The ASRock Fatal1ty X299 Professional Gaming i9 Motherboard Review
by Joe Shields on September 26, 2017 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Gaming
- Intel
- ASRock
- SLI
- Fatal1ty
- CrossFire
- X299
- Skylake-X
- Kaby Lake-X
Overclocking with the Core i9-7900X
Experience with the ASRock X299 Professional Gaming i9
Overclocking Intel CPUs has been made much easier for the masses since the Sandy Bridge based 2500K/2600K were relased several years ago. These CPUs brought affordable unlocked processors to the masses. For all intents and purposes, it was a case of changing the CPU multipler, and the voltage when needed, and easy frequency gains were to be had. We still have unlocked processors available today; In fact, all consumer level Skylake-X and Kaby Lake-X have unlocked multipliers. Overclocking on the ASRock X299 Gaming i9 was relatively easy as any other board when it comes to manual overclocking.
The BIOS options of CPU multiplier and Vcore were easily found in the Ai Tweaker section and edited via mouse or keyboard. If a user is interested in extreme overclocking, enabling the LN2 Mode switch offers more options to help squeeze out the last MHz. Overclocking with the F-Stream software was also straightforward and worked without issue, although it is a bit more limited in function, specifically for memory overclocking which cannot be done with this tool. (Most Windows based applications like F-Stream struggle with memory changes on the fly anyway due to the instability it can cause without retraining.) Overall however, the board handled the voltage and clocks with relative ease. The heatsinks were warm to the touch after the benchmarking and overclocking sessions, but no obvious throttling was observed on the open air test bench.
Overclocking Methodology
Our standard overclocking methodology is as follows. We select the automatic overclock options and test for stability with POV-Ray and OCCT to simulate high-end workloads. These stability tests aim to catch any immediate causes for memory or CPU errors.
For manual overclocks, based on the information gathered from previous testing, starts off at a nominal voltage and CPU multiplier, and the multiplier is increased until the stability tests are failed. The CPU voltage is increased gradually until the stability tests are passed, and the process repeated until the motherboard reduces the multiplier automatically (due to safety protocol) or the CPU temperature reaches a stupidly high level (90ºC+). Our test bed is not in a case, which should push overclocks higher with fresher (cooler) air.
Overclocking Results
After all was said and done, we managed to get this specific CPU sample up to 4.5 GHz at 1.25V with all cores and threads active, up from a base of 3.3 GHz (4.3 GHz Turbo). LLC was set to Level 2 by default, giving a 'what you set is what you get' voltage reading both idle and under load (known as no vdroop). From the image below, thermally, 4.5 GHz was the limit for the test PC as it was breaking the 90°C barrier at high load.
Our testing passed POV-Ray as well as OCCT at this stage - we wouldn't call this '24/7' stable without further testing, but it would surely be able to handle a quick run of many synthetic benchmarks with these settings. A better cooling solution (custom water with a better/bigger radiator) might bring those temperatures down, or replacing the thermal material between the silicon and the heatspreader. For the brave, delidding is possible with these CPUs and will help squeeze every last MHz out of them.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
22 Comments
View All Comments
ddriver - Tuesday, September 26, 2017 - link
Does it support intel's latest and greatest dual core i3 HEDT cpu? If not - no buy.duploxxx - Tuesday, September 26, 2017 - link
why test on a stupid 7900X cpu?duploxxx - Tuesday, September 26, 2017 - link
bring the 16-18 core and show how the dual memory controller is handling the games, after all this is a gaming board ....ddriver - Tuesday, September 26, 2017 - link
Yeah, and don't forget the games that scale up to 16-18 cores.JeffFlanagan - Tuesday, September 26, 2017 - link
For some reason, people feel the need to stream their games on the Internet, so that only leaves 15-17 cores for the game to use.It seems like an i5 is still a much better value for a gaming machine since most games use very few cores.
duploxxx - Wednesday, September 27, 2017 - link
the reason i ask is because threadripper reviews all over the net were hammered with the poor gaming benchies en the reason for specifc settings. guess what, no gaming benchies on the HCC designs from Intel that have the same memory disadvantage.OhWhateverOnceMore - Tuesday, September 26, 2017 - link
"i9" ...ok..."Professional" ... uh uh...
"Gaming" ... /r/hmmm
TEAMSWITCHER - Tuesday, September 26, 2017 - link
Is there an Intel co-marketing kick-back for having a "Gaming" branding? You see it everywhere...oRAirwolf - Tuesday, September 26, 2017 - link
"Curiously, for a motherboard which has "gaming" in the title and having three network ports, we were surprised not to see a Killer Network based NIC which finds its way on to several other gaming motherboards. Network traffic shaping is still possible through software, although Rivet Networks would likely claim they offer an optimized solution if their chip had been used. Perhaps a combination of an Intel GbE, Rivet Networks Killer E2500 GbE, and an Aquantia 10GbE which would have encompassed more of its tarket market."Wutness? Why on Earth would you want to see Killer on a gaming board? ASUS has shown through their own testing that Killer NIC's are trash:
https://rog.asus.com/articles/product-news/tried-a...
That aforementioned paragraph seriously makes me question the legitimacy of reviews on this site now. It is common knowledge that Killer is absolute and utter trash.
BrokenCrayons - Tuesday, September 26, 2017 - link
Oh you beat me to the point here. This is one of very rare times when I'd agree that there appears to be a certain amount of institutional bias at Anandtech in favor of Killer NICs. If you do a search for the string "Rivet Networks" in AT's search box you can find this article from September 2016:https://www.anandtech.com/show/10679/rivet-network...
It looks like that was sort of ground zero for that opinion and it's stuck since. In the comments of that article (disclosure - I was a participant with cynical views of Killer NICs even back then for reasons I make clear in those comments) there was discussion about reviewing and analyzing the E2500. Anandtech has never presented such a review or supplied readers with any data supporting the idea that Killer NICs are somehow superior or worthy of being sought out by consumers. Despite lacking reliable test data, there's still unexplained support in the form of hint-dropped lines like the one you've quoted that imply a certain subset of readers should be seeking out Killer NIC-equipped products or that its somehow unusual that a premium motherboard omits them.
I find the whole thing does hurt Anandtech's credibility. If there's data that supports a Killer NIC being a better option, gather it and publish it. Don't assert and insinuate without any substantially supportive information to a group of people (gamers in this case) without being able to back up those claims. Killer NICs can be acquired for testing. Maybe Rivet's people would supply a product for testing. If Rivet doesn't or does and Anandtech doesn't test it, then what else do we have to go on? Consumers in the target audience are already broadly suspicious of the benefits Rivet claims Killer NICs offer to the point where it seems almost delusional to boost them in a motherboard review.