ASRock X58 Extreme3: An Enthusiast X58 Motherboard at a Budget Price?
by Ian Cutress on June 2, 2010 4:10 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Intel
- ASRock
- X58
A clean OS and application install was performed on the WD Velociraptor before benchmarking each motherboard. For SLI comparisons, dual XFX HD 5850s were used at stock clock timings. Benchmarks were also run at overclocked settings of 4.1Ghz, using 1.275V on the CPU and memory timings of 1580Mhz 6-7-6-20 1T.
Applications
- Far Cry 2, 1680x1050, High Quality, 2x AA, DX10, built in benchmark tool.
- Unigine Heaven v2.0, 1920x1080 and 1680x1050, 4x Anisotropy, Normal Tesselation, DX11.
- Sorenson Squeeze 6, 8 AVCHD files encoded in Flash 8, FLV format, 1MBps.
- WinRAR 3.9 x64, 954MB over 28 files, default settings.
- Bibble 5 - Transform 50 RAW images to full size JPEG images.
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DJMiggy - Wednesday, June 2, 2010 - link
Thanks Ian. This is great!nvalhalla - Wednesday, June 2, 2010 - link
(It might have been covered in the article, I didn't see it though. If so I apologize and feel free to yell at me.)How many PCI-E lanes have been dedicated to the USB3 and SATA6 ports? If I'm buying this over another X58 board because of those 2 options, it's important to know whether they are running at the proper speed.
IanCutress - Thursday, June 3, 2010 - link
We have got confirmation from ASRock, and they both use one lane each.All the best,
Ian
jyqureshi - Wednesday, June 2, 2010 - link
When is Anandtech going to review Xeon server boards like this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...And it's not a matter of why I would need one, it's a matter of why not?
Anyway...it would be great to see a comparison of the popular server boards that can be used in a desktop configuration.
ekv - Thursday, June 3, 2010 - link
Actually, the TYAN S7025WAGM2NR is a pretty decent board. Xeon 5500 series processors are reasonably priced. I would like to perform some comparisons tween this board and a couple Enthusiast boards. Very curious about price / perf. Gaming, general purpose AND server type workloads...AdamK47 - Wednesday, June 2, 2010 - link
I don't understand why some motherboard makers put the PCI-E 1X slot below the primary PCI-E 16X slot. Put it above the 16X slot!jonp - Wednesday, June 2, 2010 - link
What does "above" and "below" mean?FormulaRedline - Thursday, June 3, 2010 - link
Essentially below means the 1X slot is blocked by a dual slot graphics card while above means the 1x can still be used.FormulaRedline - Thursday, June 3, 2010 - link
Just to add: it is a bit strange as the predecessor, the ASRock X58 Extreme, does have a x1 slot on top. However, it just seems to be plain missing on this board (notice only 6 slots). Maybe to deal with the extra requirements of the USB 3.0 and SATA 6?Fortunately, any x1 card can also be used in the x16/x8 slots.
lopri - Wednesday, June 2, 2010 - link
Very detailed and user-friendly review, thank you very much. I'd like a little more commet on the auxiliary fan, though. (The one for CPU power circuitry) If you could measure the temperature difference between on and off, as well as other vendors' passive designs.