ASRock X79 Extreme11 Review: PCIe 3.0 x16/x16/x16/x16 and LSI 8-Way SAS/SATA
by Ian Cutress on September 3, 2012 10:15 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- ASRock
- X79
- LSI
- PLX
ASRock X79 Extreme11 BIOS
As explained in our review of the ASRock Z77 Extreme9, the ASRock graphical BIOS system has gone through some minor evolutionary changes since the inception at the beginning of P67. On the X79 Extreme11 today, we see the next step in that evolution towards something a little more exciting to look at, as well as a reorganization of some menu options.
Regarding default settings, a couple of important points should be noted. The BIOS by default gives the PCI Express lanes as Gen 2.0, rather than a method of auto detection. Users of PCIe 3.0 graphics cards or PCIe devices should navigate to the North Bridge menu in order to set these lanes as Gen 3.0. The BIOS should come with audio cues to allow the user notifications as well. The final point is the memory – in our reviews of the X79 ROG range, those motherboards ran DDR3-2400 9-11-11 on our memory kit with a little bump in VTT and DRAM voltage. Unfortunately the ASRock X79 Extreme11 could not do this – we ended up running the system at DDR3-2133 9-11-11, which had little negative affect on our benchmark suite. It should also be noted that the current MultiCore Enhancement trend sweeping Z77 (and ASUS on X79) is not present here.
So the first thing to notice regarding the updated ASRock BIOS is the look – ASRock has added a space themed background, which provides better contrast than previous versions. The icons on the top row have also changed, along with the addition of a ‘Tool’ option, which moves some features (System Browser, OMG, BIOS Update, Profiles) into an easier-to-use menu.
The main screen is slowly evolving into something we want as system builders and debuggers – we get the motherboard name, BIOS version, the CPU, the memory size and the current memory speeds. All we need now are temperature readings as well as voltage information to make the screen more complete. With the graphical BIOS scope at play, this information has the potential to be well presented. On the main screen is also an option to change the active page on entry – this will be handy for overclockers wanting to change options in the BIOS over successive reboots.
The overclocking action all happens in OC Tweaker, the next menu option on the top row. In OC Tweaker are the relevant CPU overclock settings – a series of automatic overclocks, manual choices with ratios, overvoltages, BCLK and Turbo Power Limits. For memory we also have the option to enable XMP or a memory strap, a further sub-menu is available to adjust individual sub-timings. CPU and memory voltages are dealt with in a separate menu at the bottom, along with load line calibration.
Overclocking on the X79 Extreme11 is discussed later in the review.
The ‘Advanced’ menu option houses various chipset configurations, such as the CPU and CPU Power Management (for enabling/disabling cores or power states), North Bridge configuration (for PCIe 2.0 or 3.0), South Bridge configuration (enabling/disabling onboard controllers), SATA configurations et al.
The new ‘Tool’ menu option leads us to all the newer features of ASRock BIOSes of late all under one heading. This means we get the System Browser, a top down look similar to Gigabyte’s 3D BIOS which lets us know if hardware has been recognized at the BIOS level, Online Management Guard (to enable/disable network ports based on system time), the ability to flash the BIOS, RAID installation, and profile saving. We have detailed these features in previous ASRock BIOS reports, but moving them under one menu makes a lot of sense.
The H/W Monitor menu option shows the temperatures, fan speeds and voltages of the system. As I mention repeatedly, it would be worth having a few of these readings on the first screen of the BIOS, just to aid a little in debugging. Also in the H/W Monitor menu are our fan options.
As with all ASRock boards of late, the main fan options allow for a target temperature and a ‘level’ in order to decide the slope of the ramp for fan speed against temperature. All other fans are given only a level to choose from for their ramp. There is plenty of scope to offer adaptive fan control if the motherboard manufacturers are willing to invest a little money and time into their fan controls – a lot is possible in software alone.
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cjs150 - Tuesday, September 4, 2012 - link
All those right angled, stacked SATA connectors and the 24 pin ATX connector is still sticking straight up!Come on, it costs little to make this a right angled connector and makes for much better cable management (especially if you are also using all the SATA connectors)
Has anyone checked the accuracy of the ASRock Hardware monitor for temperatures? There are reports that on other ASRock board these are significantly inaccurate.
Ultimately other than M/B p#rn not really sure what market this board is aimed at. For a workstation I would prefer dual CPUs and 48 PCI lanes
dgingeri - Tuesday, September 4, 2012 - link
I think that LSI 2308 chip is the same as the chip used in Dell's PERC H310 controller, with slightly different firmware/bios. (Dell customizes theirs to call it a PERC and label it as a Dell controller, but it is still labeled as a LSI copyright.) If so, that's a very good controller, from my experience.ComputerGuy2006 - Tuesday, September 4, 2012 - link
I want Ivy Bridge-E, not going to go from 1336 setup to x79 setup without knowing if ivy-e is even coming out (much less if it will work on the same mobo)dgingeri - Tuesday, September 4, 2012 - link
With AMD providing absolutely no competition in this space, I would say it is unlikely they'll come out with any updates worthy of spending money. Think of the time with the P4 while AMD wasn't providing competition. Intel put out processors from 2.8 to 3.8GHz over the course of 2 years which cost more and gobbled up more electricity, yet provided minimal performance enhancement. (iirc, the 3.8GHz chip was only about 10% faster than the 2.8GHz chip because of memory bandwidth limitations and thermal throttling, yet Intel charged more than double the intro price than the 2.8GHz for the 3.8GHz chip.) Intel without competition is just a money hog, gobbling up more and more money with little to show for it. I doubt Haswell with be anything special, either. IB certainly isn't.Oh, yeah, they say Haswell will be 10% faster than IB at the same clock rate. While AMD was providing competition, they were putting out things that ran 50-60% faster per clock, and had faster clock rates to boot. So, at the price point, we'd get a 75-100% boost per generation. (Core 2 had a drop in clock rate, sure, but it was WAY faster than the P4, giving us a 80%+ performance boost at the same clock rate. Coppermine was a huge boost in both clock rate and efficiency. Katmai was a huge boost in clock rate and efficiency. Same with Klamath and Deschutes. Yet, the P4 generation was a huge stall point, and also the point where most of Intel competitors got out of the race and AMD was way behind.)
I wish someone would come into the market and provide an little incentive to get Intel to move their butts forward, but we're not going to see that for probably another decade.
Master_shake_ - Tuesday, September 4, 2012 - link
problem is Intel won't allow any more companies to get the x86 license to make desktop/notebook cpus.i want Nvidia to make one just to have a 3rd choice.
fteoath64 - Thursday, September 6, 2012 - link
"i want Nvidia to make one just to have a 3rd choice.".Yeah, then Nvidia buys VIA and starts making NV-nano as the Tegra3 of x86 for the super tablets that would be weight compatible with current 10.1 Android/iOS tablet ..... {pipe dream ...}
Nvidia doing a x86 and ARM hybrid processor would be really cool for a new generation of UltraBooks that does Win8 and Android together. Imagine when docked you have both Win8 (external monitor) and ICS/JB on tablet with touch. Win8 tablets being much thicker plas plenty of space for 2 SDcard slots and 2 MicroSD slots.
fteoath64 - Saturday, July 12, 2014 - link
When the discrete gpu market for high-end notebooks dries up, then Nvidia might make a VIA play. For now, they cannot afford such an investment especially when they had sunk millions on Denver (Arm V8) 64-bit arm with the K1. IF they produce a great Arm 64bit core, then they might have a great chance on the tablet and high-end mobile market. Also, left over for the low-end and microserver market.Frallan - Wednesday, September 5, 2012 - link
I was complaining the other day about AT becoming an iSite talking more about iWare than anything else.My honesty compels me to write in after the last few days and apologize. There has been a number of good interesting computer and component articles the last week that proved me wrong.
Thank you AT and keep the good work up.
BlueReason - Wednesday, September 5, 2012 - link
"ASRock have potentially missed a trick here"It's becoming trendy for American-based tech blogs to use the British standard for subject/verb agreement when it comes to businesses. You could debate what it ought to be all day, but American professional writing standards dictate that companies be referred to as a singular entity. You can do whatever you like, of course, but just an fyi in case you submit a piece to a major American publication. They won't see your usage as fancy.
Razorbak86 - Monday, September 24, 2012 - link
"Lighten up, Francis." -- Sergeant Hulka, Stripes (1981).Although you may view Ian Cutress' prose as "fancy", he was hardly being pretentious. He lives in London, and he was educated at the University of Oxford. That might not mean much to you, but feel free to Google a map or two and educate yourself about world geography.
I lived and worked in the United Kingdom for 5 years as an American expatriate. My daughter was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, and my kids grew up with British accents. I can assure you that it is standard practice in the United Kingdom to refer to companies in the plural. Fortunately for me, the British people were very gracious hosts. Despite the subtle differences between my American dialect and the Queen's English, they always treated me and my family with great respect throughout our stay.
So please be a little more polite when referring to one of the Senior Editors of AnandTech. You are, after all, communicating in HIS native tongue, not yours. ;-p