The ASRock B450 Fatal1ty Gaming ITX/ac is under the spotlight today, with support for AMD’s latest Ryzen 2nd generation CPUs, M.2 NVMe storage and much more.
Product on Review: ASRock Fatal1ty B450 Gaming-ITX/ac
Manufacturer: ASRock
Street Price: GBP £119.99 / USD $119.99 / AUS $179.00
A few weeks back, we looked at the ASRock B450M Pro4 and were impressed by its value for money and performance figures compared to similar X470 chipset ‘boards. This time around we’ve dropped a Mini-ITX ASRock board onto the test bench to see how well other models in their line-up perform.
The ASRock Fatal1ty B450 Gaming-ITX/ac is a tiny little motherboard designed to give you the best possible performance in the smallest package. The board itself measures 170mm x 170mm with small heatsinks and space-saving features to make a powerful, yet small, workstation or media PC.
Despite the Fatal1ty Gaming-ITX/ac’s small stature, it’s packed full of features including WiFi, M.2 NVMe storage options and Nichicon audio, making this ideal to be used as a small gaming PC.
Lending itself further to the gaming-orientation of this motherboard is the Fatal1ty branding, a brand which has, no doubt, been around longer than some of the readers of this article. The Fatal1ty brand has been adopted by manufacturers for years, usually being deemed as a pre-cursor to items with a clear design aim towards gaming.
You may be a little put off by the lack of stature, assuming it won’t perform as well as a larger motherboard, well read on to see how it performs.
ASRock on the B450 Fatal1ty Gaming ITX/ac:
The ASRock B450 Gaming ITX Mini-ITX motherboard offers a reinforced PCI-Express 3.0 slot with a full x16 lanes of connectivity for powerful graphics cards. The two RAM slots support up to 32 GB of DDR4 RAM at a frequency of up to 2.933 Megahertz and can even be overclocked to rates of up to 3.200 MHz.
An M.2 slot with PCIe- and SATA connectivity is available due to the motherboard being AM4-compatible. It comes with four PCI-Express Lanes and connects to the chipset with the SATA6G protocol. M.2 SSDs use the advanced NVM-Express protocol (NVMe) and support, thanks to the PCI-Express 3.0 connectivity, speeds of up to eight times faster than those of SATA 6G hard drives. This means data transfer speeds of up to 32 Gbit/s are possible.
The ASRock B450 Gaming ITX offers a USB 3.1 Type C connector as well as a USB 3.1 Type A connection. The USB Type C port can be inserted in either orientation and is especially slim. USB 3.1 Gen 2 is capable of achieving speeds of up to 10 Gbit/s per port and USB ports supporting this standard are generally compatible with smartphones and tablets that offer fast charging. For CPUs with integrated graphics, like AMD’s Raven Ridge APUs, the board offers an HDMI- and a DisplayPort connector.
An M.2 slot with PCIe- and SATA connectivity is available due to the motherboard being AM4-compatible. It comes with four PCI-Express Lanes and connects to the chipset with the SATA6G protocol. M.2 SSDs use the advanced NVM-Express protocol (NVMe) and support, thanks to the PCI-Express 3.0 connectivity, speeds of up to eight times faster than those of SATA 6G hard drives. This means data transfer speeds of up to 32 Gbit/s are possible.
The ASRock B450 Gaming ITX offers a USB 3.1 Type C connector as well as a USB 3.1 Type A connection. The USB Type C port can be inserted in either orientation and is especially slim. USB 3.1 Gen 2 is capable of achieving speeds of up to 10 Gbit/s per port and USB ports supporting this standard are generally compatible with smartphones and tablets that offer fast charging. For CPUs with integrated graphics, like AMD’s Raven Ridge APUs, the board offers an HDMI- and a DisplayPort connector.
Technical Specifications
Gaming Armor
Power
– Hi-Density Power Connector (8 pin)
Memory
– 15μ Gold Contact in DIMM Slots
VGA Card
– 15μ Gold Contact in VGA PCIe Slot (PCIE1)
Internet
– Intel® LAN
Cooling
– 2oz Copper PCB
Audio
– Creative Sound Blaster™ Cinema 5
Unique Feature
ASRock USB 3.1 Gen2
– ASRock USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-A Port (10 Gb/s)
– ASRock USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C Port (10 Gb/s)
ASRock Super Alloy
– Premium Power Choke
– Dual-N MOSFET
– Nichicon 12K Black Caps (100% Japan made high quality conductive polymer capacitors)
– Matte Black PCB
– High Density Glass Fabric PCB
– 2oz Copper PCB Intel® 802.11ac WiFi
ASRock Ultra M.2 (PCIe Gen3 x4 & SATA3)
ASRock Full Spike Protection (for all USB, Audio, LAN Ports)
ASRock Live Update & APP Shop
CPU
– AMD AM4 Socket
– Digi Power design
– 8 Power Phase design
– Supports 105W Water Cooling (Pinnacle Ridge); Supports 95W Water Cooling (Summit Ridge); Supports 65W Water Cooling (Raven Ridge)
Chipset
– AMD Promontory B450
Memory
– Dual Channel DDR4 Memory Technology
– 2 x DDR4 DIMM Slots
– AMD Ryzen series CPUs (Pinnacle Ridge) support DDR4 3466+(OC) / 3200(OC) / 2933/2667/2400/2133 ECC & non-ECC, un-buffered memory*
– AMD Ryzen series CPUs (Summit Ridge) support DDR4 3466+(OC) / 3200(OC) / 2933(OC) / 2667/2400/2133 ECC & non-ECC, un-buffered memory*
– AMD Ryzen series CPUs (Raven Ridge) support DDR4 3466+(OC) / 3200(OC) / 2933(OC) / 2667/2400/2133 non-ECC, un-buffered memory*
– Max. capacity of system memory: 32GB**
– 15μ Gold Contact in DIMM Slots
*For Ryzen Series CPUs (Raven Ridge), ECC is only supported with PRO CPUs.
Please refer to below table for DDR4 UDIMM maximum frequency support.
SR: Single rank DIMM, 1Rx4 or 1Rx8 on DIMM module label
DR: Dual rank DIMM, 2Rx4 or 2Rx8 on DIMM module label
**Due to the operating system limitation, the actual memory size may be less than 4GB for the reservation for system usage under Windows® 32-bit OS. For Windows® 64-bit OS with 64-bit CPU, there is no such limitation.
BIOS
– 128Mb AMI UEFI Legal BIOS with GUI support
– Supports “Plug and Play”
– ACPI 5.1 compliance wake up events
– Supports jumperfree
– SMBIOS 2.3 support
– CPU, DRAM, PCH 1.05V, PROM 2.5V, Voltage Multi-adjustment
Graphics
– Integrated AMD Radeon™ Vega Series Graphics in Ryzen Series APU*
– Integrated AMD Radeon™ R-Series Graphics in A-series APU*
– DirectX 12, Pixel Shader 5.0
– Max. shared memory 2GB
– Dual graphics output: Support HDMI and DisplayPort 1.2 by independent display controllers
– Supports HDMI 2.0 with max. resolution up to 4K x 2K (4096×2160) @ 60Hz
– Supports DisplayPort 1.2 with max. resolution up to 4K x 2K (4096×2160) @ 60Hz
– Supports Auto Lip Sync, Deep Color (12bpc), xvYCC and HBR (High Bit Rate Audio) with HDMI 2.0 Ports (Compliant HDMI 2.0 monitor is required)
– Supports HDCP with HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort 1.2 Ports
– Supports 4K Ultra HD (UHD) playback with HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort 1.2 Ports
*Actual support may vary by CPU
Audio
– 7.1 CH HD Audio with Content Protection (Realtek ALC1220 Audio Codec)
– Premium Blu-ray Audio support
– Supports Surge Protection
– Nichicon Fine Gold Series Audio Caps
– 120dB SNR DAC with Differential Amplifier
– Pure Power-In
– Direct Drive Technology
– PCB Isolate Shielding
– Impedance Sensing on Rear Out port
– Individual PCB Layers for R/L Audio Channel
– Gold Audio Jacks
– Supports Creative Sound Blaster™ Cinema 5
LAN
– Gigabit LAN 10/100/1000 Mb/s
– GigaLAN Intel® I211AT
– Supports Wake-On-LAN
– Supports Lightning/ESD Protection
– Supports Energy Efficient Ethernet 802.3az
– Supports PXE
Wireless LAN
– Intel® 802.11ac WiFi Module
– Supports IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n/ac
– Supports Dual-Band (2.4/5 GHz)
– Supports high speed wireless connections up to 433Mbps
– Supports Bluetooth 4.2 / 3.0 + High speed class II
Slots
AMD Ryzen series CPUs (Summit Ridge and Pinnacle Ridge)
– 1 x PCI Express 3.0 x16 Slot (PCIE1: x16 mode)*
AMD Ryzen series CPUs (Raven Ridge)
– 1 x PCI Express 3.0 x16 Slot (PCIE1: x8 mode) (If you use Athlon 200GE APU, PCIE1 slot will run at x4 mode.)*
– 1 x Vertical M.2 Socket (Key E) with the bundled WiFi-802.11ac module (on the rear I/O)
– 15μ Gold Contact in VGA PCIe Slot (PCIE1)
*Supports PCIe riser cards to extend one x16 slot to two x8 slots if you install AMD Ryzen series CPUs
Supports NVMe SSD as boot disks
Storage
– 4 x SATA3 6.0 Gb/s Connectors, support RAID (RAID 0, RAID 1 and RAID 10), NCQ, AHCI and Hot Plug
– 1 x Ultra M.2 Socket, supports M Key type 2280 M.2 SATA3 6.0 Gb/s module and M.2 PCI Express module up to Gen3 x4 (32 Gb/s) (with Summit Ridge, Raven Ridge and Pinnacle Ridge)*
*Supports NVMe SSD as boot disks
Connector
– 1 x LPC Header
– 1 x Addressable LED Header*
– 1 x AMD Fan LED Header**
– 1 x CPU Fan Connector (4-pin)***
– 2 x Chassis/Water Pump Fan Connectors (4-pin) (Smart Fan Speed Control)****
– 1 x 24 pin ATX Power Connector
– 1 x 8 pin 12V Power Connector (Hi-Density Power Connector)
– 1 x Front Panel Audio Connector (15μ Gold Audio Connector)
– 1 x AMD LED Fan USB Header
– 1 x USB 2.0 Header (Supports 2 USB 2.0 ports) (Supports ESD Protection)
– 1 x USB 3.1 Gen1 Header (Supports 2 USB 3.1 Gen1 ports) (Supports ESD Protection)
*Supports in total up to 5V/3A, 15W LED Strip
**The AMD Fan LED Header supports LED strips of maximum load of 3A (36W) and length up to 2.5M.
***The CPU Fan Connector supports the CPU fan of maximum 1A (12W) fan power.
****The Chassis/Water Pump Fan supports the water cooler fan of maximum 2A (24W) fan power.
CHA_FAN1/WP and CHA_FAN2/WP can auto detect if 3-pin or 4-pin fan is in use.
Rear Panel I/O
– 2 x Antenna Ports
– 1 x PS/2 Mouse/Keyboard Port
– 1 x HDMI Port
– 1 x DisplayPort 1.2
– 1 x Optical SPDIF Out Port
– 2 x USB 2.0 Ports (Supports ESD Protection)*
– 1 x USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-A Port (10 Gb/s) (Supports ESD Protection)
– 1 x USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C Port (10 Gb/s) (Supports ESD Protection)
– 2 x USB 3.1 Gen1 Ports (Supports ESD Protection)
– 1 x RJ-45 LAN Port with LED (ACT/LINK LED and SPEED LED)
– HD Audio Jacks: Rear Speaker / Central / Bass / Line in / Front Speaker / Microphone (Gold Audio Jacks)
*1 x Fatal1ty Mouse Port (USB 2.0) is included
Software and UEFI
Software
– ASRock F-Stream
– ASRock Polychrome RGB
– ASRock Key Master
– ASRock XFast LAN
UEFI
– ASRock Full HD UEFI
– ASRock Instant Flash
– ASRock Easy RAID Installer
*These utilities can be downloaded from ASRock Live Update & APP Shop.
Support CD
– Drivers, Utilities, AntiVirus Software (Trial Version), Google Chrome Browser and Toolbar
Accessories
– Quick Installation Guide, Support CD, I/O Shield
– 2 x SATA Data Cables
– 2 x ASRock WiFi 2.4/5 GHz Antennas
– 1 x Screw for M.2 Socket
Hardware Monitor
– Temperature Sensing: CPU, Chassis/Water Pump Fans
– Fan Tachometer: CPU, Chassis/Water Pump Fans
– Quiet Fan (Auto adjust chassis fan speed by CPU temperature): CPU, Chassis/Water Pump Fans
– Fan Multi-Speed Control: CPU, Chassis/Water Pump Fans
– Voltage monitoring: +12V, +5V, +3.3V, CPU Vcore
Form Factor
– Mini-ITX Form Factor: 6.7-in x 6.7-in, 17.0 cm x 17.0 cm
OS
– Microsoft® Windows® 10 64-bit
Certifications
– FCC, CE
– ErP/EuP ready (ErP/EuP ready power supply is required)
Power
– Hi-Density Power Connector (8 pin)
Memory
– 15μ Gold Contact in DIMM Slots
VGA Card
– 15μ Gold Contact in VGA PCIe Slot (PCIE1)
Internet
– Intel® LAN
Cooling
– 2oz Copper PCB
Audio
– Creative Sound Blaster™ Cinema 5
Unique Feature
ASRock USB 3.1 Gen2
– ASRock USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-A Port (10 Gb/s)
– ASRock USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C Port (10 Gb/s)
ASRock Super Alloy
– Premium Power Choke
– Dual-N MOSFET
– Nichicon 12K Black Caps (100% Japan made high quality conductive polymer capacitors)
– Matte Black PCB
– High Density Glass Fabric PCB
– 2oz Copper PCB Intel® 802.11ac WiFi
ASRock Ultra M.2 (PCIe Gen3 x4 & SATA3)
ASRock Full Spike Protection (for all USB, Audio, LAN Ports)
ASRock Live Update & APP Shop
CPU
– AMD AM4 Socket
– Digi Power design
– 8 Power Phase design
– Supports 105W Water Cooling (Pinnacle Ridge); Supports 95W Water Cooling (Summit Ridge); Supports 65W Water Cooling (Raven Ridge)
Chipset
– AMD Promontory B450
Memory
– Dual Channel DDR4 Memory Technology
– 2 x DDR4 DIMM Slots
– AMD Ryzen series CPUs (Pinnacle Ridge) support DDR4 3466+(OC) / 3200(OC) / 2933/2667/2400/2133 ECC & non-ECC, un-buffered memory*
– AMD Ryzen series CPUs (Summit Ridge) support DDR4 3466+(OC) / 3200(OC) / 2933(OC) / 2667/2400/2133 ECC & non-ECC, un-buffered memory*
– AMD Ryzen series CPUs (Raven Ridge) support DDR4 3466+(OC) / 3200(OC) / 2933(OC) / 2667/2400/2133 non-ECC, un-buffered memory*
– Max. capacity of system memory: 32GB**
– 15μ Gold Contact in DIMM Slots
*For Ryzen Series CPUs (Raven Ridge), ECC is only supported with PRO CPUs.
Please refer to below table for DDR4 UDIMM maximum frequency support.
SR: Single rank DIMM, 1Rx4 or 1Rx8 on DIMM module label
DR: Dual rank DIMM, 2Rx4 or 2Rx8 on DIMM module label
**Due to the operating system limitation, the actual memory size may be less than 4GB for the reservation for system usage under Windows® 32-bit OS. For Windows® 64-bit OS with 64-bit CPU, there is no such limitation.
BIOS
– 128Mb AMI UEFI Legal BIOS with GUI support
– Supports “Plug and Play”
– ACPI 5.1 compliance wake up events
– Supports jumperfree
– SMBIOS 2.3 support
– CPU, DRAM, PCH 1.05V, PROM 2.5V, Voltage Multi-adjustment
Graphics
– Integrated AMD Radeon™ Vega Series Graphics in Ryzen Series APU*
– Integrated AMD Radeon™ R-Series Graphics in A-series APU*
– DirectX 12, Pixel Shader 5.0
– Max. shared memory 2GB
– Dual graphics output: Support HDMI and DisplayPort 1.2 by independent display controllers
– Supports HDMI 2.0 with max. resolution up to 4K x 2K (4096×2160) @ 60Hz
– Supports DisplayPort 1.2 with max. resolution up to 4K x 2K (4096×2160) @ 60Hz
– Supports Auto Lip Sync, Deep Color (12bpc), xvYCC and HBR (High Bit Rate Audio) with HDMI 2.0 Ports (Compliant HDMI 2.0 monitor is required)
– Supports HDCP with HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort 1.2 Ports
– Supports 4K Ultra HD (UHD) playback with HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort 1.2 Ports
*Actual support may vary by CPU
Audio
– 7.1 CH HD Audio with Content Protection (Realtek ALC1220 Audio Codec)
– Premium Blu-ray Audio support
– Supports Surge Protection
– Nichicon Fine Gold Series Audio Caps
– 120dB SNR DAC with Differential Amplifier
– Pure Power-In
– Direct Drive Technology
– PCB Isolate Shielding
– Impedance Sensing on Rear Out port
– Individual PCB Layers for R/L Audio Channel
– Gold Audio Jacks
– Supports Creative Sound Blaster™ Cinema 5
LAN
– Gigabit LAN 10/100/1000 Mb/s
– GigaLAN Intel® I211AT
– Supports Wake-On-LAN
– Supports Lightning/ESD Protection
– Supports Energy Efficient Ethernet 802.3az
– Supports PXE
Wireless LAN
– Intel® 802.11ac WiFi Module
– Supports IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n/ac
– Supports Dual-Band (2.4/5 GHz)
– Supports high speed wireless connections up to 433Mbps
– Supports Bluetooth 4.2 / 3.0 + High speed class II
Slots
AMD Ryzen series CPUs (Summit Ridge and Pinnacle Ridge)
– 1 x PCI Express 3.0 x16 Slot (PCIE1: x16 mode)*
AMD Ryzen series CPUs (Raven Ridge)
– 1 x PCI Express 3.0 x16 Slot (PCIE1: x8 mode) (If you use Athlon 200GE APU, PCIE1 slot will run at x4 mode.)*
– 1 x Vertical M.2 Socket (Key E) with the bundled WiFi-802.11ac module (on the rear I/O)
– 15μ Gold Contact in VGA PCIe Slot (PCIE1)
*Supports PCIe riser cards to extend one x16 slot to two x8 slots if you install AMD Ryzen series CPUs
Supports NVMe SSD as boot disks
Storage
– 4 x SATA3 6.0 Gb/s Connectors, support RAID (RAID 0, RAID 1 and RAID 10), NCQ, AHCI and Hot Plug
– 1 x Ultra M.2 Socket, supports M Key type 2280 M.2 SATA3 6.0 Gb/s module and M.2 PCI Express module up to Gen3 x4 (32 Gb/s) (with Summit Ridge, Raven Ridge and Pinnacle Ridge)*
*Supports NVMe SSD as boot disks
Connector
– 1 x LPC Header
– 1 x Addressable LED Header*
– 1 x AMD Fan LED Header**
– 1 x CPU Fan Connector (4-pin)***
– 2 x Chassis/Water Pump Fan Connectors (4-pin) (Smart Fan Speed Control)****
– 1 x 24 pin ATX Power Connector
– 1 x 8 pin 12V Power Connector (Hi-Density Power Connector)
– 1 x Front Panel Audio Connector (15μ Gold Audio Connector)
– 1 x AMD LED Fan USB Header
– 1 x USB 2.0 Header (Supports 2 USB 2.0 ports) (Supports ESD Protection)
– 1 x USB 3.1 Gen1 Header (Supports 2 USB 3.1 Gen1 ports) (Supports ESD Protection)
*Supports in total up to 5V/3A, 15W LED Strip
**The AMD Fan LED Header supports LED strips of maximum load of 3A (36W) and length up to 2.5M.
***The CPU Fan Connector supports the CPU fan of maximum 1A (12W) fan power.
****The Chassis/Water Pump Fan supports the water cooler fan of maximum 2A (24W) fan power.
CHA_FAN1/WP and CHA_FAN2/WP can auto detect if 3-pin or 4-pin fan is in use.
Rear Panel I/O
– 2 x Antenna Ports
– 1 x PS/2 Mouse/Keyboard Port
– 1 x HDMI Port
– 1 x DisplayPort 1.2
– 1 x Optical SPDIF Out Port
– 2 x USB 2.0 Ports (Supports ESD Protection)*
– 1 x USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-A Port (10 Gb/s) (Supports ESD Protection)
– 1 x USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C Port (10 Gb/s) (Supports ESD Protection)
– 2 x USB 3.1 Gen1 Ports (Supports ESD Protection)
– 1 x RJ-45 LAN Port with LED (ACT/LINK LED and SPEED LED)
– HD Audio Jacks: Rear Speaker / Central / Bass / Line in / Front Speaker / Microphone (Gold Audio Jacks)
*1 x Fatal1ty Mouse Port (USB 2.0) is included
Software and UEFI
Software
– ASRock F-Stream
– ASRock Polychrome RGB
– ASRock Key Master
– ASRock XFast LAN
UEFI
– ASRock Full HD UEFI
– ASRock Instant Flash
– ASRock Easy RAID Installer
*These utilities can be downloaded from ASRock Live Update & APP Shop.
Support CD
– Drivers, Utilities, AntiVirus Software (Trial Version), Google Chrome Browser and Toolbar
Accessories
– Quick Installation Guide, Support CD, I/O Shield
– 2 x SATA Data Cables
– 2 x ASRock WiFi 2.4/5 GHz Antennas
– 1 x Screw for M.2 Socket
Hardware Monitor
– Temperature Sensing: CPU, Chassis/Water Pump Fans
– Fan Tachometer: CPU, Chassis/Water Pump Fans
– Quiet Fan (Auto adjust chassis fan speed by CPU temperature): CPU, Chassis/Water Pump Fans
– Fan Multi-Speed Control: CPU, Chassis/Water Pump Fans
– Voltage monitoring: +12V, +5V, +3.3V, CPU Vcore
Form Factor
– Mini-ITX Form Factor: 6.7-in x 6.7-in, 17.0 cm x 17.0 cm
OS
– Microsoft® Windows® 10 64-bit
Certifications
– FCC, CE
– ErP/EuP ready (ErP/EuP ready power supply is required)
Packaging & First Look
Due to the collaboration between the typical black and silver theme from ASRock and the black and red that Fatal1ty uses, the box could only ever be styled one way; black, red and silver. There’s some basic information on the front of the small box.
The rear, however, gives plenty more information regarding the layout, specifications and stand-out features.
Included with the Gaming-ITX/ac is an install guide for the software and hardware, a driver CD, a pair of aerials for the WiFi, a backplate for the case, some SATA cables and an M.2 screw. Strangely, ASRock have also included a postcard; your guess is as good as ours as to what that might be used for.
The tiny stature of the board comes as no surprise, but as you can see, the layout is very busy; rightly so considering the sheer amount of technology packed into one small motherboard.
Closer Look
Most motherboards that we look at, especially at the higher end of the market, where this ‘board sits, feature large power phase cooling heatsinks to help disperse the hundred or so watts of power the AM4 AMD CPUs can consume, the B450 Gaming-ITX/ac is a little different, with only a tiny piece helping to cool the area. Space is obviously at a premium on this board, but due to the height of those rear IO pieces, there’s almost definitely room to build upwards and help dissipate more heat. We’ll see how this fares during our tests.Above and right over the CPU socket is a fan connection, capable of providing ample power for watercooling pumps, as well as a whole host of RGB connections if you fancy “pimping” your case a bit.
The 8-pin power connection is tucked away in the top-left of the board.
Obviously, due to the size of the ‘board, four DIMM slots was going to be quite a challenge, instead we’re only getting a single pair but that’s still plenty for 32GB of DDR4 at today’s capacities.
Tucked around the DIMM slots is a quartet of SATA 3.0 ports, Front USB 3.0 and 2.0 connections and another couple of PWM fan connectors.
At the bottom of the ‘board is a full-length x16 PCI-E port, perfect for a GPU due to the reinforced metal shield. ASRock have provided WiFi accessibility with the motherboard, accessible from the rear IO, so that’s something you need not worry about in terms of PCI-E slots.
The small ASRock Fatal1ty heatsink is covering the southbridge, helping to dissipate heat away from the area.
Moving round to the rear IO, starting from the left we’ve got a pair of USB 2.0 ports, with the top one being tuned by Fatal1ty to give priority when using a gaming mouse – every millisecond counts. There’s also the traditional PS/2 port for older mice and keyboards.
We get a Display Port 1.4 and HDMI 2.0, both capable of 2160p60Hz. Next up is a USB 3.1 Gen. 2 Type-A and Type-C. Following on is a pair of USB 3.0 ports and a Gigabit ethernet. Providing audio is a full stack of 7.1 options and an optical SPDIF. Finally, a twin-aerial WiFi connection with provided antennas.
Generally we wouldn’t photograph the back side of a motherboard because there’s nothing there, but you may have noticed the lack of any M.2 NVMe ports on the front. Because of the lack of real-estate, ASRock have moved this port to the back of the board; unfortunately this can only support the 2280 standard so be sure to check that when purchasing any device. (99% of NVMe SSDs are 2280 so this shouldn’t be too much of a problem.)
BIOS & Overclocking
BIOSWith the Fatal1ty Gaming Gear branding, you’d expect some decent overclocking features, which the BIOS delivers in spades. The BIOS also looks great, with a proper colour scheme being employed.
The Main page gives a good overview of the current state of the system.
Overclocking is as simple as flicking the option to manual and changing the CPU frequency and voltage. RAM settings can be dealt with by XMP with only a single click as well.
Overclocking
As we mentioned in the Closer Look section, we speculated that the small power phase heatsink may pose an issue with heat. We found that this piece got unspeakably warm during our overclocking at 4.25GHz so decided to back things down to 4.1GHz and drop the voltage by 0.1v. This seemed to help somewhat, though it was still hot.
We managed a stable 4.1GHz which passed our overclocking test.
Our Cinebench results didn’t appreciate the overclock, however, due to the ability of the CPU to reach 4.1GHz across all cores quite easily. We saw a small gain but nothing ground breaking.
Test Setup & Software
Test SetupCPU AMD Ryzen 7 2700X
Cooling Noctua NH-U12S-SE-AM4
Motherboard ASRock B450 Infin1ty Gaming-ITX/ac
Memory 16GB Corsair Vengeance LPX 3200MHz @ 3000MHz @ 15-17-17-38-58
Graphics AMD Radeon RX 480 8GB
Storage Corsair Force LE 480GB
PSU Corsair RM750X 80 Plus Gold Certified PSU
Cooling Noctua NH-U12S-SE-AM4
Motherboard ASRock B450 Infin1ty Gaming-ITX/ac
Memory 16GB Corsair Vengeance LPX 3200MHz @ 3000MHz @ 15-17-17-38-58
Graphics AMD Radeon RX 480 8GB
Storage Corsair Force LE 480GB
PSU Corsair RM750X 80 Plus Gold Certified PSU
Benchmarks
Cinebench R15 – CPU/OpenGL Score
x264 HD 4.0 – 1st and 2nd pass encoding
SiSoftware SANDRA – CPU & Memory benchmarks
POV-RAY – CPU benchmarks
TrueCrypt – CPU benchmarks
AIDA64 – CPU benchmarks & Memory
PCMark 8 – Home Suite & Photoshop
3DMark FireStrike – 3D Benchmark
Games – Rise of the Tomb Raider & Total War: WARHAMMER
x264 HD 4.0 – 1st and 2nd pass encoding
SiSoftware SANDRA – CPU & Memory benchmarks
POV-RAY – CPU benchmarks
TrueCrypt – CPU benchmarks
AIDA64 – CPU benchmarks & Memory
PCMark 8 – Home Suite & Photoshop
3DMark FireStrike – 3D Benchmark
Games – Rise of the Tomb Raider & Total War: WARHAMMER
Other Software
Temperature Analysis: Aida64 & Ryzen Master
Stress Testing Software: AIDA64 Stability Test
CPU Specification Monitoring: CPU-Z
Performance Monitoring: MSI Afterburner
Stress Testing Software: AIDA64 Stability Test
CPU Specification Monitoring: CPU-Z
Performance Monitoring: MSI Afterburner
Benchmarks: Power Consumption
It’s interesting to note the power consumption across all motherboards. Although they are using the Z270 chipset, energy results can fluctuate between manufacturers due to the features and specifications that are integrated. First of all, for the idle tests the system is cold booted into Windows and no additional applications are executed – the watts are noted on the external energy monitor we use and then the system is loaded with 3DMark FireStrike – watts are again monitored for the duration of the test and the highest rated wattage result is then noted down. Below are the results of this energy test.
Ray Tracing Performance – POV-Ray 3.7
Persistence of Vision Raytracer’s PovRay is a free and open source 3D animator application with versions for computers with different operating systems.
This product allows users to build their custom 3D worlds with excellent quality despite their computer’s hardware. It has adjustable options for levels of radiance, refraction, and reflection. Calculation time may vary depending on the computer model, but PovRay can adapt to many computer builds, and is supported by the open source community.
This product allows users to build their custom 3D worlds with excellent quality despite their computer’s hardware. It has adjustable options for levels of radiance, refraction, and reflection. Calculation time may vary depending on the computer model, but PovRay can adapt to many computer builds, and is supported by the open source community.
AES Encryption Performance – TrueCrypt 7.1a
TrueCrypt is a discontinued source-available freeware utility used for on-the-fly encryption (OTFE). It can create a virtual encrypted disk within a file or encrypt a partition or (under Microsoft Windows except Windows 8 with GPT) the entire storage device (pre-boot authentication).
Encoding Performance – x264 HD
Simply put, this test measures how fast your machine can encode a short, DVD quality MPEG-2 video clip into a high-quality x264 video clip. What’s x264, you ask? It’s more or less the next-generation Xvid/DivX codec. I think it’s ideal for a benchmark because the application (x264.exe) reports fairly accurate compression results (in frames per second) for each pass of the video encoding process, and it uses multi-core processors very efficiently.
Processing Features Performance – AIDA64
AIDA64 Product PageThis simple integer benchmark focuses on the branch prediction capabilities and the misprediction penalties of the CPU. It finds the solutions for the classic “Queens problem” on a 10 by 10 sized chessboard. At the same clock speed theoretically the processor with the shorter pipeline and smaller misprediction penalties will attain higher benchmark scores. For example — with HyperThreading disabled — the Intel Northwood core processors get higher scores than the Intel Prescott core based ones due to the 20-step vs 31-step long pipeline. CPU Queen test uses integer MMX, SSE2 and SSSE3 optimizations.
Memory Transfer Performance – AIDA64
AIDA64 Product PageMemory bandwidth benchmarks (Memory Read, Memory Write, Memory Copy) measure the maximum achiveable memory data transfer bandwidth. The code behind these benchmark methods are written in Assembly and they are extremely optimized for every popular AMD, Intel and VIA processor core variants by utilizing the appropriate x86/x64, x87, MMX, MMX+, 3DNow!, SSE, SSE2, SSE4.1, AVX, and AVX2 instruction set extension.
The Memory Latency benchmark measures the typical delay when the CPU reads data from system memory. Memory latency time means the penalty measured from the issuing of the read command until the data arrives to the integer registers of the CPU.
The Memory Latency benchmark measures the typical delay when the CPU reads data from system memory. Memory latency time means the penalty measured from the issuing of the read command until the data arrives to the integer registers of the CPU.
Processing Power Performance – Cinebench R15
CINEBENCH can measure systems with up to 64 processor threads. This test scene contains approximately 2,000 objects which in turn contain more than 300,000 polygons in total, and uses sharp and blurred reflections, area lights, shadows, procedural shaders, antialiasing, and much more. The result is displayed in points (pts). The higher the number, the faster your processor.
Bandwidth Performance – SiSoftware SANDRA
SANDRA isn’t always a benchmark that is included in hardware reviews but I believe it shouldn’t be ignored. SANDRA provides a vigorous package that tests your system in a rather large array of benchmarks. There are many aspects of benchmark that can be executed. We will be considering – CPU and memory tests.
Image Editing Performance – PCMark 8 Photoshop
PCMark 8 Product Page Developed in partnership with Benchmark Development Program members Acer, AMD, Condusiv Technologies, Dell, HGST, HP, Intel, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Samsung, SanDisk, Seagate and Western Digital, PCMark 8 is the latest version in FutureMark’s popular series of PC benchmarking tools. Improving on previous releases, PCMark 8 includes new tests using popular applications from Adobe and Microsoft.
Overall System Performance – PCMark 8
PCMark 8 combines performance benchmarking with battery life measurement and includes tests based on popular Adobe and Microsoft applications. Whether you are looking for long battery life, or maximum power, PCMark 8 will help you find the devices that offer the perfect combination of efficiency and performance for your needs. It’s the complete PC performance benchmark for home and business.
VR Performance – VRMark
VRMark Product PageVRMark includes two VR benchmark tests that run on your monitor, no headset required, or on a connected HMD. At the end of each test, you’ll see whether your PC is VR ready, and if not, how far it falls short.
3D Performance – 3DMark
3DMark FireStrike Product PageFire Strike is our new showcase DirectX 11 benchmark designed for high-performance gaming PCs. It is our most ambitious and technical benchmark ever, featuring real-time graphics rendered with detail and complexity far beyond what is found in other benchmarks and games today. Fire Strike will only be available in the Windows editions of 3DMark initially.
Gaming Performance – Rise of the Tomb Raider & Total War: WARHAMMER
It’s important for us to perform a number of game benchmarks as well as the synthetic tests because gamers will want to know if there are any significant benefits. So here we have two recent gaming titles.
Conclusion
As has become pretty common-place, the B450 chipset definitely doesn’t disappoint. We’ve once again been impressed by the performance of the AMD Ryzen 2700X within such a small motherboard.The all-black design with the small light-blue heatsinks ensures the motherboard won’t look out of place in any build, but it won’t stand out from a crowd either, if that’s your goal. Having said that, if you wish to show off your build to others, there’s plenty of larger and more feature-packed motherboards you can choose from.
The rear IO gives you a decent selection of ports, including the gaming-focussed Intin1ty USB port for decreased latency when sniping people in Fortnite. The WiFi antennas ensure you can grab an internet connection anywhere near a router and the HDMI and DisplayPort make this viable for a tiny gaming PC with AMDs APU 2200G and 2400G CPUs.
M.2 connectivity on the back of the motherboard isn’t something we see often, usually due to thermal issues, especially with some of the fast NVMe drives, but it’s also limited to only the 22/80 M.2 format. We’ve seen much more elegant solutions with the drive on the front of the board from competitors, even within this form factor.
Unfortunately, overclocking was a bit of a let-down; we just couldn’t find any proper stability past 4.1GHz on all of the cores, with some motherboards managing up to 4.35GHz with the same chip. We believe this is down to the small heatsinks and overall small size of the board. However, having said all of that, we can’t really mark down the motherboard on its lack of overclocking potential.
Power consumption was good compared to other B450 chipset boards, likely down to the small size of the board and less features, but it bodes well for small, low power systems.
Finally, price. The ASRock B450 Fatal1ty Gaming-ITX/ac is priced at GBP £119.99 / USD $119.99 / AUS $179.00, putting it firmly in the way of some incredibly capable B450 motherboards, but a good £20 cheaper than the Gigabyte Aorus B450 I PRO WIFI which has mostly the same features and performance, save for a little bigger heatsinks and better M.2 positioning; though you do gain a USB Type-C on the rear.
If a low power, small form factor system is on the cards, the ASRock B450 Fatal1ty needs to be given a serious consideration. It will, without doubt, form a solid basis for any system at a decent price point.
Pros
+ Competitive performance
+ Good selection of ports on the rear IO (including WiFi)
+ HDMI and DisplayPort
+ Tiny size
+ M.2 slot
+ Price
Neutral
+- Not great for overclocking
Cons
– Small heatsinks get very hot
– Gaming performance wasn’t as good as other B450 boards
+ Competitive performance
+ Good selection of ports on the rear IO (including WiFi)
+ HDMI and DisplayPort
+ Tiny size
+ M.2 slot
+ Price
Neutral
+- Not great for overclocking
Cons
– Small heatsinks get very hot
– Gaming performance wasn’t as good as other B450 boards
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