ASRock X99 Extreme11 Motherboard Review

We will be outlining the ASRock X99 Extreme11 motherboard's performance with the Core i7 5960X CPU at its stock frequency (3.5GHz due to forced turbo). Overclocked performance will be outlined later in the review.

By default, the ASRock X99 Extreme11 motherboard does not apply multi-core turbo (MCT) when XMP is enabled. We had to manually apply the MCT setting in ASRock's UEFI, which is a very simple process. This will be displayed as our ‘stock' setting.

ASRock sneakily applies a 1.25V DRAM voltage when our memory is manually set to 2666MHz. This is 50mV higher than the 2666MHz XMP mode set by G.Skill.

X99 Motherboard Test System:

• Processor: Intel Core i7 5960X ES (3.5GHz forced turbo).
• Memory: 16GB (4x 4GB) G.Skill Ripjaws4 2666MHz CL15 DDR4 @ 1.25V.
• Graphics Card: Asus R9 280X Matrix Platinum 3GB.
• System Drive: 500GB Samsung 840.
• CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i.
• Case: NZXT Phantom 630.
• Power Supply: Seasonic Platinum 1000W.
• Operating System: Windows 7 Professional with SP1 64-bit.

Compared X99 Motherboards:

• ASRock X99 OC Formula (BIOS v1.16) – with 16GB (4x4GB) Corsair Vengeance LPX 2800MHz 16-18-18-44 DDR4 @ 2666MHz 1.25V.
• Asus X99 Deluxe (BIOS 0801) – with 16GB (4x4GB) G.Skill Ripjaws4 3000MHz 15-15-15-35 DDR4 @ 1.35V.
• MSI X99S Gaming 7 (BIOS V17.3B1) – with 3.56GHz CPU and 16GB (4x 4GB) Corsair Vengeance LPX 2800MHz CL16 DDR4 @ 2800MHz 1.20V.

Memory support issues with earlier motherboard BIOSes means that there are still differences in the tests kits and configurations used. G.Skill's 2666MHz Ripjaws4 kit has stabilised our test system and will be standard from this review onwards.
Software:

• ASRock X99 Extreme11 BIOS v1.00 (latest at the time of testing).
• Catalyst 14.9 VGA drivers.

Tests:

• 3DMark 1.3.708 – Fire Strike (System)
• SiSoft Sandra 2014 SP2 – Processor arithmetic, memory bandwidth (System)
• Cinebench R15 – All-core CPU benchmark (CPU)
• WinRAR 5.10 – Built-in benchmark (CPU)
• HandBrake 0.9.9 – Convert 4.36GB 720P MKV to MP4 (CPU)
• ATTO – SATA 6Gbps, USB 3.0, M.2 transfer rates (Motherboard)
• RightMark Audio Analyzer – General audio performance test (Motherboard)
• Bioshock Infinite – 1920 x 1080, ultra quality (Gaming)
• Metro: Last Light – 1920 x 1080, high quality (Gaming)
• Tomb Raider – 1920 x 1080, ultimate quality (Gaming)

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