The Intel Haswell-E X99 Motherboard Roundup with ASUS, GIGABYTE, ASRock and MSI
by Ian Cutress on September 25, 2014 11:30 AM ESTGaming Benchmarks
F1 2013
First up is F1 2013 by Codemasters. I am a big Formula 1 fan in my spare time, and nothing makes me happier than carving up the field in a Caterham, waving to the Red Bulls as I drive by (because I play on easy and take shortcuts). F1 2013 uses the EGO Engine, and like other Codemasters games ends up being very playable on old hardware quite easily. In order to beef up the benchmark a bit, we devised the following scenario for the benchmark mode: one lap of Spa-Francorchamps in the heavy wet, the benchmark follows Jenson Button in the McLaren who starts on the grid in 22nd place, with the field made up of 11 Williams cars, 5 Marussia and 5 Caterham in that order. This puts emphasis on the CPU to handle the AI in the wet, and allows for a good amount of overtaking during the automated benchmark. We test at 1920x1080 on Ultra graphical settings.
Bioshock Infinite
Bioshock Infinite was Zero Punctuation’s Game of the Year for 2013, uses the Unreal Engine 3, and is designed to scale with both cores and graphical prowess. We test the benchmark using the Adrenaline benchmark tool and the Xtreme (1920x1080, Maximum) performance setting, noting down the average frame rates and the minimum frame rates.
Tomb Raider
The next benchmark in our test is Tomb Raider. Tomb Raider is an AMD optimized game, lauded for its use of TressFX creating dynamic hair to increase the immersion in game. Tomb Raider uses a modified version of the Crystal Engine, and enjoys raw horsepower. We test the benchmark using the Adrenaline benchmark tool and the Xtreme (1920x1080, Maximum) performance setting, noting down the average frame rates and the minimum frame rates.
Sleeping Dogs
Sleeping Dogs is a benchmarking wet dream – a highly complex benchmark that can bring the toughest setup and high resolutions down into single figures. Having an extreme SSAO setting can do that, but at the right settings Sleeping Dogs is highly playable and enjoyable. We run the basic benchmark program laid out in the Adrenaline benchmark tool, and the Xtreme (1920x1080, Maximum) performance setting, noting down the average frame rates and the minimum frame rates.
Battlefield 4
The EA/DICE series that has taken countless hours of my life away is back for another iteration, using the Frostbite 3 engine. AMD is also piling its resources into BF4 with the new Mantle API for developers, designed to cut the time required for the CPU to dispatch commands to the graphical sub-system. For our test we use the in-game benchmarking tools and record the frame time for the first ~70 seconds of the Tashgar single player mission, which is an on-rails generation of and rendering of objects and textures. We test at 1920x1080 at Ultra settings.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
62 Comments
View All Comments
The Von Matrices - Friday, September 26, 2014 - link
Ian never said the MSI board wouldn't overclock, just that an unidentified bug causes its overclocked performance to be significantly lower than the other boards. based upon the results, putting your same CPU in the other boards would make it perform CPU 4.5% faster; alternatively, you would have to clock your CPU to 4.8GHz in the MSI board to match the 4.6GHz overclocks in the other boards.woj666 - Friday, September 26, 2014 - link
This review had the opposite result. The MSI board was able to perform even better than the others overclocked. It's disappointing but sometimes we just get bad boards.http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2014/09/09/x99-mo...
The Von Matrices - Saturday, September 27, 2014 - link
The bit-tech review has the CPU in the MSI board overclocked higher than the other boards, which would reasonably would make it perform better. The problem that Ian experienced is not that the board couldn't overclock the CPU; it's that at the same clock speed, the MSI board is significantly slower than its competitors, and the bit-tech results do not replicate Ian's circumstances since they have different overclocks on each CPU on each board.just4U - Thursday, September 25, 2014 - link
From the article "I have had failures in the past (Bluetooth adaptor shorting out, DRAM or PCIe slots not working, PSU going BANG… twice) "----
I was half-cut trying to install ram at 4am.. in near darkness, the combination turned into a epic fail..
owcraftsman - Thursday, September 25, 2014 - link
Very unfair to MSI to select top of the line boards for the other manufacturers and a bottom of the stack from MSI. The SLI Plus is a value edition at best so spare me an explanation.bigboxes - Friday, September 26, 2014 - link
"Due to the way the motherboard manufacturers were sampling for X99, we were unable to align several motherboards of a similar price." If you had actually read the article you may have not come across as a love struck fanboy.The_Assimilator - Friday, September 26, 2014 - link
Apparently you failed to notice (no doubt because you didn't read the article) that the MSI was gicven a "Recommended" award. Explanation: you are a tool.Laststop311 - Friday, September 26, 2014 - link
Once again Asus is on top. Their bios is the best designed with the best features. It's why my x58 board is an asus rampage formula. I'm gonna stay with x58 tho rather get a 55" LG oled TVThe Von Matrices - Saturday, September 27, 2014 - link
For the price of the ASUS board plus a 5820K CPU you could have any of the other boards plus a 5930K CPU, which would negate any performance advantage of the ASUS board. The ASUS board is only worth considering if price is no object, which from my experience seems to describe most LGA2011 buyers.Dadunn1700 - Tuesday, August 25, 2015 - link
Or u can save up for alittle while longer and get the Asus board AND the 5930k AND be faster yet again. Round and round we go. Although it's much easier to chg a CPU rather than a whole motherboard.Point is No matter what better is better....but not necessarily at the same price point. Tho I don't think $500 is a lot of money for enthusiasts to spend on PC parts. Especially essential ones. Being a flagship motherboard it's not exactly geared toward budget builders anyway....ie ppl concerned with performance per dollar. They want the best....period.
Personally I don't think $500 is a lot of money myself for a part i probably won't be replacing anytime soon.