ASRock extreme9 mini review

A

Archangel7

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Jan 7, 2010
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So my 2012 build is done, or at least for now, and of course it did not go without some glitches. I chose the ASRock board because of its plentiful and quality power distribution and the 8 sata3 ports. As the board was advertised as the overclocking king, it is not, for one very simple and inexplicable reason. There is no way to strap the PCI bus. Now this is no problem, as long as you purchase the extreme or less expensive k version, but if your multiplier is locked, such as going to be the case, to my knolwedge, with the 3820 and 3830, you need to look at another board.

I like Asus boards, and unless something out there appears to be better in quality and performance, significantly so, I stick with their products. EVGA often finds a place in my puters, for example. However, ASRock was never be on my list again. They made a great board, great features, and then lose all points for advertising the board as an overclocking monster, while crippling the ability to overclock the FSB. Anyway, I thought some of you would like to know, because the reviews of this board really leave something to be desired. I cannot believe that none of the reviewers made a point of this fact, given the mainstream processors are going to be fully or partially locked, and this board is supposed to be engineered specifically for overclocking.
 
BTW, I will say this for ASRock, the only complaint I have about this board is the FSB issue. If you don not oc, and want a board that has all the features you could wish for, then this board is for you. But it is not an overclocking king, more like an overclocking eunuch, that appears to be all there, but is not on par with even the Asus Sabertooth, which I now wish I would have purchased instead.
 
on my extreme4 i can use straps just set you fsb to 125 and bam your good to go at least that's how it works on my 3930. when i first got the board it didn't tell you anything about the straps now whit the newest bois it tells you what fsb to set to get to the other straps, and i can not complain at all about my asrock mb thing has been solid as a rock and can hold my cpu at 5ghz and my ram at 2400
 
Thanks Archangel7 for that info - was seriously looking into that board before Ivy Bridge comes along
 
I am not sure how you are getting the board to post with a 125mhz BLCK, because while the straps for the memory are in place, there does not appear to be any way to clamp the pcie bus to 100mhz.

Could you please run cpuid and provide link so I can look at your system specs? Maybe it will give me some insight into something I have missed. I would rather be incorrect, and it just be my mistake. I think this processor would be far above any available, if I could simply raise the BLCK to 25mhz which would result 3.8 mhz
 


their you go could it be some thing whit the cpu? you could always send it to me to test it :D

i can also boot at 150blk but i cant get it prime stable past 4.5ghz
 
Came across another thread in forums, which dicussed the very same problem I am having. Definitely not the board, just something inherent in the chip itself or a limitor in the x79 chip set. Maybe when it comes out retail, and all the bios and intel info is updated it will allow the BLCK to be manipulated past the 105 point, but for now it looks like these chips are only gonna run at the clock they were given.
 
Archangel7 said:
Came across another thread in forums, which dicussed the very same problem I am having. Definitely not the board, just something inherent in the chip itself or a limitor in the x79 chip set. Maybe when it comes out retail, and all the bios and intel info is updated it will allow the BLCK to be manipulated past the 105 point, but for now it looks like these chips are only gonna run at the clock they were given.
Click to expand...

Please ignore my PM. I see that you have the latest bios upgrade (v.1.9) for your ASRock.
 
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First things I do with new builds, install windows, install ethernet driver from disk, update bios to newest version, install drivers, video cards right after Intel info is installed, and everything else in somehat patterned order.

As for the ASRock E9, I have determined that oc'ing to 105 is not working well, and so went to stock clock. If I attempted to set my mem clocks at anything other than 1600, the board would not recognize one of the two quad channels. Also having difficulty with GEN3 selection, and when it is selected, it will post, and seems to boot, but no signal coming from cards. However, cant determine whether it is a board issue or a ATI driver issue.

Any suggestions/solutions?
 
Dead Horse, but to thrrow a wreath on it, at least in sandra, the cpu strap shows as a supported feature. To my understanding the strap is controled by the X79 chipset, not the cpu. Finally, the processor has a 150w TDP, indicating an extreme profile, Intel specs reserve the processor for workstation applications only and I am having trouble getting it to hit 50c on full load. In short, the damn thing is not performing at the level it could and should given its specs and usage, but it simply does not. In any event I am enjoying not having to worry about heat, tempramental parameters, etc and on par performance with a heavily overclocked 3960x of 3930k, 3820 will not even touch it.

No one on the GEN3 issue?
 
Archangel7 said:
Dead Horse, but to thrrow a wreath on it, at least in sandra, the cpu strap shows as a supported feature. To my understanding the strap is controled by the X79 chipset, not the cpu. Finally, the processor has a 150w TDP, indicating an extreme profile, Intel specs reserve the processor for workstation applications only and I am having trouble getting it to hit 50c on full load. In short, the damn thing is not performing at the level it could and should given its specs and usage, but it simply does not. In any event I am enjoying not having to worry about heat, tempramental parameters, etc and on par performance with a heavily overclocked 3960x of 3930k, 3820 will not even touch it.

No one on the GEN3 issue?
Click to expand...

To realized the full potential of their pre-release purchases, some might be forced to buy a dual CPU board such as an EVGA SRX (and a retail 2687w to drop in the CPU0 socket and drop the discount one in the CPU1 socket for best performance - of course, limited by the less capable chip). I suspect that the EVGA SRX (and any other dual CPU do-it-yourself boards) will have the most E5 microcode coverage and may have the necessary microcode necessary to strap ESs. But most certainly the retail 2687w will be covered. In any event CPU0 will be the strap base. So some might need a retail chip to drop in the primary socket if the ES microcode isn't there. In my EVGA SR2, the most capable of the two CPUs resides in Socket0. The less capable chip just gets pulled along for the CPU strap ride. A 1.25 strap gets a relatively good 24/7 performance boost. If you can safely use a 105 BCLK now, 1.25 + .05 = 1.30; 1.30 x 3.0 GHz gets you (1) 3.9 GHz non-turbo or (2) 1.3 x 3.1 GHz = 4.03 GHz 8-core Turbo or (3) 1.3 x 3.2 = 4.16 GHz 4-core Turbo or (4) 1.3 x 3.3 GHz = 4.29 GHz 2-core Turbo (with reasonably low temps [as good as they are now] and the ability to stay within Spec VID). But don't forget that all of these would be doubled with 2 CPUs (not to mention the added hyper threads) - So at max Turbo you'd have 4 cores running at 4.29 GHZ or, at lowest Turbo, 16 cores running at 4.03 GHz. I'd stay away from 1.66 even if it works - too much Vcore and heat and that adds up to more electricity usage [unless you reside somewhere where the climate is like that of Fairbanks, Alaska and you work for the electric company there and get employee discounts on that stuff], except for benching - it's the underclocker in me. I achieved my highest Geekbench2 (40,100) and Cinebench 11.5 (24.7) scores with my WolfPack1 [my cutting board] running dual x5680's, but underclocked to 2.48 GHz [and turbo biased to achieve a native power management turbo ratio of DDDDEE or 13,13,13,13,14,14 for each CPU]. I'm following the same route with Sandy Bee E5's 2687w's if EVGA let's me do so. Cinema4d, Unity3d, Logic 9 and Final Cut Pro Suite 7 are my knives of choice. My MSi x79 will be downgraded to a render slave.
 
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Thanks for the input, and was thinking along the same lines. IWhen the SRX is released it is going to be diffcult to restrain myself, and most likely I will not.
 
Archangel7 said:
Thanks for the input, and was thinking along the same lines. IWhen the SRX is released it is going to be diffcult to restrain myself, and most likely I will not.
Click to expand...

SRX announced by EVGA. There's good news and there's bad news. The good news is that the SRX is an overclockable motherboard, which is soon to be released. However, the bad news is very bad - ES and retail E5 8-cores have locked multipliers and locked - inaccessible - CPU straps, so until Intel releases fully unlocked E5's there'll be no overclocking beyond what could have been done to Sandy Bridge non-K chips in the past, i.e., overclock limited to about 6-8 percent. So, let the weeping begin
 
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