ASRock Z77 Extreme6 Review: Legacy Bites Back
by Ian Cutress on July 13, 2012 2:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- ASRock
- Z77
USB Speed
For this benchmark, we run CrystalDiskMark to determine the ideal sequential read and write speeds for the USB port using our 240 GB OCZ Vertex3 SSD with a SATA 6 Gbps to USB 3.0 converter. Then we transfer a set size of files from the SSD to the USB drive using DiskBench, which monitors the time taken to transfer. The files transferred are a 1.52 GB set of 2867 files across 320 folders – 95% of these files are small typical website files, and the rest (90% of the size) are the videos used in the Sorenson Squeeze test.
During USB 2.0 reading, it seems that ASRock have a slightly different setting enabled or have missed a trick with optimization - they are consistently 3% slower than any other manufacturer. This filters through a little to our real-world copy test. As always, the advantage of ASRock XFast makes that single USB port faster than any other standard USB port on the default protocols.
Similarly, with USB 3.0 on the chipset ports, the Z77 Extreme6 does nothing spectacular, joining the other ASRock boards at the bottom end of our copy test. Again, XFast pulls the ASRock above the default settings of other boards.
SATA Testing
We also use CrystalDiskMark for SATA port testing on a C300 drive. The sequential test (incompressible data) is run at the 5 x 1000 MB level. This test probes the efficiency of the data delivery system between the chipset and the drive, or in the case of additional SATA ports provided by a third party controller, the efficiency between the controller, the chipset and the drive.
Nothing special for SATA ports, as it seems that the drive is our limiting factor.
DPC Latency
Deferred Procedure Call latency is a way in which Windows handles interrupt servicing. In order to wait for a processor to acknowledge the request, the system will queue all interrupt requests by priority. Critical interrupts will be handled as soon as possible, whereas lesser priority requests, such as audio, will be further down the line. So if the audio device requires data, it will have to wait until the request is processed before the buffer is filled. If the device drivers of higher priority components in a system are poorly implemented, this can cause delays in request scheduling and process time, resulting in an empty audio buffer – this leads to characteristic audible pauses, pops and clicks. Having a bigger buffer and correctly implemented system drivers obviously helps in this regard. The DPC latency checker measures how much time is processing DPCs from driver invocation – the lower the value will result in better audio transfer at smaller buffer sizes. Results are measured in microseconds and taken as the peak latency while cycling through a series of short HD videos - under 500 microseconds usually gets the green light, but the lower the better.
The ASRock Z77 Extreme6 does well in our DPC test, with only 106 microseconds. Anything over 500 is bad, and under 200 is good. Ivy Bridge and Z77 in this regard has set a new bar for other chipsets to follow.
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albiglan - Friday, July 13, 2012 - link
I liked the parts about the difficulty in reviewing motherboards and the explanation of the humidity feature. (Overclocking could maybe have benefited from a table layout)Would be nice to see additional benchmarks for things not directly related to performance (something that covers things like ease of setup, stability, etc. that is easy to compare against other mobos...)
IanCutress - Friday, July 13, 2012 - link
I have a board on the test bed now that was a little different to set up - all the additional controllers had to be installed one by one. Every other board manufacturer usually has a one button install for drivers and software. Odd.It is hard to benchmark stability. We don't have infinite CPUs to keep all the boards running for days. I only have one CPU, and when one motherboard is tested I move it on to the next one. All I can do are my PovRay/OCCT tests to make sure it won't fall over in the first five minutes or so. I'm sure there are owners of these boards (like cknobman) who have been using these boards in a real world context that can give you a hint as to how they feel about their boards :)
Ian
xodius80 - Friday, July 13, 2012 - link
please anand, its time to move into the future of computing, we need a floppy port benchmark to see how well the chipset handles the data over competing products.thank you.
extide - Friday, July 13, 2012 - link
Or are the pictures of the ATX headers on ALL ASRock boards show a bowed motherboard? I swear I have seen that like 2-3+ times before.Draconian - Friday, July 13, 2012 - link
I'm disappointed they didn't include an IDE port. It really would've made this board stand out from the competition. I'm in the market to buy a Z77 board in the next month or so.My wish list for a Z77 board:
Thunderbolt, IDE, and eSATA on the same board
Don't care about Floppy or mSATA
arthur449 - Friday, July 13, 2012 - link
Buy a cheap IDE->SATA converter for your older drive. One of the requirements of the SATA standard was that it be backwards compatible with IDE.Or get a USB 2.0 to IDE converter (I'm not certain if USB 3.0 -> IDE converters exist for cheap). You'll be limited to ~40MB/s, but you'll have hotswap functionality without the potential headache of making sure old school IDE drives are run in IDE mode instead of the usual AHCI that most folks prefer for NCQ support.
geforce912 - Friday, July 13, 2012 - link
IDE is a parallel bus and it is not compatible with SATA which is a serial point to point connection (Hence SATA is not backwards compatible with IDE). Those IDE>SATA converters are active converters and not just simple wire-crossing. Same goes for usb which is serial point to point.ypsylon - Saturday, July 14, 2012 - link
Seriously, both additions are completely pointless. To some extent I can understand IDE, perfect for equally antiquated optical drives which are still around, but floppy.... I haven't used those in years, something around 10 for sure. If somebody need floppy then USB floppy is the logical choice. If AsRock are so concerned about legacy support then where is Fast SCSI port? I still own my first FastSCSI HDD for sentimental reasons. It weights ~ as much, as car battery but it works.duffman55 - Saturday, July 14, 2012 - link
I just upgraded my computer with the ASRock Z77 Extreme4 at the beginning of the week. It consistently threw a blue screen error a few seconds after it started to load Windows which I found out was because I didn't have the AHCI drivers installed. I had to switch to IDE mode, boot up, install the drivers, then switch back to AHCI.What's the difference between the IDE and AHCI modes when using a SATA drive? It makes no sense to me to have an IDE mode for SATA devices.
P.S. On the BIOS and software page you mistyped AHCI as ACHI.
Coup27 - Saturday, July 14, 2012 - link
What is a COM header? Is this a serial port under a different name?Personally I think this product makes no sense. Anybody buying a "legacy" motherboard would try and find one with native serial and parallel ports for starters. Serial is still very much alive in the automation sector with barcode readers, PLC, funky sensors etc..
Unfortunately Fujitsu are the only laptop manufacturer left making new laptops with native "legacy" ports.