The ASRock X299 Extreme 4 is an entry-level motherboard from ASRock designed to give users an inexpensive step into the premium land of the high-end desktop. At $200, it is the least expensive X299 motherboard we have tested, but still has a plethora of features including USB 3.1 ports, dual M.2 slots, premium audio, as well as SLI and Crossfire support. The mid-range feature set on an entry-level board makes for an intriguing selection. 

ASRock X299 Extreme4 Overview

ASRock has used the Extreme line in their motherboards almost as far as I can remember. The lineup usually starts with an Extreme3 and ends with Extreme9 (or Extreme11 for some special products). The Extreme3 and Extreme4 boards have always been reserved for the entry level, attempting to offer a feature set found on more expensive boards from the competition. Many users (and reviewers) have called the Extreme4 one of the better 'bang for your buck' motherboards available. 

The ASRock X299 Extreme4 is aiming high. It has large dual heatsinks to keep an 11-phase power delivery cool, dual M.2 slots both able to work at PCIe x4 speeds, SLI/Crossfire support, and USB 3.1 ports on the rear panel. While it may not have some of the added extras from the mid-range price segment (three M.2 slots, three-way GPU, front panel USB 3.1), it has enough of the major features to merit a good entry into the platform. 

Our performance results show the Extreme4 is a competitor in all the tests, landing in the middle in just about everything we normally throw at it. ASRock's Multi-Core Enhancement seems to match the majority of boards we have tested, and is the reason the results we have are all around the top of that bell curve. The X299 Extreme4 boosted all cores to 3.6 GHz in any multithreaded test, and 4 GHz in single threaded ones. Our gaming results were fine as well, with this Ex4 showing out in ROTR with the most FPS yet, while the AOTSe testing showed an average result in 1080p, but for some reason was the slowest at 4K UHD, but by a small margin. Our overclocking adventures when smooth overall, with the board being able to handle our CPU at 4.6 GHz without worry.

The ASRock X299 Extreme4 is currently priced at $200 from Newegg and at the time of this writing. In this price range, its direct competitors are the MSI X299 Raider at $210 and the Gigabyte X299 AORUS Gaming at $210, both also from Newegg. All boards have their pluses and minuses but one big difference is the AORUS Gaming only supports the quad-core Kaby Lake processors only while the others support the full range of both Skylake-X and Kaby Lake-X processors. Otherwise, the biggest differences between these boards come from RAM speeds/capacity, USB port type and number, as well as PCIe slot count among other minor differences. 

ASRock's X299 Strategy

Historically, ASRock doesn't push the super-high price ranges that the other three motherboard manufacturers do, preferring to sit lower in the market at both the low and high prices in its stack. For high-end desktop platforms, this usually means they are the cheapest, and we see the motherboards for X299 from ASRock range from $200 up to around $400, or $423 for the XE version of the Professional Gaming i9.

ASRock's X299 Motherboard Lineup
	AnandTech Review	Amazon	Newegg
X299 Extreme4			$200
X299 Killer SLI/ac		$240	$230
X299 Gaming K6		$278	$260
X299 Taichi	Review 10/31	$295	$300
X299 Taichi XE			$323
X299 OC Formula			$400
X299 Professional Gaming i9	Review 9/26	$475^	$400
X299 Professional Gaming i9 XE			$423
X299E-ITX/ac	Review 12/4	$510^	$400

^ = sold by 3rd party

Information on Intel's X299 and our other Reviews

With Intel's release of the Basin Falls platform, encompassing the new X299 chipset and LGA2066 socket, a new generation of CPUs called Skylake-X and Kaby Lake-X were also released. The Skylake-X CPUs range from the 7800X, a hex-core part, all the way up to an 18-core 7980XE multitasking behemoth. Between the bookend CPUs are five others increasing in core count, as in the table below. The latter HCC models are set to be launched over 2H of 2017.

Skylake-X Processors
	7800X	7820X	7900X		7920X	7940X	7960X	7980XE
Silicon	LCC				HCC
Cores / Threads	6/12	8/16	10/20		12/24	14/28	16/32	18/36
Base Clock / GHz	3.5	3.6	3.3		2.9	3.1	2.8	2.6
Turbo Clock / GHz	4.0	4.3	4.3		4.3	4.3	4.3	4.2
Turbo Max Clock	N/A	4.5	4.5		4.4	4.4	4.4	4.4
L3	1.375 MB/core				1.375 MB/core
PCIe Lanes	28		44		44
Memory Channels	4				4
Memory Freq DDR4	2400	2666			2666
TDP	140W				140W	165W
Price	$389	$599	$999		$1199	$1399	$1699	$1999

Board partners have launched dozens of motherboards on this platform already, several of which we will have an opportunity to look over in the coming weeks and months. 

Other AnandTech Reviews for Intel’s Basin Falls CPUs and X299

• The Intel Skylake-X Review: Core i9-7980XE and Core i9-7960X Tested
• The Intel Skylake-X Review: Core i9-7900X, i7-7820X and i7-7800X Tested
• The Intel Kaby Lake-X Review: Core i7-7740X and i5-7640X Tested
• Intel Announces Basin Falls: The New High-End Desktop Platform and X299 Chipset
   
• ($480) The ASUS Prime X299-Deluxe Review [link]
• ($400) The GIGABYTE X299 Gaming 7 Pro Review [link]
• ($390) The ASRock X299E-ITX/ac Review [link] 
• ($390) The ASRock X299 Professional Gaming i9 Review [link] 
• ($370) The ASUS Strix X299-XE Gaming Review [link] 
• ($366) The MSI X299 Gaming M7 ACK Review [link]
• ($308) The MSI X299 Gaming Pro Carbon Review [link] 
• ($340) The ASUS X299 TUF Mark 1 Review [link] 
• ($330) The EVGA X299 FTW-K Review [link]
• ($305) The MSI X299M Gaming Pro Carbon AC [link]
• ($290) The EVGA X299 Micro Review [link]
• ($290) The ASRock X299 Taichi Review [link]
• ($260) The MSI X299 Tomahawk Arctic Review [link]
• ($232) The MSI X299 SLI Plus Review [link]
• ($200) The ASRock X299 Extreme4 Review (this review)

To read specifically about the X299 chip/platform and the specifications therein, our deep dive into what it is can be found at this link.

X299 Motherboard Review Notice

If you’ve been following the minutiae of the saga of X299 motherboards, you might have heard some issues regarding power delivery, overclocking, and the ability to cool these processors down given the power consumption. In a nutshell, it comes down to this:

• Skylake-X consumes a lot of power at peak (150W+),
• The thermal interface inside the CPU doesn’t do much requiring a powerful CPU cooler,
• Some motherboard vendors apply Multi-Core Turbo which raises the power consumption and voltage, exacerbating the issue
• The VRMs have to deal with more power, and due to losses, raise in temperature
• Some motherboards do not have sufficient VRM cooling without an active cooler
• This causes the CPU to declock or hit thermal power states as to not degrade components
• This causes a performance drop, and overclocked systems are affected even more than usual

There has been some excellent work done by Igor Wallossek over at Tom’s Hardware, with thermal probes, thermal cameras, and performance analysis. The bottom line is that motherboard vendors need to be careful when it comes to default settings (if MCT is enabled by default) and provide sufficient VRM cooling in all scenarios – either larger and heavier heatsinks or moving back to active cooling. 

ASRock X299 Extreme4 Visual Inspection

The ASRock X299 Extreme4 has a pretty straightforward look to it with a matte black motherboard using black connectors - all of the eight DRAM slots, SATA ports, and PCIe (though the latter has reinforcement on it) are black. The board has a few strips of grey lines running across it for flair. The 11-phase VRM uses dual heatsinks, connected via heatpipe, to remove heat. The heatsinks have a lot of mass and a lot of surface area so they should be good performers. The chipset and VRM heatsinks are grey offering a bit of an accent color to an otherwise mostly black board. 

We do not find any fancy shrouds or lots of RGB LEDs on the Extreme4. It's a what you see is what you get type of aesthetic. The only RGB LEDs found on the board are hidden under the chipset heatsink and give the board a nice glow down in that area. Outside of how it looks, we are able to see dual M.2 slots, eight SATA ports, and three full-length PCIe slots which should give users plenty of options for connectivity, especially at this price point. 

 

The X299 Extreme 4 has a total of five fan headers located on the board. Up top on the left is a 4-pin Chassis fan connector while towards the top right are 4-pin CPU fan connector and CPU Opt/Waterpump connector. The CPU fan can support a maximum of 1A (12W) while the CPU Opt/Water pump supports a maximum of 1.5A (18W) in order to support the higher power draw of pumps versus most fans. At the bottom of the board are two more 4-pin fan headers - the second chassis fan and a second header for a water pump. All headers except for the CPU fan connector use ASRock's Smart Fan Speed Control which allows the header to be controlled by either PWM or DC. I would have liked to see this across all headers on the board. 

ASRock implements an 11-phase VRM with premium memory alloy chokes, Nichicon 12K Black Caps (12K hour lifespan), as well as dual-stack MOSFETs. The MOSFET used is the Fairchild (bought by On Semiconductor) FDPC5030SG which are capable of 35A at 100°C and 56A at 25°C. These MOSFETs are controlled by an Intersil controller. These are a bit different than the parts used on the more formidable VRM of the ASRock X299 Taichi we reviewed. While these will still be able to handle most ambient overclocks, keeping them cool is key to their efficient operation. This should be not much of an issue due to the large dual heatsinks. Power is delivered to the VRM via two 8-pin EPS power connectors - one is mandatory, the other optional. 

The top half of the board doesn't have too much going on. We see a closer shot of the VRM heatsinks, the fan headers and EPS connectors up top. The eight DRAM slots are not reinforced and use a one latch system for locking the sticks in place on the board. Memory compatibility is rated to DDR4-4200 for both Skylake-X (quad-channel) and Kaby Lake-X (dual channel) RAM with capacity up to 128GB. 

Not present on the board is a debug LED or any dummy lights (ASRock calls these Q-LEDs on their other boards) showing where the board is caught on boot. This can make troubleshooting more difficult but is just one of those options that had to go for it to stay at its entry-level price point.

Focusing in on the right side of the board: on the bottom we see the full complement of eight SATA ports and next to it is a front USB 3.0 header, the battery, and the ATX 12V connector. In the top corner are two fan headers, an RGB LED header, as well as the Intel VROC header. 

All eight possible SATA connectors sit together on the bottom right corner of the board and support RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10. The SATA ports do share bandwidth with the M.2 slots. For example, if the first M.2 slot is occupied with a SATA based module, then SATA port 0 is disabled. If the second M.2 slot (between the PCIe slots) is occupied with a SATA based module, SATA port 1 is disabled. If the modules are PCIe based then the SATA ports are unaffected. 

As far as storage options, we mentioned earlier there are two M.2 slots, both capable of supporting SATA or PCIe based M.2 modules, while a third M.2 slot, key-E, is dedicated for a Wi-Fi module (not included). The two M.2 slots for storage can hold up to 2280 sized drives. About the only thing missing is U.2 connectivity, but outside of it being used much less than M.2 or SATA for the home, the majority of OEMs do not add this until much higher priced boards. 

The bottom of the board has a range of headers across its width. From left to right there is the HD Audio, TPM, a second RGB LED header, a clear CMOS jumper, a Thunderbolt 3 header for an add-in card, chassis fan headers, USB 2.0 headers, as well as front panel headers. There are no power/reset buttons.

The bottom half of the board shows off a few things here. We first notice the audio section and the Realtek audio codec. ASRock and its Purity Sound 4 combine hardware and software in an aim to deliver quality audio to the user. The gold audio connector header, individual PCB layers for left and right channels, a Texas Instruments NE5532 headset amplifier and the Nichicon Fine Gold Series Audio Caps make up the audio implementation. Just above that is room for a M.2 Wi-Fi module. Typically we find these mixed in with the back panel, but since the oversized heatsink is there, it had to go elsewhere. 

The board comes with a total of four PCIe slots. The top slot is x1 and is connected via the chipset, while the three full-length slots are fed from the CPU. The main GPU slots do use ASRock's steel reinforcement for more peace of mind when using heavy video cards. The board supports both SLI and Crossfire as well as Quad SLI and Crossfire when dual-GPU cards are used. Three-way is not supported. If the top PCIe x1 slot is occupied, the third M.2 slot for Wi-Fi will be disabled. The final x4 comes from the chipset.

Below is a quick reference table to show how the PCIe lanes are split out for various configurations. The "@" symbol is used to show slot preference for the configuration. 

ASRock X299 Extreme 4 CPU PCIe Layout
	44-Lane 1/2-Way	28-Lane 1/2-Way	16-Lane 1-Way	16-Lane 2-Way
PCIe 2	@x16	@x16	@x16	@x8
PCIe 3	@x16	@x8	-	@x8
PCIe 4	(x4)	(x4)	-	(x4)
SLI	Yes	Yes	-	Yes
Crossfire	Yes	Yes	-	Yes

The back panel IO isn't the most populated due in part to the heatsink poking through, but there is still enough connectivity back there for most. From left to right:

• PS/2 Keyboard
• PS/2 Mouse
• CMOS Reset
• 4 x USB 3.0
• USB 3.1 (10 Gbps) Type-A
• USB 3.1 (10 Gbps) Type-C
• Intel I219-V LAN
• 2 x USB 2.0
• SPDIF and 5-plug audio stack

In the Box

The accessory stack has enough to get you started, but not much else.

• Quick Installation Guide, Support CD
• I/O Shield
• 4 x SATA cables
• SLI HB Bridge (2S) Card
• 3 x Screws for M.2 sockets
• 1 x Wi-Fi bracket

BIOS

On the Extreme4, the board was shipped with BIOS 1.12 - there has since been an update to BIOS 1.30 which has the Meltdown/Spectre updates in them. When we first boot up, the Extreme4 presents us with the "Main" screen in the advanced version of the BIOS first. The Main screen is informational only showing the UEFI version, processor type, speed, and cache amount, total memory, and more.

The Ex4 does have an easy mode, which I am surprised that this board doesn't boot into by default. The EZ Mode is also more of an informational screen but does have a few editable options. Like the Main screen, we can see the UEFI version, processor type and speed, DRAM and storage information, fan speed, temperatures, and boot priority. Users are able to enable XMP profiles, RAID modes, adjust boot priority and fan speed control as well. The CPU EZ OC button is for simple, one-touch overclock and enables the first level of Optimized CPU OC settings from the advanced BIOS of 4.2 GHz. 

The OC Tweaker section below is where overclockers will spend most of their time. This section holds all the options needed to overclock the CPU and memory. ASRock divides this up into four sections: CPU / DRAM / Voltage / FIVR Configuration. The CPU Configuration section is where the CPU ratio and mesh can be adjusted as well as power saving features like Speedstep. This is also where users can apply AVX offsets. The DRAM configuration section is where users will find the memory options. XMP profiles can be enabled here as well DRAM frequency changes and memory timings changes are all found here. The voltage configuration portion is where users can change options from the Input voltage, Load-Line Calibration, VCCIO and VCCSA, to the DRAM channel voltage. Last, the FIVR configuration is where we are able to control and of the voltage domains such as Vcore, CPU Mesh, System Agent voltage. There are plenty of options available here for overclocking.

 

 

The Advanced section of the BIOS lists several options from CPU configuration (enabling/disabling HT, number of active cores, etc), Chipset configuration (PCIe link speeds, LAN and Audio), Storage Configuration (SATA and M.2), as well as USB configurations. This section is also where users are able to choose their landing page in the BIOS. If a user wants the system to enter EZ Mode first when entering the BIOS, then the OC Tweaker screen, simply adjust the settings. 

The Tools section groups a few handy items together with their own utilities to control board functionality. RGB LED control, Easy RAID Installer, UEFI update options (Instant Flash and Internet Flash) as well as network configurations. 

The H/W Monitor section gives users an idea of CPU and motherboard temperatures as well as fan speeds and voltages from the major domains as well as from the power supply. Towards the bottom of this section is where users are able to use ASRock's Fan-Tastic Tuning to adjust fan speeds and use profiles. 

The Boot header contains options to change the boot order as well as change boot options such as HDD priorities for multiple drive boots, fast boot, and other boot-time options. 

Software

As far as included software goes, the included installation CD gives users what they need to get started for drivers. It includes the INF and ME drivers, Audio, LAN, and the ASRock APP Shop. It also includes utilities such as Restart to UEFI, and ASRock RGB LED to control the integrated and attached LEDs. 

ASRock's Live Update and App Shop application keep tabs on the basic drivers and BIOS versions and notifies users if there is an update to any. This can be a useful application to keep up to date.

ASRock also has the A-Tuning application which monitors the system and allows for changes to fan speed as well as overclocking. There are not as many options as we find in some other similar applications from their competitors, however, it has what most will need if they wanted to overclock from within Windows. The basics are all there. 

 

ASRock RGB LED is the application used to adjust any of the system lighting be it the integrated RGB LEDs under the chipset heatsink or any the user may attach to the board via its two headers. It has several styles to choose from as well as being able to make any RGB color. 

For audio is the Realtek HD Audio Manager. This is a standard interface supplied with many systems, with presets and EQ settings available.

Board Features

The ASRock X299 Extreme4 is an entry level board for the X299 / LGA 2066 socket and is designed for both Kaby Lake-X and Skylake-X processors. It comes with an 11-phase power design with dual power connectors and extra large dual heatsinks to keep the VRM cool. The board supports SLI and Crossfire configurations including Quad-GPU with two dual video cards. There are eight SATA ports as well as two M.2 slots for storage (a third M.2 slot is for Wi-Fi) and includes Thunderbolt 3 support, USB 3.1 (10 Gbps ports) as well as uses the latest Realtek ALC1220 codec for audio.  

ASRock X299 Extreme4
Warranty Period	1 Year
Product Page	Link
Price	$200 (Newegg)
Size	ATX
CPU Interface	LGA2066
Chipset	Intel X299
Memory Slots (DDR4)	Eight DDR4 Quad Channel Supporting 128GB Up to DDR4 4200+ (OC)
Network Connectivity / Wi-Fi	1 x Intel I219-V GbE
Onboard Audio	Realtek ALC1220
PCIe Slots for Graphics (from CPU)	2 x PCIe 3.0 - 44 Lane CPU: x16/x16  - 28 Lane CPU: x16/x8 - 16 Lane CPU: x8/x8
PCIe Slots for Other (from PCH)	1 x PCIe 3.0 x4 1 x PCIe 3.0 x1
Onboard SATA	8 x RAID 0/1/5/10
Onboard SATA Express	None
Onboard M.2	2 x PCIe 3.0 x4 (and SATA)
Onboard U.2	None
USB 3.1	ASMedia ASM3142  1 x Type-A Port (Back Panel) 1 x Type-C (Back Panel)
USB 3.0	Chipset 4 x Back Panel 1 x Header
USB 2.0	Chipset 2 x Back Panel 2 x Headers
Power Connectors	1 x 24-pin ATX 1 x 8-pin CPU 1 x 8-pin CPU (optional)
Fan Headers	1 x 4-pin CPU 1 x 4-pin CPU Opt/Water Pump (Smart) 2 x 4-pin Chassis Fans (Smart) 1 x 4-pin Chassis Opt/Water Pump (Smart)
IO Panel	1 x PS/2 Mouse port 1 x PS/2 keyboard port 1 x Optical  SPDIF out port 2 x USB 2.0 ports 1 x USB 3.1 (10 Gbps) Type-A  1 x USB 3.1 (10 Gbps) Type-C 4 x USB 3.1 (5 Gbps) 1 x RJ-45 LAN port 1 x Clear CMOS button 5 x audio jacks (rear, center, bass, line in, front, microphone)

Test Bed

As per our testing policy, we take a high-end CPU suitable for the motherboard that was released during the socket’s initial launch and equip the system with a suitable amount of memory running at the processor maximum supported frequency. This is also typically run at JEDEC sub timings where possible. It is noted that some users are not keen on this policy, stating that sometimes the maximum supported frequency is quite low, or faster memory is available at a similar price, or that the JEDEC speeds can be prohibitive for performance. While these comments make sense, ultimately very few users apply memory profiles (either XMP or other) as they require interaction with the BIOS, and most users will fall back on JEDEC supported speeds - this includes home users as well as industry who might want to shave off a cent or two from the cost or stay within the margins set by the manufacturer. Where possible, we will extend our testing to include faster memory modules either at the same time as the review or a later date.

Readers of our motherboard review section will have noted the trend in modern motherboards to implement a form of MultiCore Enhancement / Acceleration / Turbo (read our report here) on their motherboards. This does several things, including better benchmark results at stock settings (not entirely needed if overclocking is an end-user goal) at the expense of heat and temperature. It also gives, in essence, an automatic overclock which may be against what the user wants. Our testing methodology is ‘out-of-the-box’, with the latest public BIOS installed and XMP enabled, and thus subject to the whims of this feature. It is ultimately up to the motherboard manufacturer to take this risk – and manufacturers taking risks in the setup is something they do on every product (think C-state settings, USB priority, DPC Latency/monitoring priority, overriding memory sub-timings at JEDEC). Processor speed change is part of that risk, and ultimately if no overclocking is planned, some motherboards will affect how fast that shiny new processor goes and can be an important factor in the system build.

Test Setup
Processor	Intel i9 7900X (10C/20T, 3.3G, 140W)
Motherboard	ASRock X299 Extreme4
Cooling	Corsair H115i
Power Supply	Corsair HX750
Memory	Corsair Vengeance LPX 4x8GB DDR4 2666 CL16 Corsair Vengeance 4x4GB DDR4 3200 CL16
Memory Settings	DDR4 2666 CL16-18-18-35 2T
Video Cards	ASUS Strix GTX 980
Hard Drive	Crucial MX300 1TB
Optical Drive	TSST TS-H653G
Case	Open Test Bed
Operating System	Windows 10 Pro 64-bit

Many thanks to...

We must thank the following companies for kindly providing hardware for our multiple test beds. Some of this hardware is not in this testbed specifically but is used in other testing.

Thank you to ASUS for providing us with GTX 980 Strix GPUs. At the time of release, the STRIX brand from ASUS was aimed at silent running, or to use the marketing term: '0dB Silent Gaming'. This enables the card to disable the fans when the GPU is dealing with low loads well within temperature specifications. These cards equip the GTX 980 silicon with ASUS' Direct CU II cooler and 10-phase digital VRMs, aimed at high-efficiency conversion. Along with the card, ASUS bundles GPU Tweak software for overclocking and streaming assistance.

The GTX 980 uses NVIDIA's GM204 silicon die, built upon their Maxwell architecture. This die is 5.2 billion transistors for a die size of 298 mm², built on TMSC's 28nm process. A GTX 980 uses the full GM204 core, with 2048 CUDA Cores and 64 ROPs with a 256-bit memory bus to GDDR5. The official power rating for the GTX 980 is 165W.

The ASUS GTX 980 Strix 4GB (or the full name of STRIX-GTX980-DC2OC-4GD5) runs a reasonable overclock over a reference GTX 980 card, with frequencies in the range of 1178-1279 MHz. The memory runs at stock, in this case, 7010 MHz. Video outputs include three DisplayPort connectors, one HDMI 2.0 connector, and a DVI-I.

Further Reading: AnandTech's NVIDIA GTX 980 Review

 

Thank you to Crucial for providing us with MX300 SSDs. Crucial stepped up to the plate as our benchmark list grows larger with newer benchmarks and titles, and the 1TB MX300 units are strong performers. Based on Marvell's 88SS1074 controller and using Micron's 384Gbit 32-layer 3D TLC NAND, these are 7mm high, 2.5-inch drives rated for 92K random read IOPS and 530/510 MB/s sequential read and write speeds.

The 1TB models we are using here support TCG Opal 2.0 and IEEE-1667 (eDrive) encryption and have a 360TB rated endurance with a three-year warranty.

Further Reading: AnandTech's Crucial MX300 (750 GB) Review

 

Thank you to Corsair for providing us with Vengeance LPX DDR4 Memory, HX750 Power Supply, and H115i CPU Cooler. 

Corsair kindly sent a 4x8GB DDR4 2666 set of their Vengeance LPX low profile, high-performance memory for our stock testing. The heatsink is made of pure aluminum to help remove heat from the sticks and has an eight-layer PCB. The heatsink is a low profile design to help fit in spaces where there may not be room for a tall heat spreader; think a SFF case or using a large heatsink. Timings on this specific set come in at 16-18-18-35. The Vengeance LPX line supports XMP 2.0 profiles for easily setting the speed and timings. It also comes with a limited lifetime warranty. 

Powering the test system is Corsair's HX750 Power Supply. This HX750 is a dual mode unit able to switch from a single 12V rail (62.5A/750W) to a five rail CPU (40A max ea.) and is also fully modular. It has a typical selection of connectors, including dual EPS 4+4 pin four PCIe connectors and a whopping 16 SATA power leads, as well as four 4-pin Molex connectors.

The 135mm fluid dynamic bearing fan remains off until it is 40% loaded offering complete silence in light workloads. The HX750 comes with a ten-year warranty. 

In order to cool these high-TDP HEDT CPUs, Corsair sent over its latest and largest AIO in the H115i. This closed-loop system uses a 280mm radiator with 2x140mm SP140L PWM controlled fans. The pump/block combination mounts to all modern CPU sockets. Users are also able to integrate this cooler into the Corsair link software via USB for more control and options. 

Benchmark Overview

For our testing, depending on the product, we attempt to tailor the presentation of our global benchmark suite down into what users who would buy this hardware might actually want to run. For CPUs, our full test suite is typically used to gather data and all the results are placed into Bench, our benchmark database for users that want to look at non-typical benchmarks or legacy data. For motherboards, we run our short form CPU tests, the gaming tests with half the GPUs of our processor suite, and our system benchmark tests which focus on non-typical and non-obvious performance metrics that are the focal point for specific groups of users.

The benchmarks fall into several areas:

Short Form CPU

Our short form testing script uses a straight run through of a mixture of known apps or workloads and requires about four hours. These are typically the CPU tests we run in our motherboard suite, to identify any performance anomalies.

CPU Short Form Benchmarks
Three Dimensional Particle Movement v2.1 (3DPM)	3DPM is a self-penned benchmark, derived from my academic research years looking at particle movement parallelism. The coding for this tool was rough, but emulates the real world in being non-CompSci trained code for a scientific endeavor. The code is unoptimized, but the test uses OpenMP to move particles around a field using one of six 3D movement algorithms in turn, each of which is found in the academic literature.
	The second version of this benchmark is similar to the first, however it has been re-written in VS2012 with one major difference: the code has been written to address the issue of false sharing. If data required by multiple threads, say four, is in the same cache line, the software cannot read the cache line once and split the data to each thread - instead it will read four times in a serial fashion. The new software splits the data to new cache lines so reads can be parallelized and stalls minimized.
WinRAR 5.4	WinRAR is a compression based software to reduce file size at the expense of CPU cycles. We use the version that has been a stable part of our benchmark database through 2015, and run the default settings on a 1.52GB directory containing over 2800 files representing a small website with around thirty half-minute videos. We take the average of several runs in this instance.
POV-Ray 3.7.1 b4	POV-Ray is a common ray-tracing tool used to generate realistic looking scenes. We've used POV-Ray in its various guises over the years as a good benchmark for performance, as well as a tool on the march to ray-tracing limited immersive environments. We use the built-in multi threaded benchmark.
HandBrake v1.0.2	HandBrake is a freeware video conversion tool. We use the tool in to process two different videos into x264 in an MP4 container - first a 'low quality' two-hour video at 640x388 resolution to x264, then a 'high quality' ten-minute video at 4320x3840, and finally the second video again but into HEVC. The low-quality video scales at lower performance hardware, whereas the buffers required for high-quality tests can stretch even the biggest processors. At current, this is a CPU only test.
7-Zip 9.2	7-Zip is a freeware compression/decompression tool that is widely deployed across the world. We run the included benchmark tool using a 50MB library and take the average of a set of fixed-time results.
DigiCortex v1.20	The newest benchmark in our suite is DigiCortex, a simulation of biologically plausible neural network circuits, and simulates activity of neurons and synapses. DigiCortex relies heavily on a mix of DRAM speed and computational throughput, indicating that systems which apply memory profiles properly should benefit and those that play fast and loose with overclocking settings might get some extra speed up.

 

System Benchmarks

Our system benchmarks are designed to probe motherboard controller performance, particularly any additional USB controllers or the audio controller. As general platform tests we have DPC Latency measurements and system boot time, which can be difficult to optimize for on the board design and manufacturing level.

System Benchmarks
Power Consumption	One of the primary differences between different motherboads is power consumption. Aside from the base defaults that every motherboard needs, things like power delivery, controller choice, routing and firmware can all contribute to how much power a system can draw. This increases for features such as PLX chips and multi-gigabit ethernet.
Non-UEFI POST Time	The POST sequence of the motherboard becomes before loading the OS, and involves pre-testing of onboard controllers, the CPU, the DRAM and everything else to ensure base stability. The number of controllers, as well as firmware optimizations, affect the POST time a lot. We test the BIOS defaults as well as attempt a stripped POST.
Rightmark Audio Analyzer 6.2.5	Testing onboard audio is difficult, especially with the numerous amount of post-processing packages now being bundled with hardware. Nonetheless, manufacturers put time and effort into offering a 'cleaner' sound that is loud and of a high quality. RMAA, with version 6.2.5 (newer versions have issues), under the right settings can be used to test the signal-to-noise ratio, signal crossover, and harmonic distortion with noise.
USB Backup	USB ports can come from a variety of sources: chipsets, controllers or hubs. More often than not, the design of the traces can lead to direct impacts on USB performance as well as firmware level choices relating to signal integrity on the motherboard.
DPC Latency	Another element is deferred procedure call latency, or the ability to handle interrupt servicing. Depending on the motherboard firmware and controller selection, some motherboards handle these interrupts quicker than others. A poor result could lead to delays in performance, or for example with audio, a delayed request can manifest in distinct audible pauses, pops or clicks.

Gaming

Our gaming benchmarks are designed to show any differences in performance when playing games. 

System Performance

Not all motherboards are created equal. On the face of it, they should all perform the same and differ only in the functionality they provide - however, this is not the case. The obvious pointers are power consumption, but also the ability for the manufacturer to optimize USB speed, audio quality (based on audio codec), POST time and latency. This can come down to manufacturing process and prowess, so these are tested.

Power Consumption

Power consumption was tested on the system while in a single GPU configuration with a wall meter connected to the Corsair HX 750 power supply. This power supply is Platinum rated. As I am in the US on a 120 V supply, leads to ~87% efficiency > 75W, and 92%+ efficiency at 375W, suitable for both idle and multi-GPU loading. This method of power reading allows us to compare the power management of the UEFI and the board to supply components with power under load, and includes typical PSU losses due to efficiency. These are the real world values that consumers may expect from a typical system (minus the monitor) using this motherboard.

While this method for power measurement may not be ideal, and you feel these numbers are not representative due to the high wattage power supply being used (we use the same PSU to remain consistent over a series of reviews, and the fact that some boards on our test bed get tested with three or four high powered GPUs), the important point to take away is the relationship between the numbers. These boards are all under the same conditions, and thus the differences between them should be easy to spot.

Our power testing on the ASRock X299 Extreme 4 places it in the middle of the pack on both idle results as well as the load testing. Any MCE used here matches up with most of the other boards in the lineup so power results are fairly tightly grouped together. 

Non-UEFI POST Time

Different motherboards have different POST sequences before an operating system is initialized. A lot of this is dependent on the board itself, and POST boot time is determined by the controllers on board (and the sequence of how those extras are organized). As part of our testing, we look at the POST Boot Time using a stopwatch. This is the time from pressing the ON button on the computer to when Windows 10 starts loading. (We discount Windows loading as it is highly variable given Windows specific features).

POST times for this board were just below 27 seconds which places it at towards the top half of the pack. It seems that the ASRock motherboards we have tested have all floated towards being on the faster side of the X299 motherboards we have tested. 

DPC Latency

Deferred Procedure Call latency is a way in which Windows handles interrupt servicing. In order to wait for a processor to acknowledge the request, the system will queue all interrupt requests by priority. Critical interrupts will be handled as soon as possible, whereas lesser priority requests such as audio will be further down the line. If the audio device requires data, it will have to wait until the request is processed before the buffer is filled.

If the device drivers of higher priority components in a system are poorly implemented, this can cause delays in request scheduling and process time. This can lead to an empty audio buffer and characteristic audible pauses, pops and clicks. The DPC latency checker measures how much time is taken processing DPCs from driver invocation. The lower the value will result in better audio transfer at smaller buffer sizes. Results are measured in microseconds. 

Our DPC Latency results are nothing extraordinary with another test sample fitting in notable under the 300-microsecond threshold. The X299 Ex4 results were 254 microseconds placing it in the top half of our data sets. 

CPU Performance, Short Form

For our motherboard reviews, we use our short form testing method. These tests usually focus on if a motherboard is using MultiCore Turbo (the feature used to have maximum turbo on at all times, giving a frequency advantage), or if there are slight gains to be had from tweaking the firmware. We leave the BIOS settings at default and memory at JEDEC for the supported frequency of the processor for these tests, making it very easy to see which motherboards have MCT enabled by default.

Rendering - Blender 2.78: link

For a render that has been around for what seems like ages, Blender is still a highly popular tool. We managed to wrap up a standard workload into the February 5 nightly build of Blender and measure the time it takes to render the first frame of the scene. Being one of the bigger open source tools out there, it means both AMD and Intel work actively to help improve the codebase, for better or for worse on their own/each other's microarchitecture.

For our Blender result, the ASRock X299 Extreme4 took 203 seconds to complete the Blender benchmark leaving it in the top half of our results. Clock speeds hit 3.6 GHz during the test while using all cores which the majority of boards tested also appear to do. Again notice the other two MSI boards taking less time to complete the benchmark due to how the board works turbo/MCE. 

Rendering – POV-Ray 3.7: link

The Persistence of Vision Ray Tracer, or POV-Ray, is a freeware package for as the name suggests, ray tracing. It is a pure renderer, rather than modeling software, but the latest beta version contains a handy benchmark for stressing all processing threads on a platform. We have been using this test in motherboard reviews to test memory stability at various CPU speeds to good effect – if it passes the test, the IMC in the CPU is stable for a given CPU speed. As a CPU test, it runs for approximately 1-2 minutes on high-end platforms.

Our POV-Ray results for the X299 Ex4 scores in the middle of the pack at 4,655. Other MSI boards appear to have the most aggressive clock speeds leading this tightly grouped pack of results. The EVGA boards brought up the rear of the pack with its conservative clock speeds for all cores and AVX instructions. 

Compression – WinRAR 5.4: link

Our WinRAR test from 2013 is updated to the latest version of WinRAR at the start of 2014. We compress a set of 2867 files across 320 folders totaling 1.52 GB in size – 95% of these files are small typical website files, and the rest (90% of the size) are small 30-second 720p videos.

WinRAR data has the ASRock X299 Ex4 coming in at 34.8 seconds which lands it in the middle of the pack where the majority of the results are. This makes sense due to the Ex4's implementation of MCE. 

Synthetic – 7-Zip 9.2: link

As an open source compression tool, 7-Zip is a popular tool for making sets of files easier to handle and transfer. The software offers up its own benchmark, to which we report the result.

Our 7-Zip results are VERY close together with only two outliers at the top and bottom of the results. The ASRock X299 Extreme4 fits in with the rest of the results so there is nothing anomalous here. In this test, the CPU boosted to 4.0 GHz as did the majority in this group. 

Point Calculations – 3D Movement Algorithm Test: link

3DPM is a self-penned benchmark, taking basic 3D movement algorithms used in Brownian Motion simulations and testing them for speed. High floating point performance, MHz, and IPC win in the single thread version, whereas the multithread version has to handle the threads and loves more cores. For a brief explanation of the platform agnostic coding behind this benchmark, see my forum post here.

Similarly, the 3DPM result lands the X299 Ex4 in the middle of the pack. During this test it performs six mini-tests with a 10-second gap between them: our result is from a 3.6 GHz CPU clock speed during the test. 

Neuron Simulation - DigiCortex v1.20: link

The newest benchmark in our suite is DigiCortex, a simulation of biologically plausible neural network circuits, and simulates activity of neurons and synapses. DigiCortex relies heavily on a mix of DRAM speed and computational throughput, indicating that systems which apply memory profiles properly should benefit and those that play fast and loose with overclocking settings might get some extra speed up. Results are taken during the steady state period in a 32k neuron simulation and represented as a function of the ability to simulate in real time (1.000x equals real-time).

In the DigiCortex testing, the ASRock board mixes in with the other datasets with a 1.15 fraction of real-time simulation possible. All results except the ATX MSI Gaming Pro Carbon AC, our most aggressive clocker of the bunch, are within a couple percent of each other.  

Gaming Performance

Ashes of the Singularity

Ashes of the Singularity is a Real Time Strategy game developed by Oxide Games and Stardock Entertainment. The original AoTS was released back in March of 2016 while the standalone expansion pack, Escalation, was released in November of 2016 adding more structures, maps, and units. We use this specific benchmark as it relies on both a good GPU as well as on the CPU in order to get the most frames per second. This balance is able to better display any system differences in gaming as opposed to a more GPU heavy title where the CPU and system don't matter quite as much. We use the default "Crazy" in-game settings using the DX11 rendering path in both 1080p and 4K UHD resolutions. The benchmark is run four times and the results averaged then plugged into the graph. 

Our AOTSe testing continues to be a tight-knit dataset with almost 2 frames per second separating things in the more CPU heavy 1080p setting. The ASRock X299 Extreme 4 performed will in the 1080p testing coming in second at 44.4 FPS, but lagged behind a bit in 4K testing at 33.1 FPS. This was one FPS lower (about 3%) than the next fastest result and a new low. That said, the performance difference between the fastest and slowest is literally 2 FPS, or a bit less than 6%. 

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.

Rise of the Tomb Raider results continues to be close together with the board delivering 94.1 FPS at 1080p and 40.2 FPS using 4K UHD resolution. Thes results have it as the fastest and second fastest in our ROTR testing. 

Overclocking

Overclocking Methodology

Our standard overclocking methodology is as follows. We select the automatic overclock options and test for stability with POV-Ray and OCCT to simulate high-end workloads. These stability tests aim to catch any immediate causes for memory or CPU errors.

For manual overclocks, based on the information gathered from the previous testing, starts off at a nominal voltage and CPU multiplier, and the multiplier is increased until the stability tests are failed. The CPU voltage is increased gradually until the stability tests are passed, and the process repeated until the motherboard reduces the multiplier automatically (due to safety protocol) or the CPU temperature reaches a stupidly high level (90ºC+). Our test bed is not in a case, which should push overclocks higher with fresher (cooler) air.

Experience with the ASRock X299 Extreme4

Overclocking with the ASRock X299 Extreme 4 was pretty straightforward. About the only curious behavior we saw was with overclocking through presets within the BIOS. The curiosity is how the AVX offsets are set up with each tier. The BIOS gives four options, 4.2 GHz, 4.4 GHz, 4.6 GHz, and 4.8 GHz. The key here is the AVX offsets are different for each, but in the end when using this method, all AVX2 instructions will run at 4 GHz (a -2, -4, -6, -8 offset) while AVX3 runs at much slower speeds of 3.3 GHz (offsets of -9, -11, -13, and -15). Typically the offsets we see are somewhere around -3 by default. It only started to add voltage once I hit the 4.6 GHz value where it raised the voltage to 1.25V which led to extremely higher temperatures even at 4 GHz. Without some manual interaction to lower the Vcore, this was an unusable setting for all intents and purposes. Part of what did this was the VCCSA voltage increased to 1.4 V (which was a 'red' setting according to the BIOS). I was able to lower this down to 1.0V which handled the memory speeds we had without issue and brought temperatures and power use back to more sane level for the clockspeeds achieved. 

ASRocks' BIOS has a good number of options for for tweaking the system and for overclocking. The layout is logical and finding the right options is easy to do. However, it was sectioned up a bit more than I like. MSI and ASUS BIOSes, for example, can have all the overclock optiopns on one page and have the majority of settings a scroll away. The ASRock implementation requires a bit of jumping around multiple subsections for each thing be it CPU, Memory, or Voltage. 

The board did not run into any issues with either the DDR4-2666 or the DDR4-3200 sets of RAM we use for testing. Like the other X299 boards, it was 'set XMP and go'. We were able to overclock past the XMP settings of our 3200 sticks and reached DDR4-3600 speeds without issue as well. 

With the A-Tuning software there are options to set up custom fan curves, overclocking, and high-level system information such as temperatures and voltages. One thing I would like to see in the A-Tuning software would be VRM temperatures. Though it wasn't an issue at stock or while overclocked with the large dual heatsinks, with the general concerns of this platform, that would have been a good value add.  

That said, the VRMs and heatsink during overclocking were warm to the touch in our quick five-minute test. When we put it through longer testing (30 mins OCCT), the heatsinks were warmer, but not hot nor remotely alarming or worrisome. Overall, the ASRock X299 Extreme4 is a capable overclocker like many of the boards which preceded it.

Overclocking Results

The ASRock X299 Extreme 4 topped out at 4.6 GHz. We are again temperature limited here as well. The board had little to no vdrop and vdroop with LLC set to auto - like all boards we have tested. At the top end of 4.6 GHz and 1.15V, the system pulled 321W at the wall during our OCCT testing. Overall, the board is pretty capable of handling most any ambient overclock. If you choose to overclock using the automated features, there is a lot of room left to lower some of the secondary voltages that are raised so keep that in mind if temperatures are too high.

Conclusion

Knowing the price of the ASRock X299 Extreme4, we can see it is being pegged as an entry-level type of motherboard in the X299 space. At times it is the least expensive X299 based motherboard available, although there are other boards close to it in price. The Exteme4 is a solid board to get feet wet in the HEDT platform. With the more expensive boards, users tend to bypass the quad-core Kaby Lake-X processors built for this platform, but with boards in this price range, users are able to test the waters and get into this platform at a similar price to the mainstream side (Z270/Z370) while having a viable upgrade path in the future with a move to Skylake-X processors and its higher core/thread count. 

The ASRock X299 Extreme4 has a lot of the features users expect from the X299 platform. It gets the full complement of chipset provided SATA ports, uses an Intel I219-V LAN controller, and has two M.2 slots, USB 3.1 ports (a Type-A and Type-C), and a high-end Realtek ALC1220 audio codec. The USB 3.1 ports are handled by an ASMedia ASM3142 controller, which uses less power and offering better performance than the ASM2142 controller used on some mainstream boards. The 11-phase power delivery isn't built from the same robust power bits the higher end boards do, but it handled everything we threw at it without flinching. The oversized dual heatpipe that connect the heatsinks to help cooling them did a good job, and the heatsinks were only warm to the touch after our 30-minute testing.

The build quality on Extreme4 was fine outside of one minor issue. The beefy VRM heatsink on this sample was a bit warped and barely made contact with a MOSFET or two. While I didn't run into any issues with throttling and the system ran fine, I would hope this is a one-off type issue. Outside of that, I did not have any issues with build quality. Being an entry-level board, as an enthusiast, I can 'miss' features like power on/off buttons or a debug LED which many users do not want, but in the end this is why we pay a premium for additional features. 

Performance on the ASRock board was just about in the middle of the pack in nearly all testing. About the only items of note were in the gaming testing showing this board barely leading a tight pack in the ROTR testing, with the AOTSe testing showing good performance in 1080p, but was 1 FPS/3% slower in 4K. Overall it performed well keeping up with much more expensive boards. 

As always, the difference between motherboards is in the details. In the case of the ASRock X299 Extreme4, it is one of the more capable boards for entry-level X299. It comes with the same or more features than comparably priced boards making it a very solid 'bang for your buck' motherboard as it has been on other chipsets in the past. For $200, it is tough to beat and should be on the short list in the $200 price range. 

Other AnandTech X299 Motherboard Reviews:

• The Intel Skylake-X Review: Core i9-7980XE and Core i9-7960X Tested
• The Intel Skylake-X Review: Core i9-7900X, i7-7820X and i7-7800X Tested
• The Intel Kaby Lake-X Review: Core i7-7740X and i5-7640X Tested
• Intel Announces Basin Falls: The New High-End Desktop Platform and X299 Chipset
   
• ($480) The ASUS Prime X299-Deluxe Review [link]
• ($400) The GIGABYTE X299 Gaming 7 Pro Review [link]
• ($390) The ASRock X299E-ITX/ac Review [link] 
• ($390) The ASRock X299 Professional Gaming i9 Review [link] 
• ($370) The ASUS Strix X299-XE Gaming Review [link] 
• ($366) The MSI X299 Gaming M7 ACK Review [link]
• ($308) The MSI X299 Gaming Pro Carbon Review [link] 
• ($340) The ASUS X299 TUF Mark 1 Review [link] 
• ($330) The EVGA X299 FTW-K Review [link]
• ($305) The MSI X299M Gaming Pro Carbon AC [link]
• ($290) The EVGA X299 Micro Review [link]
• ($290) The ASRock X299 Taichi Review [link]
• ($260) The MSI X299 Tomahawk Arctic Review [link]
• ($232) The MSI X299 SLI Plus Review [link]
• ($200) The ASRock X299 Extreme4 Review (this review)

To read specifically about the X299 chip/platform and the specifications therein, our deep dive into what it is can be found at this link.