ASRock X79 Extreme4-M and X79 Extreme4 Review – Sandy Bridge-E meets mATX
by Ian Cutress on December 9, 2011 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- ASRock
- X79
Aliens vs. Predator Benchmark
Aliens vs. Predator is a DirectX 11 science fiction first-person shooter video game, developed by Rebellion Developments. Available as a standalone benchmark, on default settings the benchmark uses 1920x1080 with high AF settings. Results are reported as the average frame rate across 4 runs.
Dirt 3
Dirt 3 is a rallying video game and the third in the Dirt series of the Colin McRae Rally series, developed and published by Codemasters. Using the in game benchmark, Dirt 3 is run at 1920x1080 with full graphical settings. Results are reported as the average frame rate across 4 runs.
Metro2033
Metro 2033 is a challenging DX11 benchmark that challenges every system that tries to run it at any high-end settings. Developed by 4A Games and released in March 2010, we use the inbuilt DirectX 11 Frontline benchmark to test the hardware at 1920x1080 with full graphical settings. Results are given as the average frame rate from 10 runs.
Conclusions
The GPU tests don't show much difference between any of the X79 boards we have tested for either AMD or NVIDIA, which is to be expected.
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unixfg - Sunday, December 11, 2011 - link
Maybe you could explain why you think they're wrong rather than just calling them names. They seem to be pretty much right-on regarding the point of having swap/pagefile on disk.twoBitBasher - Friday, December 9, 2011 - link
You guys surely must have got more modern drives lying around, especially when Anand is constantly reviewing the bleeding edge!I would have liked to see what this board can do. It is for enthusiasts after all, isn't it?
DanNeely - Friday, December 9, 2011 - link
Benchmark platforms can't change rapidly. When they do you can no longer compare new scores to old. As a result the parts not being compared typically don't get swapped out until obsolete.Thrawn7 - Saturday, December 10, 2011 - link
I don't consider the thermal throttle to be a bad thing at all. Throttling at 80c+ temperatures is good behaviour. Its a better guarantee for stability when you either have a cooling failure or are too lazy to have good cooling in the first place.Clearly these Sandy-E is the hottest overclocking chips ever from Intel.
Basically, to overclock to the typical 4.7 Ghz range the Intel liquid cooling solution is insufficient. Not that surprising given the performance of that is probably about the same as a mid-range $40 120mm heatsink soluiton.
To do a decent overclock you'll need a H100 or Noctua D14 at fairly high rpms or better still a real watercool loop.
etamin - Saturday, December 10, 2011 - link
I was very impressed with the new ASRock color scheme and heatsink design....until the gratuitous use of "X" labeling distracted me. What a shame. (no need to read review now, it's too ugly to consider buying)karma77police - Saturday, December 10, 2011 - link
ASRock released BIOS update few days ago for Extreme4 version 1.60 and for Extreme4M version 1.50, which let's you overclock CPU 4.6Ghz for example with very low voltage. They updated C-2 Microcode etc. I am running i7 i3930k on ASRock Extreme 4 with < 1.36V. Temperature does not exceed 60C in Load. I always say reviews are so misleading when it comes to decide what purchase to make.karma77police - Saturday, December 10, 2011 - link
4.5Ghz with < 1.36VEJ257 - Saturday, December 10, 2011 - link
The chart say 6xDDR3 slots. Is that a typo or is that actually how it's setup?etamin - Sunday, December 11, 2011 - link
Yeah, that's strange for X79. But it is 6. There is also a photo of it on the ASRock site.Ryomitomo - Monday, December 12, 2011 - link
Asus also released USB Boost, which is similar to Asrock USB XFast. I'd like to see USB Boost vs USB XFast in future reviews.