ASRock Fatal1ty Z270 Gaming K6 Review

Today I have the great pleasure of introducing you all to ASRock's brand new Z270 Gaming K6!

Right out the gate it is clear that there have been some major design changes over it's Z170 stable mate. Lets dig deeper and see what's new, what's improved and what, if anything, could be better.

Lets start off with some specs:

http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Fatal1ty%20Z270%20Gaming%20K6/index.asp

I must note that there is an * on the box specs regarding DDR4 3866 support that claims it is only applicable when a single RAM module is installed. This does not mean you will not be able to achieve this speed in Dual channel with 2 modules but that ASRock does not guarantee you will be able to. I am not sure why this is included if it is only tested with a single module but for those looking for more extreme overclocking it is useful to know. I also suspect that as faster RAM kits become available at lower voltages (1.2 default vs 1.35) and latencies we will see this become more commonly possible for 2 DIMMs.

Now given the Z270 has just been released I will break it down a little here to highlight some improvements over Z170:

The Z270 provides additional 4 HSIO Lanes over Z170 which equates to more IO options. In addition we also have an extra four PCIe 3.0 lanes form the PCH. Perhaps one of the more interesting differences is "Optane" support. Not much info is available on intel's Optane technology yet but it is a fairly safe bet that, given that is just about the only notable addition to Kaby Lake over Skylake, intel think it will be a game changer. If the current hype is true Optane could herald in some unprecedented performance improvements and efficiency. Read more here:

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and-technology/non-volatile-memory.html (copy paste link)

All in all, Z270 looks to be a refined, more feature rich platform than it's older Z170 sibling. If Optane can deliver on both it's performance claims and intel's hinted affordability then things could get interesting.

So how does the Z270 Gaming K6 stack up against the older Z170 Gaming K6/+?

Take a look:

If you were considering purchasing a Z170 Gaming K6 and have not done so yet then you will definitely be interested in the Z270 Gaming K6. It sports all the same features and more and is topped off by the addition of RGB lighting options.

ASRock recently unveiled new logos for their product lines and here we can see the Gaming logo prevalent on the front of the product packaging. The large "G" for gaming covers the entire face of the box with the Fatal1ty logo letting you know in no uncertain terms that this board is aimed at the hardcore gamer. On the bottom right corner we see the usual list of tech logos this product supports, HDMI, Nvidia SLI, AMD Crossfire, Intel 7^th Gen LGA 1151 CPU support, Z270 chipset and intel Core inside.

When I opened the shipping container and saw this staring back at me I have to admit I got a bit excited??

The back of the box is well laid out and highlights some of the more noteworthy features of the board. Perhaps most notably is the inclusion of not only RGB LED highlights on the board itself but also a controllable RGB LED strip header. I will go over the features and specs a little later on.

Once we remove the decorative sleeve, I love this packaging design, we are greeted by a glossy black box with "ASRock" proudly central on the top. The inclusion of a carry handle, although largely redundant, is pretty neat. While the packaging is not really any better or worse at protecting your kit it does make the product feel more high quality with the extra effort put in to the packaging.

Flipping open the lid on your shiny black box reveals an all black interior with all the extras laid bare for you to see.

The top compartment contains:

3x M.2 mounting screws (one was tucked away in my user manual so I missed it in this pic)

User manual

Service Guide

Driver disk

ASRock case badge

2x SATA 3.0 cables, one with a right angle connector

A rather stylish looking themed IO shield

An ASRock Gaming post card, neat though I

The IO Armor in all it's glory. It is a little more extravagant than the IO Armor found on ASRock's 100 series boards but still maintains the same feel. The addition of an RGB LED will make it stand out a little better in a windowed case too.

Here we see the locations of the 2 Ultra M.2 slots. It is very nice to see that ASRock listened to their users and positioned them in such a way that they will no longer be covered by the GPU in a single GPU system. The slot to the left of the PCH heatsink will be covered by larger GPUs in dual GPU configurations however but Dual GPU systems account for a minuscule percentage of users. The odds of a user having dual GPUs AND dual M.2 drives are even lower still. Even in this worst case scenario (with regards to M.2 drive airflow) the slot is located near the bottom edge of even the longest GPUs and will not be subjected to the direct heat generated by the graphics card's GPU.

Lastly we have the rear IO. From left to right and top to bottom we have:

Antenna mounting points

PS2 combo port (still useful IMO)

2x USB 3.0 ports

D-Sub video out

DVI-D dual link video out

HDMI video out

Intel Gigabit LAN

USB 3.1 type A

USB 3.2 type C

Intel Gigabit LAN

2x USB 3.0

Audio connectors including Optical

Again, nothing skimped out on here. It could be argued that D-Sub is redundant and a Display Port would be preferable but that is just knit picking on outputs that will likely never see use outside of troubleshooting anyway. I like the inclusion of a legacy D-Sub connection personally as I have several old D-Sub monitors knocking about that I occasionally use for testing during builds.

UEFI

The UEFI has been updated with a matching theme to the product packaging. I will not be going hugely in depth here but I will break down the main UEFI screens.

This is ASRock's EZ mode UEFI screen that covers all the basics including setting XMP profiles, EZ OC profiles and Boot priority. It also shows the all essential monitoring info.

Switching to advanced mode opens up access to all the fine tuning and tweaks you could possibly want. I always use advanced mode preferentially over EZ Mode as it allows me to customize my settings more precisely.

If you want/need more info about the UEFI and it's settings please ask in the comments and I will be happy to answer any questions you may have.

Benchmarks and Testing

Test System:

CPU Skylake: Core i5 6600k

CPU Kaby Lake: Core i5 7600k

Motherboard Skylake: Z170 Pro4s

Motherboard Kaby Lake: Z270 Gaming K6

GPU: Gigabyte GTX 960 G1 Gaming 2gb

CPU Cooler: Corsair Hydro Series H105 AIO water cooler

RAM: 16gb (2x8gb) Corsair DDR4 3600 Vengeance LPX

SSD: PNY Optima 240gb

PSU: OCZ Fatal1ty Champion Series 1000w

Case: Fractal Design Define S

OS: Windows 10 Professional

I have tried to ensure as many components as possible remain in common with each test configuration to ensure an even playing field when testing/benchmarking.

CPUz

7600k

6600k

CPUz Benchmarks

I always like to kick off the benchmarks with CPUz's internal benchmark so here we go.

After all my tests ran flawlessly and without hiccup I decided to see just what this Z270 Gaming K6 could do and really put the screws to it in my overclocking tests.

After several days of incremental bumps to the multiplier then voltage I was able to achieve a 100% stable 5.04ghz overclock with the i5 7600k with a voltage of 1.424v. Temps were a little toasty under prime95 load coming in at almost 90c but the system remained completely stable. Once I determined the system was stable I went about running a few benchmarks as you have already seen in the tables above.

I settled on 5.049ghz but am quite sure I can push this CPU even further with this board and cooler, sadly time became a factor and I wanted this review ready for release day.

I wasn't satisfied with just overclocking the 7600k, I had to see if the Z270 Gaming K6 could eek out any more performance with the 6600k than my previous boards. Across 3 boards the best I have been able to muster with the 6600k is 4.4ghz stable and 4.5ghz benchable (BSODs under prime). With the Z270 Gaming K6 I was able to achieve 4.6ghz stable, even under prime and at almost 0.1v lower than it took just to post on the Z170 Pro4s.

The Z270 Gaming K6 really flexes it's beefy 12 phase power design and yielded phenomenal overclocking results. My 6600k sample is has never been the best overclocker but even that was able to achieve 200mhz more on this board. I have seen other reviews/reviewers complain about the lack of automated overclocking features in the UEFI but in my opinion this isn't necessary. Getting to 5ghz was as simple as enabling EZ-OC and setting the system to the 4.8ghz preset, raising the multi to 50 and the voltage to 1.43 (which equates to 1.424 in CPUz). That is literally all it took and I was humming away at 5.0ghz. Raising the BCLK by 0.05 was done simply to get a true 5ghz result as the BCLK fluctuates slightly, which is normal.

General Use

Audio

The ASRock Z270 Gaming K6 utilizes the Realtek ALC1220 sound chip which appears to be an upgrade over the ALC1150. In conjunction with this we also get Creative Labs Sound Blaster Cinema 3 software which must be licensed to a particular product. This is one of the advantages of the Z270 Gaming K6 over it's similarly specced Extreme series counterparts.

The software allows you to set your preferences for 4 different application types: Music, Movies, Games and Voice. This is a very useful feature as it saves you having to adjust presets whenever you switch tasks.

Each preset has the same options so we will look at the movie settings.

Here we have virtual surround. I don't like it, not because it's done badly but because I don't like the way it sounds. I generally turn this down for music and movies as I feel it washes out certain frequencies. When it comes to gaming however I actually found it quite useful, its positional simulation is actually very good and allows for much better immersion in single player titles and gives you a bit of an edge (vs someone without it) in multiplayer FPS titles.

Creative Labs Crystalizer has been something I have loved since my first Sound Blaster Audigy. It brings a crisper, cleaner edge to your highs without adversely effecting mids and lows. I tend to crank this all the way up for most things but a middling setting would probably suit most users best.

I generally set this to off or very low given my 2.1 sound system is very bass heavy as it is. None the less, it does improve the punchiness of your lows on standard stereo speakers or headphones.

Smart volume can be a blessing and a curse. I would advise setting this to off when gaming if you plan to use in game volume controls as it will raise the volume to match system sounds effectively rendering in game volume controls all but useless except perhaps if you set them to 0. If you do not adjust your volume using in game controls then you will want this bad boy on, it can really help in your FPS MMOs by bringing subtler sounds to the fore and maybe giving you that split second longer to react to an approaching adversary. Some call it cheating, I call it my only chance to stay alive 

Now this is my favorite audio setting, ever, in the history of audio settings, period, end of story. Laugh all you like but I know I am not the only one that has wanted to rip out a DVD crush it into a million pieces and stomp on it because the sound effects are loud enough to be deafening and the dialogue is so quiet you have to keep yo-yoing the volume, only to get the life scared out of you by an explosion 2 seconds after you turn it up to hear what people are actually saying. Know what I mean? Well this lovely little setting fixes that. The setting detects dialogue and raises the volume to your preset level so you no longer have to be deafened by stupid sound effects if you actually want to hear what the movie is about. It isn't perfect, there is tiny bit of distortion and noise caused by the way it works but believe me when I say, it is a very slight annoyance in comparison to poorly mixed movies, pretty much all of them since 2000. I know this isn't as much of an issue with 5.1 and larger sound systems but for those of us still using 2.1 audio, this setting is brilliant.

The ASRock Z270 Gaming K6 is without a doubt the most impressive motherboard I have had in my workshop to date. It has taken the already solid Z170 Gaming K6, fitted it with the latest Z270 chipset and addressed most, if not all the issues users had with it's predecessor. Not only that but it has also added more connectivity, RGB lighting and an RGB lighting strip header to bring it up to date with the trends of the now. Love or hate RGB lighting this board should not be overlooked, its impressive set of features, elegant design and quality components set it apart from it's 100 series predecessors. From the steel reinforced PCIe slots to the overkill 12 phase power design and dual gigabit LAN there is very little more anyone could want from a gaming oriented motherboard or any class of motherboard for that matter.

Kaby Lake is not going to lure many, if any from Skylake. There just isn't enough of a performance benefit. Once Optane becomes available we may see that change as I believe you will need a Kaby Lake CPU and motherboard to be able to use it. Those that have held out on upgrading and are looking to do so now however will find Kaby Lake to be quite attractive with its improved IO vs Skylake as well as future-proofing in the form of Optane readiness. If you are using an Ivy Bridge system or earlier, or even AMD, Kaby Lake has a lot to offer both in terms of performance and connectivity.

I must confess this review had me perplexed, I, like many others, was somewhat disappointed with what Kaby Lake brought to the table. Many of us were hoping for something truly groundbreaking on the cusp of AMD releasing Ryzen. Surely intel would have an answer. Kaby Lake thus far is best compared to Haswell Refresh or "Devil's Canyon" in terms of what it brings to the table, higher clocks, better overclocking headroom and scarcely anything else. Optane is the only thing I can see that may be intel's ace up the sleeve, if it turns out to be a game changer it may well be enough to set Kaby Lake apart but in terms of what is available now, Kaby Lake is just a higher clocked refinement over Skylake with a refined chipset that sports marginally better IO. Just as this had begun to get me down I realized something, I am not reviewing Kaby Lake, I am reviewing ASRock's Z270 Gaming K6. ASRock had nothing to do with Kaby Lake's development so why should I be disappointed with the motherboard? As soon as I chose to review the Z270 Gaming K6 as I would any other motherboard and ignored the fact that it is based on a new generation of hardware things started to look up. It wasn't long before I was proved wrong and was ticking along at 5ghz+ on all 4 cores rock stable. The ASRock Z270 Gaming K6 checks all the right boxes, was a breeze to work with and felt solid throughout testing. The board clearly states it is Optane ready and has all the connectivity once only found on enthusiast or enterprise grade products. Try as I might I could find no fault with the board. My only niggles were the lack of socketed BIOS ROMs and the Aura RGB software. The first is beyond ASRock, or any manufacturers control and the second will no doubt be patched in short order. Even if the software were entirely broken you can still set your LEDs from within the UEFI and the experience was quick and painless. Bare in mind that my sample was shipped out to me before the product was released and as such the Aura software should be considered "beta".

The Aura RGB software has been updated and now is a strong point for the product and all others that use it. It is intuitive and offers outstanding control over your color scheme.

You won't be running out to upgrade your Skylake or even Haswell system to Kaby Lake but if you were considering Skylake as an option then Kaby Lake is for you. It is Skylake refined and if the trend holds will deliver significantly higher overclocking and as a result performance over Skylake.

If you do plan to upgrade and have the budget for it I highly recommend the ASRock Z270 Gaming K6.

Overall ratings:

Build Quality: 10

Software/UEFI: 10

Performance: 10

Value: 9

Note:

I rate value as 9 because, as always, when it comes to motherboards one is often best served by a cheaper board with less bells and whistles. While the Z270 Gaming K6 is a fantastic board it does have numerous features that many users could do without in favor of a cheaper price point. When compared to similar specced boards however it's value truly shines.