ASRock X79 Extreme4-M and X79 Extreme4 Review – Sandy Bridge-E meets mATX
by Ian Cutress on December 9, 2011 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- ASRock
- X79
3D Movement Algorithm Test
The algorithms in 3DPM employ both uniform random number generation or normal distribution random number generation, and vary in various amounts of trigonometric operations, conditional statements, generation and rejection, fused operations, etc. The benchmark runs through six algorithms for a specified number of particles and steps, and calculates the speed of each algorithm, then sums them all for a final score. This is an example of a real world situation that a computational scientist may find themselves in, rather than a pure synthetic benchmark. The benchmark is also parallel between particles simulated, and we test the single thread performance as well as the multi-threaded performance.
The extra speed of the i7-3960X shows in both tests, and the ASRock boards are well within 1% of the other X79.
WinRAR x64 3.93 - link
With 64-bit WinRAR, we compress the set of files used in the USB speed tests. WinRAR x64 3.93 attempts to use multithreading when possible.
WinRAR shows better performance under the X79 platform, however neither of the boards was quicker than the ASUS P9X79 Pro.
FastStone Image Viewer 4.2 - link
FastStone Image Viewer is a free piece of software I have been using for quite a few years now. It allows quick viewing of flat images, as well as resizing, changing color depth, adding simple text or simple filters. It also has a bulk image conversion tool, which we use here. The software currently operates only in single-thread mode, which should change in later versions of the software. For this test, we convert a series of 170 files, of various resolutions, dimensions and types (of a total size of 163MB), all to the .gif format of 640x480 dimensions.
Sorenson Squeeze 6.0 - link
Sorenson Squeeze is a professional video encoder, complete with a vast array of options. For this test, we convert 32 HD videos, each a minute long and approximately 42 MB in size, to WMV 512KBps format. Squeeze can encode multiple videos at once, one for each thread.
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unixfg - Sunday, December 11, 2011 - link
Maybe you could explain why you think they're wrong rather than just calling them names. They seem to be pretty much right-on regarding the point of having swap/pagefile on disk.twoBitBasher - Friday, December 9, 2011 - link
You guys surely must have got more modern drives lying around, especially when Anand is constantly reviewing the bleeding edge!I would have liked to see what this board can do. It is for enthusiasts after all, isn't it?
DanNeely - Friday, December 9, 2011 - link
Benchmark platforms can't change rapidly. When they do you can no longer compare new scores to old. As a result the parts not being compared typically don't get swapped out until obsolete.Thrawn7 - Saturday, December 10, 2011 - link
I don't consider the thermal throttle to be a bad thing at all. Throttling at 80c+ temperatures is good behaviour. Its a better guarantee for stability when you either have a cooling failure or are too lazy to have good cooling in the first place.Clearly these Sandy-E is the hottest overclocking chips ever from Intel.
Basically, to overclock to the typical 4.7 Ghz range the Intel liquid cooling solution is insufficient. Not that surprising given the performance of that is probably about the same as a mid-range $40 120mm heatsink soluiton.
To do a decent overclock you'll need a H100 or Noctua D14 at fairly high rpms or better still a real watercool loop.
etamin - Saturday, December 10, 2011 - link
I was very impressed with the new ASRock color scheme and heatsink design....until the gratuitous use of "X" labeling distracted me. What a shame. (no need to read review now, it's too ugly to consider buying)karma77police - Saturday, December 10, 2011 - link
ASRock released BIOS update few days ago for Extreme4 version 1.60 and for Extreme4M version 1.50, which let's you overclock CPU 4.6Ghz for example with very low voltage. They updated C-2 Microcode etc. I am running i7 i3930k on ASRock Extreme 4 with < 1.36V. Temperature does not exceed 60C in Load. I always say reviews are so misleading when it comes to decide what purchase to make.karma77police - Saturday, December 10, 2011 - link
4.5Ghz with < 1.36VEJ257 - Saturday, December 10, 2011 - link
The chart say 6xDDR3 slots. Is that a typo or is that actually how it's setup?etamin - Sunday, December 11, 2011 - link
Yeah, that's strange for X79. But it is 6. There is also a photo of it on the ASRock site.Ryomitomo - Monday, December 12, 2011 - link
Asus also released USB Boost, which is similar to Asrock USB XFast. I'd like to see USB Boost vs USB XFast in future reviews.