ASRock X79 Extreme9 LGA 2011 Motherboard Review @ [H]

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FrgMstr

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ASRock X79 Extreme9 LGA 2011 Motherboard Review - Our experiences around here with ASRock haven’t been the best. Though the last one we tested actually did really well. As a result of our great experiences with the Extreme4 we can only hope the ASRock X79 Extreme9 follows suit. The Extreme9 is ASRock's most expensive Sandy Bridge E motherboard, we hope it acts like it.
 
As always nicely done.
Pretty nice board.:D

I agree with the thoughts on the 3930K overclocks.
I found it very easy to OC my 3930 on my Rampage IV Formula to 4.5 GHz.
I use 1.335 VCore and under full stress the top temp is 70C, normal use never goes over 45C watercooled and idles at 35C.

But......trying to go higher......not so much.
 
Ive had it for a month and a half so far. Some minor quips, but for the most part its been solid (haven't OC'd it yet)
 
The voltages in CPU-Z were likely correct. If you max out Load Line Calibration you are in effect in an over-volt situation. This is the case on every X79 mobo out there. As you move up the LLC scale, some boards overvolt more than others, but they all overvolt in some capacity. Asus is particularly aggressive in this area with settings of Regular resulting in some V droop, Medium runs closest voltage as set in BIOS for CPU voltage (little to no droop), while High, Ultra High, and Extreme escalate the overvolt scenerio incrementally.

This is a chart of the resulting voltages at the various LLC settings for the Asus X79 Sabertooth (I used the image from a forum posting elsewhere)
llctable.png


Most of us find that using a mid setting for LLC works best on the X79 boards, setting LLC just high enough to reduce V droop but not heavily overvolt the CPU. Excessive LLC just creates lots of heat on the VRMs that already run hot on these boards and can often time cause throttling to keep VRM temps in control (unless Overtemp is turned off).

That's what happened when that user burned up his UD7 on you tube. He cranked up LLC to max, turned of over temp protections, and fried his board.
 
Nice looking board, been looking for a good X79, I should see--

Active chipset cooling, fuck that.
 
Well, if you guys are not sure on the board, send it to me and I'll buy a CPU and give it some extended testing. :)
 
I think you guys need to get over those boards of the past and take another look at whats in front of you. :(

Sure you may have had problems with ASrock in the past, but you know who hasnt had a problem with EVERY mobo manufacturer in the past?

Hell Asus, Gigabyte and MSI all had periods in the past where their stuff was not up to par.

10 years ago I RMAd a gigabyte board twice because they forgot to solder a cap on.
5 years ago I RMAd 2 asus boards because of DOA.
4 years ago it was an MSI because their southbridge was getting too hot.
Right now I have a Gigabyte with a bad DIMM out of warranty.

AND you guys want to give a bad opinion of this board because of misgivings in the past, even though it survived a 200 degree torture test unscathed and pumped out some great performance numbers?

Ok, fine go right on ahead and live in your fantasy world where the Big 3 never make quality mistakes and dont force their customers to overpay for fluff. :mad:
 
interesting board, but to me it seems like this one defeats the purpose of the ASRock brand. wasn't this supposed to be a value brand? makes me think of boards slightly over $100 at most. leave the top ends to asus.
 
EpsilonZer0 said:
I think you guys need to get over those boards of the past and take another look at whats in front of you. :(

Sure you may have had problems with ASrock in the past, but you know who hasnt had a problem with EVERY mobo manufacturer in the past?

Hell Asus, Gigabyte and MSI all had periods in the past where their stuff was not up to par.

10 years ago I RMAd a gigabyte board twice because they forgot to solder a cap on.
5 years ago I RMAd 2 asus boards because of DOA.
4 years ago it was an MSI because their southbridge was getting too hot.
Right now I have a Gigabyte with a bad DIMM out of warranty.

AND you guys want to give a bad opinion of this board because of misgivings in the past, even though it survived a 200 degree torture test unscathed and pumped out some great performance numbers?

Ok, fine go right on ahead and live in your fantasy world where the Big 3 never make quality mistakes and dont force their customers to overpay for fluff. :mad:
Click to expand...

This is actually a fair point. I had sworn off Asus for the same exact reason Kyle and Dan give for ASRock. Its a matter of experience really. I had bought the DH-Deluxe board based off [H]'s high regard and had nothing but trouble with it. I found Asus' webpage a a dog and it would crash more often than load at all. A frustrating experience at the time.

I bought a chip upgrade last year to try and squeeze a little more life out of the 775 platform before 2011 and found the board didn't do half steps, criplling the chip to where I could not run the Q9650 at full speed even though it said it was supported. Picked up a cheap ASRock and I was impressed considering it was very inexpensive. That's what led me to go ASRock this round and i've been pretty pleased with the results at stock. Once I get a new UPS and finish redoing my workstation area I'll OC it, but despite some early trouble where i could not get a Corsair SSD to recognize at boot, i since replaced the SSD and am very happy thus far.
 
EpsilonZer0 said:
I think you guys need to get over those boards of the past and take another look at whats in front of you. :(

Sure you may have had problems with ASrock in the past, but you know who hasnt had a problem with EVERY mobo manufacturer in the past?

Hell Asus, Gigabyte and MSI all had periods in the past where their stuff was not up to par.

10 years ago I RMAd a gigabyte board twice because they forgot to solder a cap on.
5 years ago I RMAd 2 asus boards because of DOA.
4 years ago it was an MSI because their southbridge was getting too hot.
Right now I have a Gigabyte with a bad DIMM out of warranty.

AND you guys want to give a bad opinion of this board because of misgivings in the past, even though it survived a 200 degree torture test unscathed and pumped out some great performance numbers?

Ok, fine go right on ahead and live in your fantasy world where the Big 3 never make quality mistakes and dont force their customers to overpay for fluff. :mad:
Click to expand...

3 out of their 4 ASRock boards had issues. What's more to say about that? When they got a proper working board, it was a good, solid board. And they did specifically say that they need to spend more time working with ASRock in order to get more of a feel for them.

It wasn't only the fact that they had misgivings of it that they gave it a semi-bad rating. Actually, their overall rating was pretty favorable, yet you just seemed to pick out only the bad things said about it, and glazed over or ignored the good parts. The other bad thing they stated was the high heat output and power consumption as compared to other 2011 boards.

THRESHIN said:
interesting board, but to me it seems like this one defeats the purpose of the ASRock brand. wasn't this supposed to be a value brand? makes me think of boards slightly over $100 at most. leave the top ends to asus.
Click to expand...

ASRock is its own company now, and they're trying to expand. What's wrong with that?
 
EpsilonZer0 said:
I think you guys need to get over those boards of the past and take another look at whats in front of you. :(

Sure you may have had problems with ASrock in the past, but you know who hasnt had a problem with EVERY mobo manufacturer in the past?

Hell Asus, Gigabyte and MSI all had periods in the past where their stuff was not up to par.

10 years ago I RMAd a gigabyte board twice because they forgot to solder a cap on.
5 years ago I RMAd 2 asus boards because of DOA.
4 years ago it was an MSI because their southbridge was getting too hot.
Right now I have a Gigabyte with a bad DIMM out of warranty.

AND you guys want to give a bad opinion of this board because of misgivings in the past, even though it survived a 200 degree torture test unscathed and pumped out some great performance numbers?

Ok, fine go right on ahead and live in your fantasy world where the Big 3 never make quality mistakes and dont force their customers to overpay for fluff. :mad:
Click to expand...

It would be one thing if we were talking about experiences that took place 6 months or a year ago. These boards were all reviewed within the last few weeks. Our experiences with them have been inconsistent at best. Don't forget that this board had 2 bad SATA ports on it. It wasn't perfect. This is a terrible batting average considering I can't recall getting two defective boards from any one manufacturer in the 6 years I've been doing motherboard reviews. Hell I can't even say I've seen two defective boards prior to ASRock's either.
 
Regarding LLC on this board .. You mentioned " Load-line calibration was set to level 5 " ...

Asrock went counter-intuitive with this, in that lower is better, so 5 would kill you with v-droop.
I used level 3 for my 4.6 OC ..

Having worked with a couple of Asus UEFI BIOS' I do find the Asrock version a little funky,
but now that I am used to it, I really like the Xtreme 9. I switched over from an
Asus board that had major problems.

I used the Auto overclock feature for 4.6, then used the offset mode to back off the vcore a bit..

It took 1.4 to get stable at 4.6g, but I'm running at 4.2g and 1.3v to save a little power while folding ..
 
Diogenes2 said:
Regarding LLC on this board .. You mentioned " Load-line calibration was set to level 5 " ...

Asrock went counter-intuitive with this, in that lower is better, so 5 would kill you with v-droop.
I used level 3 for my 4.6 OC ..

Having worked with a couple of Asus UEFI BIOS' I do find the Asrock version a little funky,
but now that I am used to it, I really like the Xtreme 9. I switched over from an
Asus board that had major problems.

I used the Auto overclock feature for 4.6, then used the offset mode to back off the vcore a bit..

It took 1.4 to get stable at 4.6g, but I'm running at 4.2g and 1.3v to save a little power while folding ..
Click to expand...

I actually tried LLC at both level 1 and level 5 because I didn't know what ASRock deemed better. Typically most boards are the other way, but I tried both to be safe in my testing. vDroop was still all over the map with this board no matter what I did. In fact the voltage regulation is horrid compared to ASUS' and some other boards I've worked with more recently. It's still a decent overclocker for sure, but there are better boards out there than the Extreme9 in a number of areas. The Extreme4 had some of the same failings as the Extreme9 had. Mainly the terrible voltage regulation.
 
How can you say it has horrid/terrible voltage regulation if it remains a stable OC @ 4.5GHz on a 3930k? (I think you should simply say voltage is not as tight as an ASUS, not try and bash it with your negative words, but do what you like idc)

Ahhhh hahahaha! Pay more for the ASUS if it makes you feel special. I do believe you if you state ASUS has better voltage regulation but is it worth the extra 100 dollars or more just to be able to say that? Comon maybe it's the black and red colors swaying you hee hee.

Anyhow I think ASRock have come so far in the mobo business, and most enthusiasts are gonna pay the big bucks for the big 3 and never try ASRock outta false fears. (Which is 2 bad for them imho) Glad I've been supporting them since 2006, anyhow this board imho looks to be the best for my tastes.

I think ASUS is number 1 but I think in 1-2 years ASRock will be the best with critics and fans alike. Just my opinion. It's terrible and horrid right hahaha? ;)
 
teletran8 said:
How can you say it has horrid/terrible voltage regulation if it remains a stable OC @ 4.5GHz on a 3930k? (I think you should simply say voltage is not as tight as an ASUS, not try and bash it with your negative words, but do what you like idc)

Ahhhh hahahaha! Pay more for the ASUS if it makes you feel special. I do believe you if you state ASUS has better voltage regulation but is it worth the extra 100 dollars or more just to be able to say that? Comon maybe it's the black and red colors swaying you hee hee.

Anyhow I think ASRock have come so far in the mobo business, and most enthusiasts are gonna pay the big bucks for the big 3 and never try ASRock outta false fears. (Which is 2 bad for them imho) Glad I've been supporting them since 2006, anyhow this board imho looks to be the best for my tastes.

I think ASUS is number 1 but I think in 1-2 years ASRock will be the best with critics and fans alike. Just my opinion. It's terrible and horrid right hahaha? ;)
Click to expand...

It worked yes, but the boards I've seen with "tighter" voltage regulation also typically overclocked a little better. Over the long haul, I'll opt for better voltage hardware everytime. Horrid is probably a strong word for it, but ASUS, MSI, and Gigabyte all did better with their boards and voltage regulation based on what I've seen so far. And paying more for ASUS doesn't make me feel special. They simply make a better board. ASRock has interesting designs and I love what they've done with the Extreme9's drive controller firmware. This is the first thing I've really seen them do that sets themselves apart from the rest. I'm interested in seeing more, but right now I still wouldn't buy one. I've experienced other LGA2011 boards which overclock better and didn't have hardware problems. Not all of them are from ASUS either.
 
I have had two bad experiences with an AsRock P55 Deluxe and a refurb 775 board, but besides that I have purchased well over 30 of their boards from different sockets and every one worked quirk free.
 
I read the review and frankly, I was shocked that you did another review.

Despite the [H] earlier negative experiences with Asrock, I purchased an Asrock due to multiple positive reviews at anandtech. My board works fine and it's been stable for the year I've had it.

I appreciate your effort & willingness to keep an open mind and listen to your readers. I have posted in the past stating my positive experience with Asrock and it was unfortunate that you've had multiple inconsistencies with Asrock. I took a chance knowing that I could return the board if it was defective and I'm glad I tried it out.

Thank you for listening to your readers.

*edit*
Of course I may be singing a different tune if my Asrock board dies out of warranty after 18 months.

Anandtech review for Asus & Gigabyte P67 boards:

However, the second question is: ‘what about the comparison to the ASRock P67 Extreme4’? The ASRock board has power/reset buttons on the board, a Debug LED, that USB 3.0 bracket which will hold an SSD (worth in my option about $15), and is almost $40 cheaper. The ASUS board is the slightly better performing, overclocking is easier on the ASUS, the ASUS has a longer warranty, the UEFI is slightly better on the ASUS, the ASUS uses Intel Ethernet rather than Realtek, but the ASRock will take socket 775 coolers. It is up to you to judge, but in my opinion, I would take the Extreme4, pocket the $40 difference, and invest it in something else for a PC build.
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Anand review of Asus P8P67
Overall, despite this board being available for a little while I would say this motherboard is a good contender in the P67 sub $160 price range, but some of the additional extras which come with the ASRock P67 Extreme4 for example may be enough to sway people towards that board instead.
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Anand review of Asrock P67:
If ASRock are really able to get this board out for $150, we have a really nice offering here. Compared to a couple of other boards I have tested this week, I'm liking this ASRock board more and more. It looks OK, it performs well, and the box contains that nice USB bracket. A lot of people would be quite happy with this motherboard if it performs as it did on our test bed. We're not ready to crown the champion P67 board just yet, but the ASRock P67 Extreme4 is definitely a contender.
Click to expand...
 
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lol, 'Striker Extreme' POS....I ended up giving mine away, could'nt ask $$$ for a paperweight...somehow I doubt ASRock or anyone else could produce another one of those, Striker Ex, the first board that kept taking and taking...:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

I know active cooling isn't 'kewl' but this board does look good, take off the markings and it could be any vendors..
 
ianken said:
LOL. Two PCI slots. I can run my SB16 in there! WOOT!
Click to expand...

may seem silly but many people have PCI soundboards and TV tunas' they just can't part with, so it kinda fits the 'budget conscious' target buyer...
 
I for one appreciated this review. You guys see things you don't like, ya don't sugar coat it. I'm not a mindless automaton, if I don't have the same concerns as the reviewers here I simply disregard knowing full well what ever function isn't going to be a problem in my particular case. You speak how you feel on your reviews and I really appreciate that.

On another note, worse than the extreme9 review given here, has anyone had a look at the reviews on newegg? Even some of the 3 egg reviews state things that are deal breakers for me..
 
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Kroegs said:
I for one appreciated this review. You guys see things you don't like, ya don't sugar coat it. I'm not a mindless automaton, if I don't have the same concerns as the reviewers here I simply disregard knowing full well what ever function isn't going to be a problem in my particular case. You speak how you feel on your reviews and I really appreciate that.

On another note, worse than the extreme9 review given here, has anyone had a look at the reviews on newegg? Even some of the 3 egg reviews state things that are deal breakers for me..
Click to expand...

The Extreme4 was less problematic than the Extreme9. The latter has awesome firmware handling for it's many drive controllers, which is what sets it apart from other boards I've seen. That being said, the Extreme4 is still the better buy. It's cheaper, and it worked better.
 
It's strange considering all the effort they put into the phase design and even dual 8 pin cpu power connectors that the power would be so unstable. I like max overclockability so I don't care for that too much.

Maybe it's tech they just need to perfect a bit, though I have to wonder and have wondered with a few other boards if they are "over-doing" it with the power design and end up being counter productive. Got a ud7 with a 24 phase (sounds great but it's not real, it's more like 12x2) cpu power design that has fluctuations up the wazoo. Load line calibrations so bizarre. I know llc's are mainly firmware controlled, but still I have to wonder.
 
Thanks for the follow-up review, [H]. Nice to see a fair shake and a nod given to where it may be deserved.

To me, ASRock is like the factory ricers of MoBo world, so I'm still not buying any of their products. Ever. :p
 
Kroegs said:
It's strange considering all the effort they put into the phase design and even dual 8 pin cpu power connectors that the power would be so unstable. I like max overclockability so I don't care for that too much.

Maybe it's tech they just need to perfect a bit, though I have to wonder and have wondered with a few other boards if they are "over-doing" it with the power design and end up being counter productive. Got a ud7 with a 24 phase (sounds great but it's not real, it's more like 12x2) cpu power design that has fluctuations up the wazoo. Load line calibrations so bizarre. I know llc's are mainly firmware controlled, but still I have to wonder.
Click to expand...

The hardware looks pretty good, but it does seem their firmware needs work on that front. the Intel DX79SI has the most stable voltage regulation of any X79 board I've ever seen. There is no fancy UEFI or anything, but the damned thing just works.
 
Quality control and shipping, the two impossible to quantify on small samples. Read reviews and try to make a sound decision.

Keep up the good work. I'll just hope to stay lucky in my picks.
 
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I think they have Come such a far way in terms of Build Looks and Quality I wouldnt have a Problem Buying one at any point. :)
 
wtourist said:
Quality control and shipping, the two impossible to quantify on small samples. Read reviews and try to make a sound decision.

Keep up the good work. I'll just hope to stay lucky in my picks.
Click to expand...

The small sample sizes are one thing that you really can't overcome in a review. At least not with regard to a single model. To some extent you just have to take a leap of faith when you recommend a board because you can only go off what you've experienced. That's part of why this article was revisited. The bulk of the ASRock boards we've looked at weren't all that great. Yet a lot of people were saying they are. So we decided to give the one we did like another shot and see if we got lucky that first time or not.

I feel good enough about that model. With regard to the brand as a whole, not really. When I recommend a Gigabyte or an ASUS board, even based on one model, I've got years of experience and a sample size (not of a specific model) of dozens of boards over several years (maybe more) that I can reflect on. When a board from one of these companies reviews well and I recommend it, I know I'm not likely to get burned by doing so. Sure a few people will always have issues with one board or another, but the overall consensus will hopefully match up with my recommendation to a large degree.
 
Always be an Asus fan, but there are always little glitches here and there no matter what brand. The top tier brands are better for sure, than the cheapo stuff like ECS (where half go bad within half year in a batch of a dozen). This time i'm going to try the Asrock Extreme 4, as it is nearly half the price of the other board i was looking at, Z77 Sabertooth. I can buy two Extreme 4s for the price of 1 Sabertooth, and it has damn near the same features.
 
I currently have a Z68 Asrock board (Fatal1ty version). I've had ASUS and EVGA boards in the past. I must admit, Bang for buck i am extremely happy with this board. With that said, i did not test other Z680 boards so I don't have a good comparison. My system however is running stable with a 4.4Ghz OC and Ram running in sync at 2133 rated speeds. I am not sure if it is a mobo issue or an issue because I have fast RAM, but i can't get past 4.4Ghz OC unless i lower my RAM speeds. I did post this question in the intel forum so im not looking for answers here. I was simply stating the experience i've had with ASROCK and that I am satisified with their product. I bought a Z68 non extreme board for my friend's pc and he is also running stable. So i am 2 for 2.
 
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