The ASUS ROG Maximus X Apex Review: X Marks the Spot, Literally
by Joe Shields on May 11, 2018 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Intel
- Asus
- ROG
- Aquantia
- 5G
- Coffee Lake
- Z370
System Performance
Not all motherboards are created equal. On the face of it, they should all perform the same and differ only in the functionality they provide - however, this is not the case. The obvious pointers are power consumption, but also the ability for the manufacturer to optimize USB speed, audio quality (based on audio codec), POST time and latency. This can come down to manufacturing process and prowess, so these are tested.
Power Consumption
Power consumption was tested on the system while in a single GPU configuration with a wall meter connected to the Corsair HX 750 power supply. This power supply is Platinum rated. As I am in the US on a 120 V supply, leads to ~87% efficiency > 75W, and 92%+ efficiency at 375W, suitable for both idle and multi-GPU loading. This method of power reading allows us to compare the power management of the UEFI and the board to supply components with power under load, and includes typical PSU losses due to efficiency. These are the real world values that consumers may expect from a typical system (minus the monitor) using this motherboard.
While this method for power measurement may not be ideal, and you feel these numbers are not representative due to the high wattage power supply being used (we use the same PSU to remain consistent over a series of reviews, and the fact that some boards on our test bed get tested with three or four high powered GPUs), the important point to take away is the relationship between the numbers. These boards are all under the same conditions, and thus the differences between them should be easy to spot.
The Power Consumption tests show the Apex using a bit more more power than the rest of our data sets coming in at 44W, 49W, and 146W, with all boards within a couple of watts of each other. Nothing out of the ordinary here.
Non-UEFI POST Time
Different motherboards have different POST sequences before an operating system is initialized. A lot of this is dependent on the board itself, and POST boot time is determined by the controllers on board (and the sequence of how those extras are organized). As part of our testing, we look at the POST Boot Time using a stopwatch. This is the time from pressing the ON button on the computer to when Windows 10 starts loading. (We discount Windows loading as it is highly variable given Windows specific features.
POST times for the Apex, are pretty quick coming in at 21.7 seconds default and 20.3 seconds stripped which places this in the top half of our results. In fact both ASUS boards so far have the fastest boot times on this platform.
DPC Latency
Deferred Procedure Call latency is a way in which Windows handles interrupt servicing. In order to wait for a processor to acknowledge the request, the system will queue all interrupt requests by priority. Critical interrupts will be handled as soon as possible, whereas lesser priority requests such as audio will be further down the line. If the audio device requires data, it will have to wait until the request is processed before the buffer is filled.
If the device drivers of higher priority components in a system are poorly implemented, this can cause delays in request scheduling and process time. This can lead to an empty audio buffer and characteristic audible pauses, pops and clicks. The DPC latency checker measures how much time is taken processing DPCs from driver invocation. The lower the value will result in better audio transfer at smaller buffer sizes. Results are measured in microseconds.
Our DPC latency results for the Apex was over our 300 microsecond mark coming in at 328. I uninstalled and reinstalled the Audio drivers as well as chipset and ME drivers to see if I was able to get the times down, but was not successful. While the latency value is higher than other boards, I was not able to make the system hitch or cut out the sound during my use.
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PhrogChief - Saturday, May 12, 2018 - link
LOL...Dragonstongue - Saturday, May 12, 2018 - link
IMO they really should have similar spec non LED/RGB bs motherboards for AMD as well as Intel because there are many (such as myself) that have ZERO need or want for RGB anything taking up the BOM for things that are far more useful.such as put the $ towards giving the best most stable VRM or ensuring the m.2 slots have the best cooling possible without having to resort to liquid (would not hurt them to move them away from right underneath the hottest parts in most computers such as graphics cards/cpu)
why can they not maybe figure out a way to place them right behind the sata/motherboard mains power where there tends to be a nice "hole" that is very rarely occupied with anything)
X shaped LMAO, I was expecting a significant X, but it barely cut the motherboard to give a very slight impression of this (and only if you look really closely)
I very much feel the same though, when you call everything X this or X that, Gaming this or Gaming that, Ultra this or Ultra that, the words lose all meaning, because "everyone is doing it"
ROG is a fine branding, and Hero or Formula or Maximus is also fine, they really do not need to add an even longer name on top of this to try to draw extra attention to it IMO ^.^
mapesdhs - Monday, May 14, 2018 - link
Years ago, the ASUS Sriker II Extreme turned heads, as did the Maximus IV Extreme, and definitely the Rampage IV Extreme. These days, the whole notion of such boards has been rather diluted. Fun stuff like PLX chips has largely gone, while the oc headroom of the latest mainstream Intel chip is garbage (why anyone cares about a 6% bump over the official max turbo is beyond me; at least with SB one could easily reach a 28% bump over the official max turbo, and without the need for Iceland airflow to keep it cool). Oc'ing back in the days of S775, X58, P55 and SB was fun, one could relaly push the hw and see some great gains (sooo many delighted 2500K users out there), but now it's just a giant yawn fest. The CPUs are doing a lot of the oc work automatically, and they're getting good at it.mapesdhs - Monday, May 14, 2018 - link
I meant to add, even outside the ROG line ASUS was doing funky things, eg. the P7P55 WS Supercomputer, x8/x8/x8/x8 on a P55 board! :D I hold most of the P55 3DMark records by plonking three 980s on that whacko board. The P9X79-E WS was similarly and usefully OTT, great for compute yet it has most of the same oc potential of the equiavent ROG board (R4E). Modern mbds have gone RGB bling mad because that's all they have left to tout.Dug - Wednesday, May 16, 2018 - link
I agree with the VRM and m.2 slots.I would really like to know why m.2 slots are in such a hot location.
I'd also like to know why Intel won't increase the lanes needed for more bandwidth to devices.
PhrogChief - Saturday, May 12, 2018 - link
COMING SOON: Asus Republic of Maximus GamerX Type R Ultra Rev 2.0 Extreme X599 MASTER EDITION w-Aura Link LightFlow by Strixm16 - Sunday, May 13, 2018 - link
Interesting, I don't know why this high density RAM was not more of a thing back in the DDR3 days, although I could understand the desire to Overclock and those 16GB DIMMs don't allow that in DDR3 (not to mention that most were also ECC applications).I hope the prices go down, because a 16GB DIMM although not a hard thing to find now, it is still very expensive.
Otherwise, this is an amazing board indeed.
Aikouka - Monday, May 14, 2018 - link
Seems a bit odd to go with a 5Gbps port on an expensive motherboard when ASRock is offering a 10Gbps port on their higher-end board (Z370 Professional Gaming i7). Heck, ASUS even releases stand-alone cards with the same chip that ASRock uses, which is the same company that makes the chip for this board.nimi - Tuesday, May 15, 2018 - link
ASUS be like:A: Guys, slapping on RGB just isn't cutting it anymore, we need something new to stand out.
B: *looks up from his fruit X phone* Notches are all the rage these days, what if we added a NOTCH to our board?
A: I think you're on to something! Hey, why not go one step further, let's do FOUR notches!!! I'll bet it'll sell 4 times as fast!
B: Yes! And add "X" to the name for good measure.
A: BRILLIANT