ASRock Fatal1ty X99 Professional/3.1 (Intel X99) Motherboard Review

Introduction

ASRock is a company focused on bringing performance motherboards to the market, and with the Intel X99 chipset, they have done just that. I previously reviewed many of ASRock's X99 offerings and today I take a look at one of their "second" generation X99 motherboards with some more refined features. Although this is one of two iterations of the Fatal1ty X99 Professional, this one features the X Series OC Socket, and USB 3.1. The Fatal1ty Professional line is ASRock's top tier gaming motherboard.

ASRock has segmented their lineup into their mainstream, overclocking, and gaming lineups, the Fatal1ty name is for their gaming series. The original Fatal1ty X99 Professional I tested a while ago performed really well, but it lacked the special socket with extra pins that enables higher cache and memory overclocking potential. The Fatal1ty X99 Professional/3.1 has the X Series OC socket which should help boost cache and memory overclocking potential. It has also been a long time since I used the original Fatal1ty X99 Professional, and I am excited to see what ASRock has improved upon.

Specifications

ASRock has provided dual GBit NICs, USB 3.1 on the IO Panel and on an extra A+A type card, two M.2 slots, mPCIe slot, Purity 2 Audio, and SATA Express. Those are just a few of the features of the Fatal1ty X99 Professional/3.1, there are also many gaming features such as Killer LAN and streaming software bundled with the motherboard.

Pricing

The Fatal1ty X99 Professional/3.1 is priced at $359.99 plus a bit extra for shipping on Newegg at the time of writing, putting it in the high-end of X99 motherboards.