ASRock Fatal1ty Z77 Professional Pro Reviews

ASRock Fatal1ty Z77 Professional mainboard made a great overall impression. It has very convenient thought-though layout, is built with high-quality components, features powerful multi-phase digital processor voltage regulator circuitry. Intel Z77 Express chipset comes with a pretty extensive feature set, but in this case we see an unprecedented functionality expansion using numerous onboard controllers. Two ASMedia ASM1061 controllers provide additional SATA and eSATA 6 Gbps ports, there is a four-port USB 3.0 EtronTech EJ188H controller, two Broadcom BCM57781 Gigabit network adapters, the VIA VT6330 controller provides support for the IEEE1394 (FireWire) as well as IDE drives, there is a COM-ports and even a floppy connector! To ensure that all this will work flawlessly together with the expansion card slots, they added an eight-port PLX PEX 8608 hub. It is really hard to find an interface or port that ASRock Fatal1ty Z77 Professional doesn’t support. The only legacy interface we could come up with is LPT, and in terms of contemporary ones – Wi-Fi and the fancy Thunderbolt.

The first thing I want to say is that I really do like the Fatal1ty Z77 Professional, but there are some design decisions that I just down right don't agree with. I'm not sure if they're coming from the ASRock side or from Fatal1ty who has say in the design. Why have we got an IDE and floppy connector on this board? There's nothing gamer about it and there's nothing professional about it. I just don't understand why we see these connectors on Fatal1ty designed boards, which make me think that the decision for this is coming from that end more so than the ASRock team itself. The simple fact is that we don't see these connectors on any of ASRock's top non Fatal1ty boards or any other brand's high-end boards. Along with that I would've liked to have seen a move over to just a single legacy PCI slot and add a third PCIe 1x into the mix or no legacy PCI slot period. I'd love to see ASRock offer us a black and red themed high-end board without the Fatal1ty branding because the looks on the board are killer, but some of the extras on the board are highly questionable.

An absolute bargain Z77 motherboard, perfect for the peripheral-heavy gamer, and pretty good for everyone else too.