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ATTO Disk Benchmark
The ATTO disk benchmark is a Windows-based utility for testing storage performance of any storage drive or controller. We use the default benchmark setup and run this on an OCZ Trion 150 SSD directly connected to the SATA ports and then again over a USB 3.0 port using a USB 3.0 to SATA III adapter.
Since the X99 chipset controls USB 3.0 and SATA there was little variation between motherboards.
This similarity holds even accounting for different controllers. We tested the ASRock front and back USB 3.0 ports – the front being X99 and the rear fed through an ASMedia ASM1074 hub controller, and found the bandwidth results to be identical. This is likely to change when adding devices to the other rear USB 3.0 ports, however.
Rightmark Audio Analyser
Rightmark Audio Analyser is a freeware benchmarking utility designed to objectively test the performance characteristics of audio solutions. We setup a line-in line-out loop and execute the record/playback test before generating the results report you see below. This test was run at 16bit audio depth and 192KHz frequency.
ASRock's audio solution is excellent, but so is the competition's. Since all motherboard vendors are using ALC1150 for their high-end motherboards there's been a surprising amount of convergence in the audio department too.
Vendors are trying to differentiate with extras like headphone amplifiers, swappable op-amps, higher-grade audio connectivity (6.35mm jacks, for example) and accompanying software. With its implementation ASRock uses a Texas Instruments headphone amplifier and offers Creative Sound Blaster 3 software for software-induced post-processing and other novel audio effects.
Power Consumption
We leave the system to idle on the Windows 10 desktop for 5 minutes before taking a reading, for CPU load results we run Cinebench and take a reading in the middle of the render progress.
Power consumption falls directly between the MSI and ASUS X99 motherboards. ASRock's voltage profile is less aggressive than ASUS but more so than MSI. This accounts for the bulk of the power consumption differences between the motherboards on test.
Any idea of price?
Yes it’s discussed on the final page – around £270 in the UK and $260 in the US.
260 USD isn’t 270 GBP, even after the eu referendum bollocks.
Id more likely expect something like;
260 USD / 220 GBP
320 USD / 270 GBP
Wouldn’t make sense at all for it to be more in GBP than USD.
I know how the currency conversion (plus being British tax) works. But that’s what retailers are selling the board for. It says in the review that ASRock’s pricing is more competitive in North America than it is in the UK.
It’s 324 euros here in Belgium.
This one looks good, but if I was to go with X99 on a budget I would consider their Taichi model.
I do like the looks of Taichi. Even Fatal1ty looking good, Taichi Black and white looks really good.
I was pleasantly surprised when I got my FX990 Killer, it is one solid board with wonderful audio and I really do like the UEFI set up way more than Asus or MSi. My only complaint with mine is the rather terrible northbridge heatsink design, it’s just a stylized block of anodized aluminum with 3 grooves cut in it, I could have gone down to the 970FX board with all better heatsinks, USB 3.1 with a type C port and support for 220watt CPU’s, but I would have given up a far more superior chipset (I run multiple PCIe devices, wireless, a USB 3.1 card and 2 different graphics cards), additional power to PCIe and audio
Really good stuff coming out from them, love their mobos.