ASRock X99 Extreme4 Review

Memory choice is an important factor to consider when choosing which motherboard to base your system upon so you will be glad to know that ASROCK support most good manufacturers of memory. We tried both GSKILL Ripjaws and Corsair LPX and both ran fine without any issues.

Closer Look (Motherboard Features)

The ASROCK Extreme 4 features a relatively normal layout with lanes divided as follows (top to bottom)
16x
4x
16x
1x
8x

If the M.2 slot is used the 8x slot will be automatically disabled. It is unlikely that anything other than SLI/CrossfireX will be used on this motherboard so the layout should not present may issues to anyone other than the most extreme.


DATA storage comes courtesy of 10 SATA3, 1 eSATA, 1 Ultra M.2 (PCIe Gen3 x4 & SATA3). This motherboard also has a neat little feature whereby you can turn the Hard drives off via a dedicated 4-pin HDD Saver Connector saving power and increasing security (you can’t steal it if you don’t know its there!).


Audio is provided by the Realtek ALC1150 audio codec in the form of ASROCK’s Purity Sound. Purity sound is a 7.1 channel HD 115dB SNR DAC with Differential Amplifier, TI® NE5532 Premium Headset Amplifier, cap less Direct Drive technology, EMI shielding cover, PCB isolate shielding and DTS Connect. In short this setup provides low noise with high bass – perfect for those using headphones.


The I/O area provides something we haven’t seen in a while and that is the old PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports – not something we expected to see on a PC in 2014!. A CMOS reset button resides next to the ports. The remainder is comprised of – 1 x eSATA Connector
– 1 x Optical SPDIF Out Port
– 4 x USB 2.0 Ports (Supports ESD Protection (ASRock Full Spike Protection))
– 4 x USB 3.0 Ports (Supports ESD Protection (ASRock Full Spike Protection))
– 1 x RJ-45 LAN Port with LED (ACT/LINK LED and SPEED LED)
– HD Audio Jacks: Rear Speaker / Central / Bass / Line in / Front Speaker / Microphone

Detailed Look

The EtronTech EJ178V chips are 16 to 8 PCIe channel multiplexer / demultiplexer. They are esentially used to switch the operation of PCI-Express 2.0 / 3.0 slot from 16x to 8x mode, when using SLI / CrossfireX mode.


SPI chips are used to store both BIOS with the HD SAver port placed above with a sticker covering the port for ease of identification.


Powering the motherboard we see that ASROCK have gone for a massive 12 phase power design comprising of 60A power chokes which are 3x more powerful than older ferrite chokes. Coupled with the main power chokes are alloy chokes specifically for the memory which deliver more stable power to the mainboard.

Combined with the chokes are Ultra Duan-N MOSFETs which have a larger die area than norma along with a lower RDS(On) which means the voltage provided to the CPU is more efficient.

Rounding off the VRM area are the Nichicon 12k Platinum capacitors. This solid caps offer around 20% higher lifespan that traditional capacitors.


..and finally we come to the chipset itself. We have covered the features of this new sliver of silicon previously so won’t regurgitate the same information here and if you are reading this motherboard review you will likely be well aware of what it is capable of! For more information please read our Haswell-E review.

Test Setup & Methodology

BIOS Exploration

We always try and use the most up to date BIOS when reviewing a motherboard. The BIOS update utility, which checks for updates without having to load windows is a great addition to the ASROCK BIOS, and is a simple yet very useful and effective feature, one which we’re sure will be copied eventually by other manufacturers. It will check for any updated BIOS, download it to a USB stick (not supplied), and upon agreement, install it for you with just a couple of clicks of the mouse. Brilliant.

We found the ASROCK BIOS on the X79 motherboards to be basic but powerful. The X99 UEFI BIOS is a different beast in that it is more complex, more powerful and altogether better looking. It is fair to say it isn’t quite as attractive or in-depth as the more overclocking biased motherboard BIOS’ available but it ‘does the job’. We liked the ease at which we could find settings which was both intuitive and yet basic by design. If you think of tradition 8bit BIOS glossed over with pretty graphics and mouse control and you get the picture.

There were other features which we found interesting such as the humidifier function which powers the PC on automatically to dehumidify the system after entering S4/S5 state and other settings which were very useful such as the ‘Restart to UEFI’ saving you from mashing your .del key.

Overall, the BIOS is not intimidating, easy on the eye and simple to navigate. A higher resolution option would have been useful as it looked a little blurry on our 4k screen but for the most part we found the BIOS up to the job.

Overclocking

Overclocking the ASROCK was very easy, that is, once the BIOS had been updated. It is fair to say the reference BIOS on our motherboard was terrible. After checking the ASROCK support site, we couldn’t find an updated BIOS which was disappointing. Thankfully, the useful utility in the BIOS that checks for a BIOS update, did pick up a updated version and after agreeing to install this update the change in both feel and performance of the BIOS was transformed.



We already knew what out CPU was capable of so we dialled those settings in and sure enough, it loaded fine, ran a few benchmarks including a stress test and all passed fine. We tried increasing the clockspeed both by adjusting the baseclock frequency and lowing the multiplier and by multiplier adjustment alone. We did manage to get into windows at 4.9GHz but this was by no means stable. We therefore lowered back to 4.75GHz and still encountered a few issues despite increasing a number of voltages to try and attain stability.



Eventually we settled on 4.7GHz which as a shame after so much promise but not shameful by any stretch of the imagination as it is just 500MHz below what motherboards costing twice as much have achieved!

Benchmarks: Power Consumption

Benchmarks: AIDA64 CPU & Memory

Benchmarks: SiSoft Sandra: CPU and Memory

Benchmarks: Cinebench R15

Benchmarks: Pov-Ray

Benchmarks: Handbrake 0.9.9.1

Benchmarks: Futuremark PCMark 8

Benchmarks: AS SSD

Benchmarks: Futuremark 3DMark Fire Strike

3DMark FireStrike Product Page

Benchmarks: Battlefield 4, THIEF, Company of Heroes 2, GRID 2

Conclusion

It would be easy to dismiss the ASROCK X99 motherboard as an ‘also ran’ simply due to the fact it brings little extra to the table. Yes it has all the main features you would expect of a motherboard based upon the X99 chipset and yes it can clearly overclock almost to the levels of the very best, dedicated overclocking motherboards however, this motherboard costs half the price which is a fantastic achievement and in some ways embarrasses those boards which are more heavily featured. It can do pretty much what the other higher end motherboards can do. Sadly though, this is where the attraction ends.

Firstly, to conclude our thoughts on the aesthetics, the motherboard looks ‘OK’. We really aren’t sold on the blue black and gold instead much preferring the previous generation black grey and gold. We can understand ASROCK wanting to freshen up the design but the sky blue heatsinks and matching memory slots cheapen the look of the mainboard in our opinion.

Feature wise, the Extreme4 has the key attractions of X99 such as USB3, M.2, SATA 6GB/s, Quad channel ram etc but little more. The 12 phase VRM is a welcome addition but in our testing, it did not enhance the overclocking level of our CPU. The remaining features so as extra gold on the connections and Audio Purity are a much of a muchness and are unlikely to sway public opinion one way or the other. They are a nice to have for sure but hardly a deal breaker.

Finally and you may think obtusely we come to the packaging. While there is nothing inherently wrong with the packaging, it does a great job of summarising what you can expect from the mainboard: Adequate. Herein lays the theme of the ASROCK X99 Extreme 4. It is a motherboard that does everything expected of it but offers little else. If you are looking for a cheapo entry into X99 then you should give this mainboard fair consideration because it isn’t a bad motherboard, far from it and it is certainly one of the cheaper ones on the market. Our issue here is that it could have been so much better with a little extra tweaking because there are moments of genius, such as using the BIOS to get your drivers, check for BIOS updates etc but this is let down by the overall budget feel of the product. The manufacturer’s website is also not the best to navigate which only adds to the perception that you may have bought second best.



Perhaps the key feature of the Extreme4 though is the price. When all of the above is taken into consideration you may feel deterred. You shouldn’t because the main attraction here is the price. At £170 / $240 it is a decent price point and while much of the fat and glitter has been trimmed away, it is after all a solid performer, proven in our testing so if you can get along with the colour scheme and do not need the extravagances of higher end motherboards then we see no reason not to buy this product.

The ASROCK X99 Extreme4 is a fair motherboard. It is a mid-range motherboard with mid-range capabilities at an entry level price point. If you are looking to gain a foothold in X99 you could do a lot worse than this as your foundation for your next PC build.