ASRock Z97 Extreme6 Review: Ultra M.2 x4 Tested With XP941
by Ian Cutress on May 24, 2014 12:00 PM ESTGaming Benchmarks
Sleeping Dogs
Sleeping Dogs is a benchmarking wet dream – a highly complex benchmark that can bring the toughest setup and high resolutions down into single figures. Having an extreme SSAO setting can do that, but at the right settings Sleeping Dogs is highly playable and enjoyable. We run the basic benchmark program laid out in the Adrenaline benchmark tool, and the Xtreme (1920x1080, Maximum) performance setting, noting down the average frame rates and the minimum frame rates.
| Sleeping Dogs, 1080p Max | ||
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Company of Heroes 2
Company of Heroes 2 also can bring a top end GPU to its knees, even at very basic benchmark settings. To get an average 30 FPS using a normal GPU is a challenge, let alone a minimum frame rate of 30 FPS. For this benchmark I use modified versions of Ryan’s batch files at 1920x1080 on High. COH2 is a little odd in that it does not scale with more GPUs with the drivers we use.
| Company of Heroes 2, 1080p Max | ||
| NVIDIA | AMD | |
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Battlefield 4
The EA/DICE series that has taken countless hours of my life away is back for another iteration, using the Frostbite 3 engine. AMD is also piling its resources into BF4 with the new Mantle API for developers, designed to cut the time required for the CPU to dispatch commands to the graphical sub-system. For our test we use the in-game benchmarking tools and record the frame time for the first ~70 seconds of the Tashgar single player mission, which is an on-rails generation of and rendering of objects and textures. We test at 1920x1080 at Ultra settings.
| Battlefield 4, 1080p Max | ||
| NVIDIA | AMD | |
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| 99th Percentile Frame Rates |
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Ian Cutress - Sunday, May 25, 2014 - link
For my stripped POST times, I try to disable as much as I can, except the ports I need to boot (SATA, USB 2.0). This is based on a request I had a couple of years back. As you can't adjust the M2_1 (the M.2 x4) in the BIOS, it would have remained enabled, although I did not have the drive installed at the time.It is worth noting that 20 seconds is on the pre-release launch BIOS. ASRock is historically known for its fast POST times, so there might be BIOSes at a later date that optimise the default post process by adjusting certain options at default. Because so much can change in a BIOS (even basic performance), our reviews are essentially a snapshot in time of the life cycle of the product.
Maiyr - Monday, May 26, 2014 - link
So this M.2 stuff....Are we saying that I can buy one of these <A HREF="http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Sub... M.2 MLC SSD</A>, plug it in, turn it on, and that the BIOS is going to recognize this as a drive I can then load my OS on?
Maiyr
Maiyr - Monday, May 26, 2014 - link
rats, can't edit my own comment :(sorry about the atrocious link
Maiyr - Monday, May 26, 2014 - link
Nevermind, I read further and see that this is expected to be possible with newer UEFI's.Maiyr
mars2k - Monday, May 26, 2014 - link
Ok, I've seen XP941 512GB available for sale on the web. Are these different models than those used in this review? It would seem that drives are readily availablekwrzesien - Tuesday, May 27, 2014 - link
It would appear to be the same model based on the labels: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...Mikuni - Wednesday, May 28, 2014 - link
"Disk Health Report" tool is a total rip-off from CrystalDiskInfo, what a shame.Laststop311 - Thursday, May 29, 2014 - link
Mini itx board with 2x pci-e 3.0 x4 m2 slots on the back and 1x pci-e 3.0 8x GPU slot would make for an amazingly compact build. This would be perfect for the ncase m1. By hiding away the storage in that case you can add extra fans and a larger radiator and keep the slim optical drive and not have to put the ssd there to keep max ventilation. Or can increase storage to 2x 512GB on back of mobo and 1TB 2.5" ssd in place of optical drive and keep max ventilation and 2TB of storage.I would be happy to be able to take out the hdd/ssd holder and replace my 120mm rad with 240mm rad. Since I need my optical drive I have to sacrifice some cpu cooling. A mini itx board like that would enable me a good 200-300 mhz increase to my oc.
http://www.ncases.com/v2/m1.php
Amazing case get in on the pre order while you can it's just a limited run being made.
Antronman - Thursday, May 29, 2014 - link
ASSRock sucks ass.Leandro - Wednesday, July 23, 2014 - link
Please review the Asrock Z97 Extreme9!!I´m looking to this motherboard performance.
Thank´s in advance!