The ASRock X399 Professional Gaming Motherboard Review: 10G For All
by E. Fylladitakis on July 5, 2018 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- AMD
- Gigabyte
- ASRock
- Asus
- 10GBase-T
- ThreadRipper
- X399
ASRock X399 Professional Gaming Board Features
The ASRock X399 Professional Gaming is a motherboard designed to entice gamers and sports a host of features, yet some of these features will be of little to no interest to the motherboard's intended target group. For example, the motherboard has three NICs installed, one of them being AQUANTIA's AQC107 10Gbps, plus an Intel 3168NGW 1×1 AC card. Very few gamers will be interested on having three separate NICs but nearly all of them would prefer a single gaming-specific NIC to be present. ASRock's design choices increased the price tag of the X399 Professional Gaming up to $440, making it one of the most expensive AMD X399 motherboards currently available.
| ASRock Fatal1ty X399 Professional Gaming | |
| Warranty Period | 3 Years |
| Product Page | Link |
| Price | Link |
| Size | ATX |
| CPU Interface | TR4 / SP3r2 |
| Chipset | AMD X399 |
| Memory Slots (DDR4) | Eight DDR4 Supporting 128GB Quad Channel Up to 3600+ MHz |
| Video Outputs | N/A |
| Network Connectivity | 1 × AQUANTIA AQC107 10Gbit 2 x Intel I211-V 1 x Intel AC 3168NGW Wi-Fi |
| Onboard Audio | Realtek ALC1220A |
| PCIe Slots for Graphics (from CPU) | 4 × PCIe 3.0 (×16 / ×8 / ×16 / ×8) |
| PCIe Slots for Other (from PCH) | 1 × PCIe 2.0 (×1) |
| Onboard SATA | Eight, RAID 0/1/5/10 |
| Onboard SATA Express | None |
| Onboard M.2 | 3 × PCIe 3.0 (x4) |
| Onboard U.2 | 1 × U.2 Connector (×4) |
| USB 3.1 Gen 2 | 1 × Type-C 1 × Type-A |
| USB 3.1 Gen 1 | 8 × Type-A Rear Panel 4 ×Type-A via headers |
| USB 2.0 | 4 × via headers |
| Power Connectors | 1 x 24-pin ATX 1 x 8-pin CPU 1 x 4-pin CPU |
| Fan Headers | 1 x CPU (4-pin) 1 x Pump/Aux (4-pin) 3 x System (4-pin), one supports liquid-cooling pumps |
| IO Panel | 8 x USB 3.0 (USB 3.1 Gen 1) 1 x USB 3.1 Type-A 1 x USB 3.1 Type-C 2 x Network RJ-45 2 x Antenna connectors 1 x Combo PS/2 5 x 3.5 mm Audio Jacks 1 x Optical SPDIF Out Port |
In The Box
We get the following:
- Driver Disk
- Quick Installation Guide
- User's manual
- Case Badge
- Four black SATA cables (two straight, two with a 90° connector)
- SLI/Crossfire bridges
- Wireless antennas
- I/O Shield
The bundle of the ASRock X399 Professional Gaming is relatively poor, taking into consideration the retail price of the motherboard, and the focus on gamers. Inside the box, we found a comprehensive manual and a quick installation guide, only four SATA cables, two simple wireless antennas without extension cords, the I/O shield, and three SLI bridges for two/three/four-way SLI configurations. Aside from the low number of SATA cables and the very basic wireless antennas, there were no cable straps, quick connectors, or any other useful accessories that are typically found accompanying top-tier motherboards.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
43 Comments
View All Comments
tmediaphotography - Thursday, July 5, 2018 - link
From pg#1 "but there is no mention of circuitry/channel isolation."From pg#2 "To help achieve that performance figure, ASRock physically isolated the right/left channel audio channels on individual layers"
May want to fix this up.
Ryan Smith - Friday, July 6, 2018 - link
Right you are. Thanks!PaoDeTech - Thursday, July 5, 2018 - link
My guess is that a 10GbE port adds ~$30. I'd be very interested to know what prosumer use cases would benefit from 10GbE. I would be great if Anandtech did a test with, e.g., some kind of 4K video rendering farm that makes use of 10GbE enabled PCs / switches / NAS /... (I know: easy to ask, hard to do).oRAirwolf - Friday, July 6, 2018 - link
I have the z370 gaming professional version of this board that also includes 10gbe. I have a direct connection between my desktop and my file server. It's really nice being able to transfer backups and video files between the two computers at much higher speeds. I usually read and write at about 600 megabytes per second, with it being limited by the 8x8tb wd reds. I think it is one of those things where once you have it, it sucks not having it. Like nobody needs internet faster than 10 megabits per second but it sure is nice having gigabit internet.Gunbuster - Thursday, July 5, 2018 - link
Opens the ASRock support page: 2017 2017 2017, all software/drivers/prod BIOS from 2017.rtho782 - Thursday, July 5, 2018 - link
>A gaming-specific NIC such as a Killer E2500 would make the motherboard more appealing to gamers, whereas the more expensive Aquantia 10G chip primarily serves other users.That's funny, I consider myself a gamer, and yet I won't touch any board with a "Killer" NIC, I'll avoid it in favour of an Intel NIC at all costs.
PeachNCream - Thursday, July 5, 2018 - link
Anandtech has weird love butter for Killer NICs and no substantiation for it via benchmarks. It's been that way since sometime in 2016 and a lot of us don't get why there appears to be some sort of institutionalized need to champion the dumpster fire over at Rivet Networks.rhysiam - Thursday, July 5, 2018 - link
I agree... why does AT keep obsessing about Killer NICs? I pay more if necessary to avoid them for an Intel NIC. Although it is possible to create a scenario where the traffic prioritisation software on the LAN connection can help, it's so rarely impactful in the real-world. The most common real world causes of lag, like family members smashing your internet connection, aren't addressed at all by some local software prioritisation.oRAirwolf - Friday, July 6, 2018 - link
Agreed. Any enterprise-grade router will enhance your latency way more than some nonsense software. With vendors like Ubiquiti and Mikrotik, as well as software routers like pfSense and Sophos, there's really no good reason to spend the money on a consumer-grade router. You can have an enterprise-grade setup with a high quality access point for the same price as some of these crab-looking routers they sell at Best Buy.phoenix_rizzen - Wednesday, July 11, 2018 - link
Aren't the latest Killer NICs just Intel NICs with custom Killer drivers? IOW, wouldn't it be possible to just install the Intel drivers for it instead of the Killer drivers?