The EVGA X299 FTW K Motherboard Review: Dual U.2 Ports
by Joe Shields on January 29, 2018 8:45 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Intel
- Killer
- EVGA
- X299
- Basin Falls
- 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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23 Comments
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EricZBA - Monday, January 29, 2018 - link
1. It would have been nice to get an explanation in the first page of what the heck a U.2 port is2. Motherboard / CPU are swapped in the "Manual overclocking results" graph on page 1
Joe Shields - Monday, January 29, 2018 - link
Eric,Sorry about that. Here you go: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.2
Thanks for the correction on the results.
JackNSally - Monday, January 29, 2018 - link
Can you test with a better CPU cooler? All of your X299 overclocking results are thermally limited. This doesn't show the board limits, just the coolers limits.Joe Shields - Monday, January 29, 2018 - link
I see what you are saying. Do understand however, in the vast majority of cases, users will be thermally limited by the CPU before the board regardless.The problem comes with how effective, or not, adding more radiator really is considering how effective the interior TIM is. The test CPU (the new one) was still thermally limited with a 3x120 custom loop (CPU only) and a better block (Kryos NEXT). IIRC, I was able to run around 100 more MHz out of that than the Corsair AIO used in the test system. In order to reap those benefits fully, we would need to delid the CPU and go a lot bigger on the radiator before most boards would stop the overclock. With delidding, we are really getting into a world where not many users would do it unless they are benching competitively which these would not be the weapon of choice in the first place. These are '24/7' overclocks with reasonable cooling solutions and warrantied CPUs.
bug77 - Tuesday, January 30, 2018 - link
Maybe add a paragraph summarizing all that to reviews, then?oRAirwolf - Tuesday, January 30, 2018 - link
USB type C motherboard headers should be standard equipment by now. I don't know why they would put 2 U.2 connectors on this motherboard but not a single USB type C header.My last motherboard was an EVGA x99 FTW K and it was a really nice motherboard. I liked the layout and the 2 slot spacing between GPUs. I am using an asrock z370 professional gaming i7 now and it only has single slot spacing between GPUs. There was definitely a noticeable increase in temperature going from 2 slot spacing to 1 slot spacing with SLI 1080 TI's. About 5-10 C. My only complaint with the x99 FTW K, besides using Killer networking, was that EVGA basically makes no motherboard software. While it doesn't see a lot of use, I like having utilities like fan curve and overclocking control. I know I can use things like speed fan and Intel extreme tuning utility...and I did, however, I was a bit let down by EVGAs lack of in house software.
Xajel - Tuesday, January 30, 2018 - link
U.2 is crap, while it's good for NVMe 2.5" SSD drives (well, it's the only solution now). but I really hate how bulky it is, and the fact that the drive still need dedicated power pins.For any new technology for 2.5" & 3.5" SSD's ( SATA or NVMe ) I wish the cable to be small, compact, not so thick or hard cables, preferably reversible and can carry a minimum amount of power so a regular SSD can be powered also by the same cable. any more advance drive can have a separate power.
Drazick - Tuesday, January 30, 2018 - link
At last real support for 2.5" drives with NVME.The M.2 solution is good for laptops.
For desktop we need something better with less heat issues.
drajitshnew - Tuesday, January 30, 2018 - link
Hi, could you please highlight the point at which an extra long screw is required. Also, list the specification of the required screw.Also , from the photographs is seems that the heat pipe from the power delivery is impinging on the 1 st memory slot. Could add a photo to clarify that?
drajitshnew - Tuesday, January 30, 2018 - link
hi, it seems with the listed config for the 44 lane CPU it requires 60 lanes?!x16/x8/x8/x16=48 lanes and m2=4+ 2*U2=8, Could you clarify that?