ASRock X79 Extreme4-M and X79 Extreme4 Review – Sandy Bridge-E meets mATX

Test Setup

Comparison to Other Reviews

Where applicable, the results in this review are directly compared to the following chipsets and boards which we have reviewed previously.

Power Consumption

Power consumption was tested on the system as a whole with a wall meter connected to the power supply, while in a dual GPU configuration.  This method allows us to compare the power management of the UEFI and the board to supply components with power under load, and includes typical PSU losses due to efficiency.  These are the real world values that consumers may expect from a typical system (minus the monitor) using this motherboard.

In low power usage, the mATX uses less power, however in large usage scenarios, it uses more.  This could be due to the GPU spacing - the Extreme4 has an extra slot gap between the GPUs, meaning there is some airflow, and the fans do not have to work as hard.  That wouldn't really affect OCCT though, so I'm unsure where exactly the difference would be in this regard.

CPU Temperatures

With most users running boards on purely default BIOS settings, we are running at default settings for the CPU temperature tests.  This is, in our outward view, an indication of how well (or how adventurous) the vendor has their BIOS configured on automatic settings.  With a certain number of vendors not making CPU voltage, turbo voltage or LLC options configurable to the end user, which would directly affect power consumption and CPU temperatures at various usage levels, we find the test appropriate for the majority of cases. This does conflict somewhat with some vendors' methodology of providing a list of 'suggested' settings for reviewers to use.  But unless those settings are being implemented automatically for the end user, all these settings do for us it attempt to skew the results, and thus provide an unbalanced 'out of the box' result list to the readers who will rely on those default settings to make a judgment.   Ultimately, it all comes down to design – if a manufacturer has put thicker copper in its power plane, there is less resistance, and thus a higher voltage (and possibly temperature) at the CPU, but a higher overclockability, perhaps.

Overall CPU temperatures are within range for the two boards.