables, an SLI bridge, and the coloured IO shield. Clearly ASRock has taken the opportunity to cut costs by reducing the number of bundled items.

Measuring in at around 12″ x 8.4″ ASRock's Z87 Killer uses the ‘narrow' ATX form factor. The motherboard still fits perfectly inside an ATX-capable chassis but the right-hand column of stand-offs are not required.

As with other motherboards in ASRock's Fatal1ty series, the Z87 Killer features a red and black colour scheme and specific branding relating to the champion gamer, Jonathan Wendel. The motherboard's brown PCB is ugly and does impact its overall attractiveness. We would have preferred a black PCB which wouldn't have added much to the manufacturing cost.

Up to 32GB of memory can be installed in the Z87 Killer's four DIMM slots. ASRock claims support for memory frequencies over 3GHz, but the maximum achievable speed will be heavily swayed by the CPU's IMC.

Cooled by a sturdy Fatal1ty-branded heatsink, eight power delivery phases feed an LGA 1150 CPU. ASRock positions the heatsink near the rear IO section which leaves plenty of room around the upper edge for oversized CPU coolers. On the flip side, this move forced some components (namely the MOSFETs) from the upper two phases to operate without direct cooling via a heatsink. Given the power-friendly nature of Haswell CPUs, this cooling restriction shouldn't cause long-term stability issues.

A digital controller provides operation for the CPU power delivery system.

A single Hi-Density 8-pin CPU power connector is located close to the VRM heatsink in an easy-to-access position. A pair of CPU fan headers is found above the DIMM banks, one of which 3-pin but is still controlled by the same PWM channel.

Six SATA 6Gb/s are located towards the middle of the board's right-edge with a 90 degree orientation. All six of the connections receive their bandwidth from the Z87 chipset.

An outwards-facing USB 3.0 header is placed in its typical location, adjacent to the 24-pin power connector. Its outwards-facing orientation will certainly increase the complexity of hiding the large front-panel cable. As was the case with the SATA connection, the USB 3.0 header is provided by the Z87 chipset.

Rapidly becoming commonplace on many of ASRock's Z87 motherboard, Purity Sound uses Realtek's ALC1150 audio codec to provide a 115 dB signal-to-noise-ratio. Other notable components which form the Purity Sound system include a pair Texas Instruments NE5532 operational amplifiers and isolated circuitry.

By providing its users with a high-quality onboard sound system, ASRock's Z87 Killer allows gamers to save the cash that a dedicated sound card would demand.

With such an emphasis on gaming performance, ASRock equips the Fatal1ty Z87 Killer with a Killer E2200 series NIC. ASRock suggests that the Killer E2200 series NIC can improve latency performance for network-heavy online games (such as LOL and DOTA 2) by a considerable margin. In reality, external factors such as a user's internet speed and the server's accessibility will have a huge impact on the performance improvements, if any.

Three full-length PCI-E slots and four x1 versions are used on the Fatal1ty Z87 Killer. The configuration should be acceptable for the majority of gamers, except those who are wanting to migrate an old PCI card. Slot spacing is also very good with two x1 and the bottom x16-length slots remaining accessible alongside a dual-VGA configuration.

An LGA 1150 processor's sixteen PCI-E 3.0 lanes are split as x16/x0/x0 for single-card usage or x8/x8/x0 for dual-card operations. Users wanting to use three high-bandwidth expansion cards will be forced to settle for x8/x4/x4 link speeds. These levels of throughput are still perfectly acceptable for CrossFire configurations, but not for the x8-demanding SLI alternative.

Multi-card configurations with 3-slot coolers are supported thanks to the previously mentioned effective slot layout on ASRock's behalf.

Headers are found in their typical locations along the motherboard's bottom-edge – audio to the left and front panel connections to the right. A downwards-facing molex connector provides power for multi-card configurations and, thanks to its orientation, is unlikely to negatively impact cable management efforts.

ASRock opts for a dual-BIOS implementation which provides redundancy against motherboard-bricking corruptions.

As well as the standard affair of rear panel connections, ASRock's Z87 Killer features support for HDMI pass-through. The feature allows an HDMI device (such as a games console) and a user's system to plug into the same monitor input. The Fatal1ty mouse port provides manipulation of the polling rate of a mouse via ASRock's F-Stream software.

Motherboard rear ports:

Circled in the above image are the locations of the Z87 Killer's six fan headers. The two headers above the DIMM slots are controlled by the CPU's channel in the BIOS. Three of the remaining four headers feature speed control, while one operates as a powered 3-pin connection.

ASRock positions a 3-header cluster near the VRM heatsink which will make cable management tricky. Shifting two of those headers nearer the SATA ports would have been beneficial to cable management efforts. Users with side panel chassis fans can use the header along the Z87 Killer's bottom edge.

Firstly, we are pleased to report that our Roccat Kone XTD mouse worked to its usual standard in the ASRock Fatal1ty Z87 Killer motherboard's UEFI BIOS. This is a positive point as we have experienced problems when using certain mice in the UEFI BIOS of other motherboards in the past.

The UEFI BIOS interface's main page displays system information such as memory capacity and processor speed.

ASRock provides users with a good amount of frequency tweaking options. Automatic CPU and memory overclocking profiles are built into the motherboard, but whether or not they operate with stability will be hardware dependent.

ASRock's Z87 Killer supports the relevant dividers for memory frequencies in the 4GHz region, although it is unlikely that an LGA 1150 chip's IMC will reach those levels without extreme voltages (and henceforth cooling).

Many of the main system voltages (such as CPU VCore, Cache, Input, and DRAM) can be configured to either fixed values or offsets. Some of the voltage settings deemed less important are limited to offset configurations which is slightly disappointing. For example, a user with fast RAM who wants to increase the CPU System Agent voltage is forced to use an offset rather than simply key in a value. It isn't a major issue, but it does given the feeling that some control is being taken away from the end-user.

A number of useful tools are included in the Fatal1ty board's interface. The pick of the bunch is ‘system browser' – a tool which can be effectively used to diagnose faulty hardware. Only three overclocking profiles are provided on the Z87 Killer. This isn't enough for many users; ASRock would have been wise to supply five or more so that gamers can use their system in a number of states without unnecessary hassle.

Temperatures, voltages, and fan speeds can be checked in the H/W Monitor page. ASRock's fan control settings allow pre-defined profiles to be selected. If preferred, fan speeds can be customised to a user's requirements with a good degree of adjustment available.

While the Z87 Killer's UEFI interface is generally good, ASRock definitely needs to provide more slots to save overclocking profiles. The ability to save three different BIOS configurations is not enough on a gaming motherboard.  The range of adjustable voltage, power, and frequency parameters is perfectly adequate, although a greater emphasis on user-led control would have been preferred with some of the voltage settings.

Gone are the days where a graphic of Fatal1ty himself would stare at you from behind the BIOS options. Instead the interface uses a far better looking red and black colour scheme.

Overall, ASRock has implemented a solid BIOS on the Z87 Killer motherboard. The red and black interface is attractive and easy to use, even if its functionality is limited in certain areas.

To test the ASRock Fatal1ty Z87 Killer, we partnered it with an Intel Core i7 4770K processor and 8GB of 2133MHz CL9 memory from the G.Skill RipjawsX (F3-2133C9Q-16GXL) kit. We will be outlining the ASRock Fatal1ty Z87 Killer motherboard's performance with the Core i7 4770K CPU at its stock frequency of 3.5GHz (3.9GHz due to forced turbo). Overclocked performance will be outlined later in the review.

We have recently updated some of our test system's components to represent the typical hardware that is likely to be used with an LGA 1150 motherboard. As such, we do not have performance figures (using identical components) from any other Z87 motherboards to compare against the ASRock Fatal1ty Z87 Killer. As we build up our Z87 motherboard performance database using the updated test system, we will include comparison figures to outline performance differences.

By default, the ASRock Fatal1ty Z87 Killer motherboard forces the 4770K to a constant 3.9GHz when XMP is enabled. This will be displayed as the ‘stock’ setting (and outlined in the charts' brackets after the non-turbo stock speed is displayed).

When XMP is utilised, ASRock's Z87 Killer automatically applies the maximum turbo ratio to all cores of our 4770K (called the multi-core enhancement setting in the BIOS). In itself, this isn't an issue. But given that ASRock's board defaults to a CPU VCore of 1.280V, issues start arising.

The setting isn't specific to the Z87 Killer – we have outlined its occurrence with the Z87 OC Formula and Z87-M8 motherboards, to name just a few. Without a beefy CPU cooler, a 1.280V VCore results in a high CPU temperature.

While decreasing the voltage to something in the region of 1.15 – 1.20V is easy for even a novice overclocker, it shouldn't be required. We hope that ASRock will address this issue and opt for a lower voltage with future BIOS updates; 1.280V is nothing more than wasted heat and power for a 3.9GHz 4770K.

Z87 Motherboard Test System:

Settings:

Software Suite:

3DMark 11 is designed for testing DirectX 11 hardware running on Windows 7 and Windows Vista the benchmark includes six all new benchmark tests that make extensive use of all the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading.

After running the tests 3DMark gives your system a score with larger numbers indicating better performance. Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark 11 is the best way to test DirectX 11 under game-like loads.

If you want to learn more about this benchmark, or to buy it yourself, head over to this page.

ASRock's Fatal1ty Z87 Killer gets off to a good start in 3DMark 11. With a score of almost 11,000 points, the Z87 Killer has no problems allowing a 4770K and R9 280X configuration to flex its muscle. 3DMark is Futuremark's latest benchmark. It can be used to benchmark and compare everything from mobile devices, such as smart phones, tablets and laptops, to high-end gaming systems. The benchmark is available for Windows, Windows RT Android and iOS.

With 3 separate tests, each of which is intended to be used alongside a specific classification of hardware, 3DMark is a very versatile benchmark. Ice Storm is intended to be used with mobile devices, Cloud Gate is good for use with laptops and home PCs, and Fire Strike can be used to push the performance of gaming PCs.

We used the ‘Fire Strike' benchmark which is designed to be used on gaming PCs. We opted for the Normal setting, NOT the Extreme mode.

Futuremark's 3DMark shows more strong performance for the Z87 Killer motherboard. A physics score of around 11,200 is almost identical to the scores that we were seeing from Z87 motherboards on our old LGA 1150 test platform. SiSoftware Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an information & diagnostic utility. It should provide most of the information (including undocumented) you need to know about your hardware, software and other devices whether hardware or software.

Sandra is a (girl’s) name of Greek origin that means “defender”, “helper of mankind”. We think that’s quite fitting.

It works along the lines of other Windows utilities, however it tries to go beyond them and show you more of what’s really going on. Giving the user the ability to draw comparisons at both a high and low-level. You can get information about the CPU, chipset, video adapter, ports, printers, sound card, memory, network, Windows internals, AGP, PCI, PCI-X, PCIe (PCI Express), database, USB, USB2, 1394/Firewire, etc.

Native ports for all major operating systems are available:

All major technologies are supported and taken advantage of:

Sandra's tests show the ASRock Z87 Killer delivering processor arithmetic and memory bandwidth values typical of the 4770K CPU and 2133MHz memory.

CINEBENCH R11.5 64 Bit is a real-world cross platform test suite that evaluates your computer’s performance capabilities. CINEBENCH is based on MAXON’s award-winning animation software CINEMA 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. MAXON software has been used in blockbuster movies such as Spider-Man, Star Wars, The Chronicles of Narnia and many more.

CINEBENCH is the perfect tool to compare CPU and graphics performance across various systems and platforms (Windows and Mac OS X). And best of all – it’s completely free.

As implied by a Cinebench score around the region where we would expect it to be, ASRock's Z87 Killer has no problems providing a bottleneck-free platform for our 4770K processor. WinRar is one of the most popular archive manager programs available. It can backup your data and reduce the size of email attachments, decompress RAR, ZIP and other files downloaded from Internet and create new archives in RAR and ZIP file format. You can try WinRAR before buy, its trial version is available in downloads.

WinRar’s built in benchmark and hardware test can help us outline the performance differentials between each processor.

WinRAR shows strong performance numbers with the Fatal1ty series motherboard at the heart of our LGA 1150 test system. HandBrake is a fantastic free program that can be used to convert video files to many common formats for portable devices. HandBrake is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multi-platform, multi-threaded video transcoder, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows.

We used the latest V 0.9.9 version.

For our testing today we are converting a 4.4GB 720p MKV file (1h:58mins) to MP4 format, using HandBrake's ‘Normal' profile, for playback on High-Resolution devices. This is a common procedure for many people and will give a good indication of system power.

ASRock's Z87 Killer has no problems allowing the 4770K to flex its media conversion muscle. Our Handbrake test completed in less than 700 seconds which is in the same region of results that our previous Z87 test system could achieve.

The performance of onboard storage interfaces is crucial on a modern motherboard. We use the ATTO disk benchmark to measure the speed provided by the motherboard's onboard USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gb/s storage controllers.

For SATA 6Gb/s testing we use a Kingston HyperX 3K SSD. We tested USB 3.0 performance using the same Kingston HyperX 3K SSD connected to a SATA 6Gb/s to USB 3.0 adapter powered by an ASMedia ASM1053 controller.

The SATA 6Gb/s ports on ASRock's Killer will not cap the performance of a fast SSD. This is unsurprising given that the Z87 Killer only features ports operating natively from the chipset, not from add-on controllers.

ASRock's XFast USB (with a Fatal1ty styling for motherboards in the series) is able to make use of the extra speed obtained through the UASP protocol. Using the Z87 Killer to benchmark a fast SSD over USB 3.0 takes us to the real-world limit of the SuperSpeed interface's 5Gb/s link speed.

With these kinds of USB 3.0 speeds, those of us who make use of a fast external drive to transfer games from system to system will not have to wait a painfully long time for the huge file transfers to take place.

Performance of the onboard audio solution is an important factor for modern motherboards. We use RightMark Audio Analyzer to analyse the performance of the motherboard’s onboard audio solution.

A sampling mode of 24-bit, 192 kHz was tested.

ASRock’ onboard audio solution – Purity Sound – uses Realtek's ALC1150 audio codec to provide a 115 dB signal-to-noise-ratio. Other notable components which form the Purity Sound system include a pair Texas Instruments NE5532 operational amplifiers and isolated circuitry.

Using the Purity Sound solution, ASRock's Z87 Killer delivers strong audio performance, according to RightMark Audio Analyzer. It isn't quite as impressive as the solution that Asus uses on its Maximus VI Formula and Rampage IV Black Edition, but it's still a high-performance system that should please gamers.

Set in 1912, in Bioshock Infinite, players assume the role of former Pinkerton agent Booker DeWitt, sent to the flying city of Columbia on a rescue mission. His target? Elizabeth, imprisoned since childhood.

We used the game's demanding ‘Ultra' setting and a 1920 x 1080 resolution to push today's gaming hardware. Our data was recorded using a section of the game, not the built-in benchmark.

When combined with the 4770K and R9 280X, our ASRock Z87 Killer-based test system delivers excellent performance in Bioshock Infinite at 1920 x 1080.

Metro 2033 is a first-person shooter video game with survival horror elements, based on the novel Metro 2033 by Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky. The game is played from the perspective of Artyom, the player-character. The story takes place in post-apocalyptic Moscow, mostly inside the metro system, but occasionally missions bring the player above-ground.

We used a 1920 x 1080 resolution and the game's built-in benchmark set to ‘Very High' quality to offer an intense challenge for the gaming hardware while also making playable frame rates a possibility.

The demanding Metro 2033 game runs well on our test system with the Z87 Killer motherboard at its heart.

Metro: Last Light takes place one year after the events of Metro 2033, proceeding from the ending where Artyom chose to call down the missile strike on the Dark Ones. The Rangers have since occupied the D6 military facility, with Artyom having become an official member of the group. Khan, the nomad mystic, arrives at D6 to inform Artyom and the Rangers that a single Dark One survived the missile strike.

4A Games’ proprietary 4A Engine is capable of rendering breathtaking vistas, such as those showing the ruined remnants of Moscow, as well as immersive indoor areas that play with light and shadow, creating hauntingly beautiful scenes akin to those from modern-day photos of Pripyat’s abandoned factories and schools.

We used a 1920 x 1080 resolution and the game's built-in benchmark set to ‘High' quality to offer an intense challenge for the gaming hardware while also making playable frame rates a possibility.

Perfectly playable performance is delivered by the Z87 Killer-based system using Metro: Last Light's High image quality preset.

Automatic CPU Overclocking:

ASRock equips the Z87 Killer with a number of pre-configured CPU speed boost profiles. We aimed for stability with the 4.6GHz profile, but we were soon met by a BSOD after launching Windows.

Knowing our chip's realistic limit of around 4.5GHz, ASRock's 4.4GHz profile gave us perfect stability with controllable temperature levels.

Given that the profiles do little more than increase CPU voltages and the multiplier, our 2133MHz memory stayed operational at its rated frequency, not a reduced speed.

The automatic overclock validation can be found here. CPU-Z validator managed to destroy the link when we uploaded our manual overclocking result shortly after.

Manual CPU Overclocking:

To test the ASRock Fatal1ty Z87 Killer motherboard’s CPU overclocking potential, we first increased the CPU VCore to 1.325V, Cache voltage to 1.275V, and CPU Input Voltage to 1.900V. We also applied the High BCLK Mode for Filter PLL frequency and enabled PLL overvoltage.

To maintain a stable overclock with voltage levels as close as possible to what we set, the CPU VCore offset had to be set to its minimum increment (+0.001V). Without applying this setting, VCore levels would spiral off past the danger region of 1.40V with temperatures following in voltage's footsteps towards equally worrying levels.

This is an irritating issue that will frustrate many users who are looking to boost their processor's frequency. When a user selects the ‘override' voltage option, they shouldn't be forced to tweak other settings in order to tame voltage levels. That defies the point of giving users the override option in the first place.

Load-line calibration remained disabled as the minor VCore offset ensured that a constant voltage fed the processor, irrelevant of loading conditions.

In a Windows environment, ASRock's Z87 Killer fed our 4770K with 2mV more than what we applied. This is a good level of accuracy and resulted in complete stability as well as tolerable temperatures with our Corsair H100i CPU cooler.

We pushed for 4.6GHz but could not achieve stability upon running Prime95. This mirrors the results that our 4770K showed on other Z87 motherboard that we have tested.

Our 4.5GHz validation can be viewed here.

We will outline the performance increases that can be obtained from using the ASRock Fatal1ty Z87 Killer motherboard to overclock our system. Our overclocked processor frequency was 4.5GHz and memory speed was 2133MHz.

As we test more Z87 motherboards on our updated test system, we will include comparison data to outline the performance differences between one board's overclocked configurations and results and those of competing products.

3DMark 11's physics score shows a strong improvement when ASRock's Z87 Killer is used to overclock our 4770K to 4.5GHz.

Cinebench registers a 14% performance improvement with the overclocked test system.

In Metro: Last Light, gaming performance remains constant despite the increased CPU speed. This title is heavily swayed by the performance of a GPU, not that of the CPU.

We measured the power consumption with the system resting at the Windows 7 desktop, representing idle values.

The power consumption of our entire test system is measured at the wall while loading only the CPU using Prime95′s Small FFTs setting. The rest of the system’s components were operating in their idle states, hence the increased power consumption values (in comparison to the idle figures) are largely related to the load on the CPU and motherboard power delivery components.

Due to the previously-outlined use of a high 1.280V CPU VCore, the Z87 Killer's stock power consumption numbers are higher than we would typically expect for a system of this calibre.

Our overclocking configuration uses a 1.325V CPU VCore which isn't much higher than the stock level. Due to this fact, power consumption doesn't increase by as big a margin as we would typically record.

As far as good-value, mid-range gaming motherboards go, ASRock's Fatal1ty Z87 Killer is a strong option. The onboard audio solution is powerful, overclocking performance was identical to that of other motherboards, and multi-VGA support (with good spacing) is present.

Overclocking results from the Z87 Killer were identical to those of the other Z87 motherboards that we have tested. We managed to achieve stability at our 4770K's limit of 4.5GHz, although we were forced to apply some unusual BIOS tweaks in order to keep voltages at a sane level. We don't expect to be forced into applying a minimum offset in order to maintain safe VCore levels. While the fix is straightforward, ASRock needs to resolve this issue.

Performance was as good as we would expect from a Z87 motherboard. We didn't observe any obscurities throughout our testing. The SATA and USB storage interfaces were fast and reliable, too. On the point of USB 3.0, I strongly believe that ASRock's XFast USB is an excellent piece of software. Granted, not many people are using SSDs as external storage drives, but for those who are, the circa-20% speed boost that UASP activation offers is truly welcomed.

ASRock gives the Z87 Killer a solid set of worthwhile features that many gamers will relish. Purity Sound is becoming common across ASRock's line of motherboards, but its performance is still impressive, nevertheless. The dedicated mouse port allows users to adjust polling rates, although this is less of a worthwhile feature as many gaming mice already offer their own tweaking software. The built-in network control offered by the Killer E2200 series NIC's software can help to give games and important programs priority on an internal network.

Layout of the Z87 Killer is a little hit-or-miss. Multi-VGA support with effective slot spacing is a good point and so is the space around the CPU socket for large coolers. But some tricks have been missed. ASRock clusters many of the board's fan headers in a location that is difficult to reach while still hiding cables. The outwards-facing USB 3.0 header also makes cable management around that area more difficult.

Priced around the £120 mark, the stiffest competition to ASRock's Z87 Killer comes from MSI's Z87-G45 Gaming motherboard. Both boards utilise the Killer E2200 series NIC, both provide effective multi-VGA support, and both feature a similar red and black colour scheme. The main differences would be MSI's inclusion of an mSATA slot and ASRock's UASP-activating XFast USB software. Of course, the BIOS interfaces will be different, too.

ASRock's Fatal1ty Z87 Killer is a good motherboard that provides plenty of features for mid-range gamers. It does have stiff competition from MSI's Z87-G45 Gaming, but the fast USB 3.0 speed and good BIOS interface may be enough to sway a user's decision in its favour.

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Pros:

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KitGuru says: A good gaming-orientated motherboard that will be right at home as the heart of a mid-range gaming system.

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