ASRock Fatal1ty Z270 Gaming K6 Motherboard Review

Rating: 8.0.

Today sees the launch of Intel's new Z270 chipset and the Kaby Lake CPUs. There's no change to the LGA 1151 socket but the new chipset brings with it additional features that may tempt users into an upgrade over their ageing system. ASRock's Fatal1ty Z270 Gaming K6 sits towards the upper end of the mid-range Z270 market section and aims to lure in buyers with additional features and the popular red and black colour scheme.

You can read our Kaby Lake Core i5-7600K and Core i7-7700K review HERE.

Leaning heavily upon the Z270 chipset's wealth of features, ASRock's Fatal1ty Z270 Gaming K6 offers up a pair of PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe- and SATA-capable M.2 slots in addition to eight SATA 6Gbps ports and 10Gbps USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C and Type-A. Clearly high-speed storage is covered well and the same can be said for graphics card expansion with 2-card SLI and 3-card CrossFire capability.

Leveraging the tried-and-tested red and black colour scheme, ASRock also adds RGB-ness into the Gaming K6 mix. Three individual locations are equipped with RGB LEDs and there's also a 4-pin AURA RGB header that can power and control external strips from the likes of Cable Mod. Emphasising its position towards the upper-end of the mid-range market, a pumped-up audio solution based around Realtek's ALC1220 audio codec is found in addition to dual GbE NICs from Intel.

Many hardware and feature boxes have clearly been checked by the ASRock Fatal1ty Z270 Gaming K6. Can the board's performance and software implementations prove that it's a valid contender in a competitive market?

Features:

• Creative Sound Blaster Cinema 3
• AURA RGB LED
• 3 PCI-e Steel Slots
• Dual Intel LAN with Teaming
• Dual Ultra M.2 for SSD
• Hyper BCLK Engine II
• SLI HB Bridge
• Dual USB 3.1 (Type-A and Type-C)
• Super Alloy
• Gaming Armor

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