The Intel Haswell-E X99 Motherboard Roundup with ASUS, GIGABYTE, ASRock and MSI
by Ian Cutress on September 25, 2014 11:30 AM ESTASRock X99 WS Conclusion
If we were to assign characteristics to a company based on previous launches, ASRock tends to be the one that has a mountain of small new ideas. Some of these ideas work really well and become essential parts of the package, while others initially sound confusing and drop off the radar. While the workstation route is somewhat new to ASRock’s consumer motherboard design team, it seems that the historic characteristics of ASRock are not here in the X99 WS – there is very little that seems ‘new’ compared to everyone else. If we look at other motherboards in this review, we have features such as the OC Socket, the UV light-up rear-panel or interesting PCIe/storage arrangements, but it would seem that ASRock’s effort in the X99 WS is more on the components than the functionality.
The big thing ASRock is promoting with the X99 WS is full Xeon E5 v3 support with ECC and RDIMM verification up to 128GB of memory. The WS is not the only motherboard in the X99 consumer stack to accept Xeons (in fact, most of them will), although few openly announce ECC/RDIMM support. The main lynchpin with ASUS WS motherboards, for example, is QVL support for a large range of additional PCIe devices that regular users do not use (Xeon Phi, RAID cards, FPGA). Unfortunately ASRock has made no effort to communicate that support in their press or online materials, suggesting that the only move towards ‘WS’ naming is the dual Intel NIC design with vPro support (for Windows Server applications) and some higher end components for 12-phase power delivery.
With all this being said, the X99 WS is a more than capable board for a build. It gives a set of six full-length PCIe slots for additional cards, M.2 support up to 110mm and for WS users and a pair of COM headers teamed with a TPM header. We get the enhanced audio with Purity Sound 2 hiding a Realtek ALC1150 codec under an EMI shield, and the extra-large heatsinks should help with heat dissipation. One additional benefit with the WS is that the z-height is sufficient to use this motherboard in a 1U server, allowing for high-density setups. If a user is building a heavy compute platform, there are two additional power connections for PCIe cards, although the 4-pin molex connector in the middle of the board is somewhat unwieldy from a cable management perspective.
From a BIOS and software perspective, the BIOS has been rearranged slightly for manual overclocking which makes it easy to understand where everything is, although there is room for some small adjustment. The aesthetic of the BIOS is very easy to read, which is a bonus, although there is no 'simple mode' similar to the other manufacturers. The software uses the standard A-Tuning interface, and while it offers a good number of options, it does get marked down in a couple of areas where the interface could be improved for a better user experience.
The motherboard offers a number of very positive points in terms of stock performance – the MultiCore Turbo rules giving it a push ahead of the ASUS/GIGABYTE results while having the lowest idle power consumption. The audio is in the middle of the back, while the DPC and POST times are a little behind the best X99 tested in this review. Automatic overclocking offers a good number of options from 4.0 GHz to 4.5 GHz, and manual overclocking reached 4.5 GHz before peak temperatures became too high.
Overall, the ASRock X99 WS performs well out of the box and enforces the support for Xeons + ECC/RDIMMs should a user need it. However, it marks a departure from previous ASRock releases by not adding much ‘extra’ to the overall experience in terms of direct functionality.
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Ian Cutress - Friday, September 26, 2014 - link
Usually some of the 16xx series have some leeway, but the larger 26xx are definitely locked down. I've managed 107 MHz BCLK from an E5 2697 v3, but YMMV.halcyon - Thursday, September 25, 2014 - link
Is this correct:http://i.imgur.com/3AgxLfs.png
bebimbap - Thursday, September 25, 2014 - link
That's probably because the 5960x runs at 3.0-3.5ghz stock while the 4790k runs 4.0-4.4ghz stockso if it is single threaded MHz limited, then the 4790k can run 14%-47% faster than the 5960x can at stock settings.
Ian Cutress - Friday, September 26, 2014 - link
Minimum frame rate results are always tricky. If the system software initiates something critical in the foreground and causes a single frame to falter, then the whole minimum frame rate is reduced. That's why I'm not always too keen on reporting them, but have them included for completeness.The single thread speed is also another aspect, also depending on the cache orientation of the CPU, it might cause a frame or two to load faster/slower than others, again causing that one frame drop.
Given that this is more common across the Haswell-E line, compared to Haswell, it might be something that fundamental.
bebimbap - Thursday, September 25, 2014 - link
I had always thought MSI was a top tier vendor of MB and GPU's but after my gtx 8800 "malfunctioned," back when they were the best available, and then my z87 mpower MSI MB headers fall apart, and OC's at higher voltages compared to my z87 gigabyte ud5h and is hotter at the same voltages. It made me think about it, and MSI is very similar in marketing style as XFX. They are both usually heavy on rebates, and very cheap for the amount of product you get. But they lack quality. None of my XFX cards perform as well as their Asus/EVGA/Gigabyte counterparts. I now put them in the same tier as ECS and Biostar.The MSI board OC'd performance being less seemed more of the same, and I was expecting as much. Until something drastically changes, I'll only use Asus/Gigabyte/Asrock.
just4U - Thursday, September 25, 2014 - link
That's unfortunate.. however you do have to keep in mind that these are sensitive electronic components. I've had boards fail by all the major companies. It happens.. I had 3 dead boards in the Genie Rog Asus series all out of the first batch that came in (7 in total) did it stop me from using Asus? No.. again it happens. Had loose heatsinks dead chipset fans, a capacitor that fell off.. ugh.. Still if I dropped all the companies where that had happened I'd not have any companies to turn to lol.Msi is doing a lot of good things these days and their easily right up there with Gigabyte and Asus.
CFTheDragon - Thursday, September 25, 2014 - link
Why is there not the MSI X99 Gaming in the review? Is anyone really going to buy the normal version and not the Gaming one for a X99 build?Ian Cutress - Friday, September 26, 2014 - link
For review time, these are the samples we were sourced. Not every model is available for review, depending on how the manufacturer wants to focus on different titles. We asked MSI what their most popular/consumer focused board would be in terms of numbers, and they seem really pleased internally with the SLI Plus.The_Assimilator - Friday, September 26, 2014 - link
The only people who buy "Gaming" boards are the gullible who like bling and think that the KillerNIC is something desirable to have, rather than the liability it actually is.Flunk - Friday, September 26, 2014 - link
Unless the "Gaming" board happens to be cheaper, which happens a lot because I don't think they sell that great. Damn Killer NICs, just give me Intel and be done with it. Killer started off as nothing but marketing and since they've were bought out by Qualcomm they're just remarked Qualcomm parts with tweaked drivers. MSI's "Gaming" line is a really cynical take on the whole affair, it's just their regular boards with red highlights and (only on some models) a few small IC changes.