The ASUS ROG Strix X299-XE Gaming Motherboard Review: Strix Refined
by Joe Shields on December 11, 2017 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Asus
- X299
- Skylake-X
- Kaby Lake-X
Benchmark Overview
For our testing, depending on the product, we attempt to tailor the presentation of our global benchmark suite down into what users who would buy this hardware might actually want to run. For CPUs, our full test suite is typically used to gather data and all the results are placed into Bench, our benchmark database for users that want to look at non-typical benchmarks or legacy data. For motherboards, we run our short form CPU tests, the gaming tests with half the GPUs of our processor suite, and our system benchmark tests which focus on non-typical and non-obvious performance metrics that are the focal point for specific groups of users.
The benchmarks fall into several areas:
Short Form CPU
Our short form testing script uses a straight run through of a mixture of known apps or workloads and requires about four hours. These are typically the CPU tests we run in our motherboard suite, to identify any performance anomalies.
| CPU Short Form Benchmarks | |
| Three Dimensional Particle Movement v2.1 (3DPM) | 3DPM is a self-penned benchmark, derived from my academic research years looking at particle movement parallelism. The coding for this tool was rough, but emulates the real world in being non-CompSci trained code for a scientific endeavor. The code is unoptimized, but the test uses OpenMP to move particles around a field using one of six 3D movement algorithms in turn, each of which is found in the academic literature. |
| The second version of this benchmark is similar to the first, however it has been re-written in VS2012 with one major difference: the code has been written to address the issue of false sharing. If data required by multiple threads, say four, is in the same cache line, the software cannot read the cache line once and split the data to each thread - instead it will read four times in a serial fashion. The new software splits the data to new cache lines so reads can be parallelized and stalls minimized. | |
| WinRAR 5.4 | WinRAR is a compression based software to reduce file size at the expense of CPU cycles. We use the version that has been a stable part of our benchmark database through 2015, and run the default settings on a 1.52GB directory containing over 2800 files representing a small website with around thirty half-minute videos. We take the average of several runs in this instance. |
| POV-Ray 3.7.1 b4 | POV-Ray is a common ray-tracing tool used to generate realistic looking scenes. We've used POV-Ray in its various guises over the years as a good benchmark for performance, as well as a tool on the march to ray-tracing limited immersive environments. We use the built-in multi threaded benchmark. |
| HandBrake v1.0.2 | HandBrake is a freeware video conversion tool. We use the tool in to process two different videos into x264 in an MP4 container - first a 'low quality' two-hour video at 640x388 resolution to x264, then a 'high quality' ten-minute video at 4320x3840, and finally the second video again but into HEVC. The low-quality video scales at lower performance hardware, whereas the buffers required for high-quality tests can stretch even the biggest processors. At current, this is a CPU only test. |
| 7-Zip 9.2 | 7-Zip is a freeware compression/decompression tool that is widely deployed across the world. We run the included benchmark tool using a 50MB library and take the average of a set of fixed-time results. |
| DigiCortex v1.20 | The newest benchmark in our suite is DigiCortex, a simulation of biologically plausible neural network circuits, and simulates activity of neurons and synapses. DigiCortex relies heavily on a mix of DRAM speed and computational throughput, indicating that systems which apply memory profiles properly should benefit and those that play fast and loose with overclocking settings might get some extra speed up. |
System Benchmarks
Our system benchmarks are designed to probe motherboard controller performance, particularly any additional USB controllers or the audio controller. As general platform tests we have DPC Latency measurements and system boot time, which can be difficult to optimize for on the board design and manufacturing level.
| System Benchmarks | |
| Power Consumption | One of the primary differences between different motherboads is power consumption. Aside from the base defaults that every motherboard needs, things like power delivery, controller choice, routing and firmware can all contribute to how much power a system can draw. This increases for features such as PLX chips and multi-gigabit ethernet. |
| Non-UEFI POST Time | The POST sequence of the motherboard becomes before loading the OS, and involves pre-testing of onboard controllers, the CPU, the DRAM and everything else to ensure base stability. The number of controllers, as well as firmware optimizations, affect the POST time a lot. We test the BIOS defaults as well as attempt a stripped POST. |
| Rightmark Audio Analyzer 6.2.5 | Testing onboard audio is difficult, especially with the numerous amount of post-processing packages now being bundled with hardware. Nonetheless, manufacturers put time and effort into offering a 'cleaner' sound that is loud and of a high quality. RMAA, with version 6.2.5 (newer versions have issues), under the right settings can be used to test the signal-to-noise ratio, signal crossover, and harmonic distortion with noise. |
| USB Backup | USB ports can come from a variety of sources: chipsets, controllers or hubs. More often than not, the design of the traces can lead to direct impacts on USB performance as well as firmware level choices relating to signal integrity on the motherboard. |
| DPC Latency | Another element is deferred procedure call latency, or the ability to handle interrupt servicing. Depending on the motherboard firmware and controller selection, some motherboards handle these interrupts quicker than others. A poor result could lead to delays in performance, or for example with audio, a delayed request can manifest in distinct audible pauses, pops or clicks. |
Gaming
Our gaming benchmarks are designed to show any differences in performance when playing games.
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PeachNCream - Monday, December 11, 2017 - link
Yup, but saying "never" speaks in absolute terms and that's not accurate.HStewart - Monday, December 11, 2017 - link
Multi-CPU systems have always been the market for severs and high end workstations. I purchase my Dual Xeon 5160 Supermicro for Lightwave 3d creations. These type system have application that used multiple threads and especially on servers.When I research for Dual Xeon systems, the advantage of multi-cpu Xeon ( not sure if applies to AMD ) was increase IO abilities. Plus at time 5160 was only dual-core - so it gave me 4 cores.
Today's system with so much interest in increase core count especial on non-server enviroments is kind of strange - i guess instead of throwing faster performance - they throw cores in to it. But the AMD vs Intel core wars reminds me of old frequencies wars - it just silly to just to say you have more cores in non server enviroment where most of user interface and logic is single threaded. Yes in time multiple threads will come about - but it more difficult for software developers to do that user interface.
Of course we can say never on this - because with multitasking, the more threads / cores the better it is. Especially in development enviroments with VM and compilers that can used multiple threads
SanX - Wednesday, December 13, 2017 - link
"Inflate the cost", "complex socket" and "more expensive motherboards" sounds like words from Intel press releases. The tech is known for decades, costs nothing to implement, is working on xeons and everyone else including all graphics processors no matter what price.Times changed. Adding more cores already reaching it's thermal design limit, 200-300W and the game is over, so the performance scaling with core counts on the die becomes deeply sublinear for the most tasks, for example linear algebra. The only way which is practically left is increase of sockets on the board.
HStewart - Monday, December 11, 2017 - link
I used to have a Pentium Pro motherboard - but with single CPU - it was a whopping $3500 back then.Now there is a big difference between Xeon and non-Zeon system besides the running CPU - Xeon have much greater IO performance than non Xeon CPU. I also have a dual 5160 3Ghz Zeon system and until some of later i7's - kept up with performance. It over ten years old and stills runs today - but I rarely run it now - just too much trouble ever since I got into laptops
HStewart - Monday, December 11, 2017 - link
Just for clarification, the Pentium Pro motherboard supported dual cpus - just I never purchase extra CPU.sonny73n - Monday, December 11, 2017 - link
They just don't like the idea of us upgrading our system with only another same old CPU, instead of upgrading the whole system.HStewart - Monday, December 11, 2017 - link
I have always upgraded both the CPU and MotherboardThe only exception if I could find newer Xeon cores for my Supermicro - especially if cost has gone down - but I do except trouble. When I building machines, it did not matter much - my older workstation system became a render node.
svan1971 - Thursday, December 14, 2017 - link
dude they make 22 core and 32 core cpus aparently less is moreSanX - Monday, December 11, 2017 - link
All mobos differing by the factor of mere 10% higher then others by some miniscule feature are inflated in price by the factor of 10. How much it costs to manufacturers to build these mobos in China? 20-25 bucks. If you doubt that wait for the next financial crisis to see their real price.Ro_Ja - Monday, December 11, 2017 - link
My old ass P35 motherboard has more USB ports compares to this one.I'm not saying that should but it's prolly cause for the PCI-e lanes,?