The ASRock X299E-ITX/ac Motherboard Review: An 18-core No-Compromise Mini-ITX
by Joe Shields on December 4, 2017 8:00 AM ESTBenchmark 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.
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dgingeri - Monday, December 4, 2017 - link
Of course there are compromises. The processor has 44 PCIe lanes, and only 16 are able to be used thanks to there only being one slot. Even with the riser card and the M.2 slots, there are still compromises with this.Samus - Monday, December 4, 2017 - link
I've had the ASRock X99 ITX for two years. The sole compromise is literally one PCIe x16 slot, which is all 95% of people in the market for this board need. If you need more, you go ATX. Nobody is building ITX systems with SLI or mining in mind. Nobody. With the exception of maybe one SFX PSU, they can't even drive more than one high end videocard with a platform like this, and if you are using a case that holds an ATX PSU, why are you even considering an ITX board? The whole point of the system is to be compact.In other worse, this X299 follow-up is simply amazing. 9 native storage device ports on an ITX board is unheard of. Many ITX boards still have just 4 SATA ports (which, again, is all most people in the market for an ITX system are looking for since most cases will lack more than 4 storage bays.)
Gadgety - Monday, December 4, 2017 - link
"If you need more, you go ATX."Well, yes and no. I know there are users who have used the x99 with bifurcation, in those 5%. I'd like a small pc in with a top of the line gpu and need a pci-e x1 for an additional feature. The trend for small PCs certainly seems to be growing, so offering additional pci-e possiblities on small M-ITX would be nice, whether through official bifurcation possibilities or other means. I checked the potential to using an M.2 port for a pci-e card, but couldn't find an adapter.
Vatharian - Monday, December 4, 2017 - link
I am so sad that DTX didn't took off. Just a tiny little bit of real estate, most of cases already have two slots for wide GPUs, and so much more options. If this board been DTX with 2x 16x ports, Titan Xp SLI would have been possible out of the box (albeit with water cooling, of course). Or stuff powerful storage controller in one and decent 10G or 40G network card in the other port. Or stuff really anything int he other slot.Gigaplex - Monday, December 4, 2017 - link
There's always micro ATX. It's not that different to DTX.Actae0n - Monday, December 4, 2017 - link
You certainly raise a good point. However, there are some cases, such as the Fractal Design Nano S (pretty sweet case, I might add), that only support Mini-ITX and can hold an ATX PSU.dgingeri - Monday, December 4, 2017 - link
It was not my point that it didn't have a use, but rather that the article is titled "The ASRock X299E-ITX/ac Motherboard Review: An 18-core No-Compromise Mini-ITX" when in fact there is a compromise in order to get to the form factor. I don't like people stating "no compromise" when in fact there is compromise in something.tim851 - Monday, December 4, 2017 - link
The single PCI-E x16 slot is not a compromise, it's A FEATURE. That's what you buy an ITX board for.Mr Perfect - Monday, December 4, 2017 - link
Yeah, calling out ITX for only having one PCIe slot is kind of missing the point of ITX.mnoi - Wednesday, December 6, 2017 - link
I agree, the two usb-c ports should have been thunderbolt enabled at the very least.