The ASRock X399 Phantom Gaming 6 Motherboard Review: $250 Sixteen Core Stunner
by Gavin Bonshor on March 12, 2019 10:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- AMD
- ASRock
- ATX
- ThreadRipper
- X399
- TR4
- 2950X
- 2.5G
- Phantom Gaming 6
Gaming Performance
Due to the change of graphics card on the X399 test bench from an AMD RX 570 to a slightly more powerful NVIDIA GTX 980, for game testing, we're comparing it to our AM4 chipset boards. The Ryzen 7 1700 and Ryzen Threadripper 2950X share the similar Zen core architecture ported over to 12 nm which does perform similarly in gaming scenarios. The Ryzen Threadripper 2950X was tested in our game benchmark suite with both SMT enabled and disabled as in previous testing, it has shown that SMT can actually hinder in-game performance due to the lack of high thread optimization within certain games.
CHECK OVER - The only anomaly came in our Total War: WARHAMMER benchmark testing with the 1950X performing considerably worse than the Ryzen 1700. Every other test provided the expected results.
For 2019, we are running an updated version of our test suite, including OS and CPU cooler. This has some effect on our results.
For this review, we had to test with a 2950X as the 1950X we normally use with X399 had to be returned. This has some effect on benchmark data, however it is still rated to the same 180W TDP as the 1950X.
Ashes of the Singularity
Seen as the holy child of DirectX12, Ashes of the Singularity (AoTS, or just Ashes) has been the first title to actively go explore as many of DirectX12s features as it possibly can. Stardock, the developer behind the Nitrous engine which powers the game, has ensured that the real-time strategy title takes advantage of multiple cores and multiple graphics cards, in as many configurations as possible.
Rise Of The Tomb Raider
Rise of the Tomb Raider is a third-person action-adventure game that features similar gameplay found in 2013's Tomb Raider. Players control Lara Croft through various environments, battling enemies, and completing puzzle platforming sections, while using improvised weapons and gadgets in order to progress through the story.
One of the unique aspects of this benchmark is that it’s actually the average of 3 sub-benchmarks that fly through different environments, which keeps the benchmark from being too weighted towards a GPU’s performance characteristics under any one scene.
Thief
Thief has been a long-standing title in PC gamers hearts since the introduction of the very first iteration which was released back in 1998 (Thief: The Dark Project). Thief as it is simply known rebooted the long-standing series and renowned publisher Square Enix took over the task from where Eidos Interactive left off back in 2004. The game itself utilises the fluid Unreal Engine 3 engine and is known for optimised and improved destructible environments, large crowd simulation and soft body dynamics.
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drajitshnew - Tuesday, March 12, 2019 - link
Thanks for this review, this mobo has some very good design choices. Is there some way the post latency can be improved in THIS board.EliteRetard - Tuesday, March 12, 2019 - link
On a similar note, why is it listed as "Non-UEFI POST Time"? Are you actually disabling UEFI and going with a legacy BIOS for post time? Why, and how does that affect post time? I imagine anybody using this board will want to use UEFI.I am glad that POST time is being measured though, it's an important metric for me and many people I build computers for. Some people might think it unimportant, but when POST vary so drastically the differences are very tangible. Most of the people I build computers for also directly correlate bootup times to the performance of the machine (no matter how many times I try to explain it). I know I still would never accept a MOBO with a 30sec POST time.
GreenReaper - Tuesday, March 12, 2019 - link
They may mean "non-Graphical", but still using UEFI under the hood. It's unlikely to have display acceleration, so it takes extra CPU time to draw fancy pictures (as I found when using graphical console modes on my Linux microserver - 8-bit and 16-bit were proportionately faster than 24-bit).gavbon - Wednesday, March 13, 2019 - link
You can't disable UEFI as UEFI and BIOS are both types of firmware and in themselves, they aren't the same. With the UEFI firmware and CSM, it can emulate or pretend to POST like a non-UEFI BIOS. This is a more consistent way of doing things to show performance across a range of boards etcclose - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
But it would help to tell us what the boot time is with "optimized defaults" so to speak. I mean it's great if you can "show performance across a range of boards" but why mention only how long it take is non-UEFI mode for comparison? Why not also in UEFI mode? Is that comparison not useful? Or is the board always in non-UEFI mode?kobblestown - Wednesday, March 13, 2019 - link
Yes, this MB has some good design choices. For the price. I would have preferred to have either a 10G Ethernet adapter or a PCIe2.0x4 slot, e.g. where the heatsinked M.2 slot is (and the battery should be moved somewhere else. In my opinion 10G is taking off (I already have a direct 10G link between my X399 and my server) and will soon be within reach for most consumers. Having to occupy a x16 slot for a 10G adapter sends shivers down my spine. Plus, you could also wish to use a 4x4 bifurcation adapter board to install more nvme SSDs (3 is sometimes not enough) and then you'll be left with a single slot for a GPU.As for the POST times, I hope they can get them down to the other X399 boards. I see no reason why it should be twice longer. I have the Asrock X399 Professional Gaming and POST is already excruciatingly slow. Probably the panoply of PCIe devices is to blame (lspci shows more than 60 devices apart from the user-installed ones!)
Kevin G - Tuesday, March 12, 2019 - link
I think this needs to be edited a bit for clarity on page 1:"The audio PCB is separate from the rest of the PCB"
There is no separate audio PCB from the pictures I see as implied by that statement. I think the intent was to read 'the audio circuitry is separate from the rest of the PCB'.
Kevin G - Tuesday, March 12, 2019 - link
Two more on page 4:"For the start of our Z390 reviews" I think should read "Since the start of our Z390 reviews"
Also...
"Many due to..." I thank you missed a word there. ;)
Ryan Smith - Wednesday, March 13, 2019 - link
Thanks!lmcd - Tuesday, March 12, 2019 - link
*separate PCB layerwhich is in fact true (or at least their marketing claims as much)