ASRock FATAL1TY Z270 GAMING-ITX/AC LGA1151/ Intel Z270/ DDR4/ SATA3&USB3.0/ M.2&SATA Express/ WiFi/ A&GbE/ Mini-ITX Motherboard

Had to reset BIOS configuration to get it to work, but otherwise no problems here.

Insertion: This motherboard, and apparently many others, does not allow the simultaneous use of the internal graphics card and a pcie graphics card. Installation of a graphics card in the pcie slot disables the internal card.Review: This motherboard is way better than MSI or EVGA. My first comparable motherboard, made by MSI, I bent the CPU pins. My fault, yes, but paying and paying to get it fixed, and the MSI Z170A still doesn't work when stood vertically. If MSI is not going to fix the motherboard properly, then they should not offer a repair service, whose repeated shipping costs due to their errors quickly surpasses the cost of the motherboard itself. So I bought the most expensive instead -- the EVGA motherboard. It worked without problems, but the physical layout was so difficult. The graphics card smashed all the way to the right, the code indicator under the CD, the list goes on and on. Everything was in that difficult to reach location. And don't forget s-l-o-w. Boot took forever. Not that it was any worse than MSI, but UEFI took as estimated 40 seconds in fast boot mode, before getting to the boot strap loader. Why? It was refusing to boot Debian 8, and I was trying everything, and I disconnected power to the graphics card because it was difficult to remove.... and bad idea... Time to get another motherboard. Compare that to ASRock...ASRock is cheaper than EVGA and/or MSI, plus ASRock is way better. ASRock standard pin ports are more, and positioned much better. Extra support for the PCIE slots which are much easier to deal with, and better looking in general. But this says nothing about what it is like to use. The BIOS (UEFI) is fast... As in lighting fast. To get to UEFI settings requires a quick finger on the keyboard. I never put it into fast boot mode because the instructions say that the UEFI will run so fast that entering the settings again requires a reset of the CMOS. I just clocked it: From CPU power button press, until graphically logged into Debian 8 as root, consumes 19.62 seconds. Yep. ASRock + OS is booted in half the time it takes the others to think about beginning to boot the OS. I always felt it was wrong that motherboards took so long to POST (power on self test (which doesn't test much))... now I know it is.An ASRock UEFI update is a menu option away. That's right. No more complicated, cross your fingers downloading onto a thumb drive and uploading into BIOS, hoping you did it right -- or else. ASRock made the process automatic. The UEFI connects to the web, downloads and installs the proper update for you. No kidding. I am actually unafraid to update the BIOS, as it is only one menu selection away. As for that BIOS switch EGVA has -- I couldn't get it to work on the other setting... no comfort there.The only issue I have found is Debian doesn't like ASRock combined with the CD player. If I do not try to boot the Debian 8 live install CD, there is a way around the issue. Advancement always has issues to historical things, and I too hate CDs. On the plus side, ASRock has no problem booting from thumb drive and M.2 cards. It had an issue automatically booting from SATA when mixed with M.2 cards, but it does work, and the last UEFI update got it functioning automatically now. Therefore, I can verify that ASRock will load boot sectors from PCIE M.2 cards, SATA Rotating Platters, SATA SSDs, and USB Thumb Drives. ASRock rocks.

Pros:Since there are too many black/red builds I really wanted to go black/white. This board is one of the few that has good specs and comes in black/white. It does look good inside of my case.- 3 M.2 slots. I will be definitely using them- Wi-Fi built in. I am using it daily and it is stable, no issues. Recently switched to Intel Gb LAN - it works great. Make sure you pick 219v LAN port if dual ports are not needed.- Plenty of SATA III ports- Dr. Debug code screen. I find it helpful- It supports both Skylake and KabyLake (I am using Skylake)- RAM overclock feature worked right away when I switched XMP profile "ON". It now runs my RAM at its maximum 3000Mhz.Cons:- I was really annoyed and frustrated when I was trying to turn it on. It would not boot. It would not even go to BIOS, just pop A2 code and that's it. I tried everything possible: tried another monitor, different HDMI cable, replaced RAM, tried different SATA ports, even returned one board and ordered another one. After spending my whole weekend trying to troubleshoot it, I finally found someone's forum post discussing their new ASRock Z270 SuperCarrier board having the same issue and how he shorted undisclosed pins that say TEST1. I did it and my board actually started booting after I restarted it a few times.- AURA LED light is really dim. I have a huge video card that actually blocks much of that light, so I just turned it off.- Intel Ethernet ports did not seem to work, they finally worked later after I installed fresh Intel drivers.- Windows 7 Pro would not install, even when I used ASRock utility to create a USB boot drive. So I had to dig out my old SATA HDD, copy Windows 7 image to it, connect it to my new computer and install Windows 7. I had to do the same thing for all of the drivers, since I did not have a working CD drive.Other Thoughts: - My build:Intel i7 6700KASRock Z270 Taichi32Gb DDR4 3000 Corsair Vengeance White2 x 512 Samsung 850 PRO SATA III SSDSeasonic SnowSilent 1050W White power supply with custom white BitFenix cablesCorsair 750D Full Tower caseID-Cooling ICEKIMO 120W all-white liquid coolerBitFenix White LED strips (2x30 cm)GALAX GeForce GTX 1080 Hall Of Fame white/aluminumMy serial number 72M0XB027824******************************************************Update: Dec 06, 2017My Wi-Fi was very glitchy at first, updating directly from Intel did nothing. Intel LAN ports also did not work. I tried my luck a few weeks later with a fresh Intel driver update and everything worked fine since then. The board works well, stable and without issues. I had it for about 9 months now, no complaints. Giving it 5 stars again.

To call this board great would be an understatement. To start off, My build with this included the i7 7700K topped with the Corsair Hydro H55 (Yes this does fit socket 1151), Corsair Vengeance LPX 2x8 GB 3200 MHz Ram, and Corsair CS850M PSU inside the Corsair Air 540 (That's a lot of Corsair! Quality you can trust!). I chose this board because I had been looking for a board that provided performance, elegance, and quality at a reasonable price without all the flashy on-board gimmicks like LED's and such. The board is very strong and does not bend easily when inserting RAM or power connections and the simple yet elegant layout is accented perfectly with the Black/White themed Corsair products I used with it. The layout of the board's connections are perfect for any fan setup. Completing my build, plugging it in, and crossing my fingers as I pressed the power button I was greeted with the sweet sweet song of the Post. After wiping my forehead I dove into the BIOS to see what I was dealing with and to be honest I was astounded how quickly I updated my BIOS, checked to assure all components were properly recognized, Overclocked my Corsair Vengeance 3200 MHz RAM and booted into my Windows 10 installation disk all within a matter of 5 minutes.All in all this board is perfect for someone who doesn't want to spend extra money on flashy gimmicky higher priced boardsPros:Great price, just being made by ASRock is a pro, sturdy, beautiful, very low temperatures, has a PCI slot, easy to use interactive BIOS, amazing Overclocking capabilities, Supports 7th Gen cpu, compatible with the Corsair Hydro H55 liquid cooler, USB C and USB 3.0 HeadersCons:Doesn't make coffee

I wanted a newer upgrade from my 5 year old i5 core iBuyPower gaming pc (Got a great deal) but can not afford the latest and greatest 9th and 10th gen. So I purchased and i7 7700K and this board was listed as compatible. I was a little skeptical with it being used and the complaints I saw about the boards arriving DOA. Been about 10 years since I built a PC so I was looking forward to this. The Z270 motherboard is performing awesome paired with my MSI GTX 1660 Super. Everything is working from the word go after pressing the power button. Games run smooth with zero hiccups. If you want to build on a budget this board is the way to go. As for all the negativity in the reviews, I see it like this, just like anything else that comes off an assembly line not every product is going to be fine. There will be a few that get through QC with issues. This motherboard works and works well.

I purchased this motherboard one year ago, but I still see people looking at products like this to build their computers, so I'm going to explain a bit about this motherboard, the limitations and what you can expect.First than anything, this motherboard only supports gens 6 and 7 of Intel processors. If you got a 8th gen or higher, it isn't going to run, go for a z370 instead.The motherboard has 8 SATA ports. However, if you install M.2 SSDs, one or two of the SATA ports are going to be disabled; the manual says which ones.The motherboard's LED features are scarce; if you want to seriously light your computer this isn't going to be even remotely enough. The ports/connectors are okay, good quality. The back plate, though, didn't fit exactly like it should have (it was off for some millimeters).Asrock's software lets you play with the LED effects from Windows. In addition, the BIOS/UEFI has an easy mode named "EZ Mode" that lets you set up the most basic features painlessly.The motherboard has several options to overclock your processor. I haven't used them myself, though, but the options exist in case you have an unlocked processor (K). Finally, the motherboard doesn't need special drivers under Windows 10 to run except for Realtek's sound chip. In the latest version of Windows 10 (1809) the microphone sounded distorted and extremely loud when I tried to use it in any program that recorded or streamed audio; the problem was solved immediately upon installing the drivers.

When it comes to form and aesthetics, I think AsRock nailed this one down pretty well. The mechanical yin-yang theme in black and white is visually appealing, and has enough bells and whistles that would make most think this board would have been more expensive than it ended up being. You get TEN SATA ports on the board, THREE USB 2.0 headers, which is great if you have front panel ports, an AIO that connects, as well as a power supply that connects. It supports memory very well, and has easy-to-understand ways to overclock the RAM and CPU.The only small complaint I would have is the bright red LED next to the Dr. Debug display that is always on, and cannot be turned off. It's to show which BIOS is in operation, but it's very bright, so will end up just covering it up with some electrical tape or something - not enough of an issue to knock off a star, but I hope they find a way of fixing that in the future.EDIT: One small thing I noticed, and not sure if it's a huge thing or not, but just curious about why AsRock decided to only put two case fan headers on this board, yet have more on the Extreme4. Not only that, but they are both set up really close to the middle of the board, so you end up stringing your fan cables to the middle instead of to the sides/bottom where I think they should have been in the first place.

Bought this based on positive reviews on tech web sites for a new build. The first board lasted me about about 2 months with intermittent loss of power on back ports and finally just died. I RMAd it but the way that stuff works it could be several hoops and weeks before I got a replacement (if they approved it). So I purchased my 2nd board here at Amazon and it was DOA. I returned it (wasn't allowed an exchange?) and I stubbornly bought a third one at a different retailer (probably shouldn't have). So far its now held up for nearly a year which is the good part.The not so good stuff? Let's start with Ram slots, most have a capacitor between them which gives the slots enough space for the ram. This board did not, nor the equivalent amount of space. My GSkill ram which was ASrock recommended barely fit with the heat spreaders scrapping against each other. If the ram and its heat spreaders had been a millimeter thicker they would not have fit at all. Speaking of capacitors there are two near the front of the PCI express slot--you normally find them out of the way next to the slot--they were actually bent forward a bit which blocked the front of my graphics card from slotting in correctly. I had to very gently push them back up straight, so the card wouldn't damage them. Placement of USB 3 front connector, blocked SATA connector access if you had locking cable. This proved to be vastly annoying when trying to trouble shoot the hardware for issues. The fan controller software is primitive and doesn't work consistently. There were other minor shortcomings which I wont bother with.It isn't all bad, I do like their BIOS and they were quick with a BIOS update for the Spectre vulnerability. Also I did eventually get a refurbished replacement for my first board, which is currently sitting in the closet as a backup. I've used several different companies over the years (Asus, ECS, gigabyte, XFX, etc), but this was my first ASrock mobo. This is definitely the worst or maybe 2nd worst build I've had in terms of mobos in the 15 years or so that I've been building computers for myself, friends, family and small businesses. I don't think I will go with them again or at least not for a long time after this largely frustrating experience.