|
ASRock Fatal1ty Z270 Gaming K6 Review |
Post Reply 
|
Page <123> |
| Author | ||
no1yak 
Newbie 
Joined: 04 Jul 2016 Location: UK Status: Offline Points: 23 |
 Post Options
 Thanks(0)
 Quote Reply
 Posted: 20 Jan 2017 at 5:39am |
|
Did you find out about how the Bios switches from A to B? |
||
 |
||
|
Xaltar
Moderator Group 
Joined: 16 May 2015 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 24518 |
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: 16 Jan 2017 at 12:32am |
|
|
I will be contacting ASRock Tech Support about the BIOS switching tomorrow, I will post back when I know more
 I tested the XMP switch myself and yes, it is exactly that, an XMP enable/disable switch. The quality of the board is brilliant for it's price, I am sure you will enjoy it.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
no1yak
Newbie
Joined: 04 Jul 2016 Location: UK Status: Offline Points: 23 |
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: 15 Jan 2017 at 10:36pm |
|
Edited by no1yak - 15 Jan 2017 at 10:53pm |
||
|
||
|
Xaltar
Moderator Group
Joined: 16 May 2015 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 24518 |
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: 13 Jan 2017 at 10:42pm |
|
|
Good point about the XMP switch. I will give that a look too.
I believe I mentioned the socketed ROMs being discontinued. Its a sad fact but understandable. I have not noticed any UEFI freezing or issues with the unsocketed ROM, I can't help but wonder if the SMT ROM is more efficient and has lower latency. My point is, I think it may even be better for stability in the UEFI.
|
||
|
|
||
|
||
|
parsec
Moderator Group
Joined: 04 May 2015 Location: USA Status: Offline Points: 4996 |
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: 13 Jan 2017 at 10:33pm |
|
Regarding the dual UEFI/BIOS feature, I believe the manual has an error about the switch that has been traditionally used to select the A or B UEFI chips. The switch labeled XMP Switch in reality should be the UEFI/BIOS A/B selection switch. The location of this switch, adjacent to the Clear CMOS jumper, is a clue about its purpose. I have several ASRock boards with the dual UEFI/BIOS feature, and they use the same style of switch on this board for that purpose. The XMP switch feature is unusual, and in the past has only been found on the ASRock OC Formula boards. I would be surprised to find that feature on a gaming type board. I may be wrong about this, and will look into it myself as well. About the non-socketed UEFI/BIOS chips, there is a simple reason they are now being used. The DIP chips that can be used in a socket are no longer being manufactured. As with most electronic components, chips like this are now manufactured in the surface mount style only. The demand for the standard chips is so low that it is no longer feasible to continue their production. ASRock, and the other mother board manufactures, can't get these chips anymore. |
||
|
||
|
||
|
Xaltar
Moderator Group
Joined: 16 May 2015 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 24518 |
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: 13 Jan 2017 at 4:00pm |
|
|
Main review updated with details on the new Aura RGB software.
|
||
|
|
||
|
||
|
Xaltar
Moderator Group
Joined: 16 May 2015 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 24518 |
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: 13 Jan 2017 at 7:51am |
|
|
UPDATE!
ASRock have released a new version of the ASRock Aura RGB software and it works BRILLIANTLY!
|
||
|
|
||
|
||
|
Xaltar
Moderator Group
Joined: 16 May 2015 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 24518 |
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: 13 Jan 2017 at 12:37am |
|
|
I would imagine so, I see no jumper or switch on the board. Without actually experiencing a fault I can't test that. I will get in touch with tech support and inquire. If it is an automated process I heartily approve, most users are not comfortable poking around inside their systems and this would alleviate the need almost entirely.
Thanks for bringing this to my attention, I will update as soon as I have more info.
|
||
|
|
||
|
||
|
no1yak
Newbie
Joined: 04 Jul 2016 Location: UK Status: Offline Points: 23 |
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: 13 Jan 2017 at 12:24am |
|
|
You spoke of the Bios having two chips but, no switch. Does that mean that if a fault occurs that it will switch to Bios "B" without any intervention for the user. Shame that the chips are soldered.
Edited by no1yak - 13 Jan 2017 at 12:28am |
||
|
||
|
Xaltar
Moderator Group
Joined: 16 May 2015 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 24518 |
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: 07 Jan 2017 at 2:58am |
|
|
Update 2:
So Nvidia released a new driver version 378.78 which purportedly increases DX12 performance yesterday in a handful of titles, including several of the titles in my benchmark suite so I took to the task of rebenching my entire gaming suite to see if these gains would translate into usable figures. When I initially ran my gaming benchmarks I discovered that my GTX 960 was simply too much of a bottleneck and all my results were 100% GPU bound in all my test scenarios, even at 720p on the lowest possible settings. Unfortunately the new driver did not provide any better results in the majority of my titles, however, 1 game did yield some usable figures. Gears of War 4 has seen a sizeable boost in performance at the lowest possible settings, enough that I was able to see my GPU bound rating drop for a locked 100% to 98.4% on the i5 6600k. So with this exciting result I proceeded to run the full gamut of tests in GoW4 and tabulate the results for you all. So, without further ado, here are the results:  Both the i5s were tested at their maximum turbo rating across all cores (MCE on). I did this because the Z270 Gaming K6 enables MCE by default so this is representative of "out of the box" performance. For the first time in all my testing I was able to show the performance advantage of the i5 7600k over it's older brother the i5 6600k in a gaming metric. As you can see from the results the GPU bound rating increases by 1% from Skylake to Kaby Lake. Now as I have shown in the review, Kaby Lake and Skylake demonstrate almost identical IPC at matched clocks so this performance increase is a direct result of the 300mhz difference between the 2 CPUs. Overclocking the Kaby Lake to 5.0ghz (my 24/7 OC) we see that figure lock back to 100% once more. I have focused on the GPU bound ratings here because they are the most telling, the fps recorded in my testing were fairly inconsistent and could vary quite significantly from one run to the next, the GPU Bound score however remained constant. None the less, the above results are averaged based on 6 runs with the highest and lowest scores discounted and the remaining 4 results averaged. So for those of you with higher end GPUs, there is definitely a benefit to be had with regards to gaming performance from upgrading to Kaby Lake over even Skylake. While I still wouldn't recommend it I don't see many Skylake CPUs able to overclock to 5ghz and beyond so if you are one of those gamers that simply must have the best then Kaby Lake should not be ignored. For the rest of us however, overclocking your Skylake i5 will net you much of the same gains without having to fork out for the newer CPU. The ASRock Z270 Gaming K6 overclocks like a champ and still has my recommendation even after months of extensive use. I have encountered no issues at all and my system is stable as a rock @5.0ghz under 24/7 use. If you are looking for a very solid Z270 board that comes with a pretty sleek red and black theme then look no further than the Z270 Gaming K6 and if the K6 is a little above your price range then check out the Z270 Gaming K4, it sacrifices a few features but looks very similar and performs quite closely. Bare in mind that the K4 has a weaker VRM section so overclocking may not be quite as good as the K6. With that I will sign off again. If I find any more interesting news on this product I will update this review again. Edited by Xaltar - 10 Mar 2017 at 3:43pm |
||
|
|
||
|
||
|
Post Reply
|
Page <123> |
Tweet
|
| Forum Jump | Forum Permissions You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot create polls in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum |
Topic Options
Xaltar wrote: