The ASRock X399 Phantom Gaming 6 Motherboard Review: $250 Sixteen Core Stunner
by Gavin Bonshor on March 12, 2019 10:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- AMD
- ASRock
- ATX
- ThreadRipper
- X399
- TR4
- 2950X
- 2.5G
- Phantom Gaming 6
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 the manufacturing process and prowess, so these are tested.
For 2019, we are running an updated version of our test suite, including OS and CPU cooler. This has some effect on our results.
For this review, we had to test with a 2950X as the 1950X we normally use with X399 had to be returned. This has some effect on benchmark data, however it is still rated to the same 180W TDP as the 1950X.
Power Consumption
Power consumption was tested on the system while in a single ASUS GTX 980 GPU configuration with a wall meter connected to the Thermaltake 1200W power supply. This power supply has ~75% efficiency > 50W, and 90%+ efficiency at 250W, 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.
Power draw on the ASRock X399 Phantom Gaming 6 isn't too far away from the competition at full load with a total power draw on our test suite of 274 W. At long idle and idle power stages however, the slight reduction in controllers and features onboard could be at play with the lowest X399 power results attained so far.
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 starts loading. (We discount Windows loading as it is highly variable given Windows specific features.)
When compared directly against boards such as the ASRock X399 Taichi, the ASRock X399 Phantom Gaming 6 in POST did suffer somewhat with some of the worst results so far. Only the MSI MEG X399 Creation has performed worse so far and while the Phantom Gaming 6 was noticeably better than this, it's still off the mark we expect.
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.
All of the X399 motherboards on test haven't had manual DPC optimizations out of the box, but the ASRock X399 Phantom Gaming 6 managed to achieve the best latency result by a decent margin over boards such as the ASUS X399 ROG Zenith Extreme and the ASRock X399 Taichi.
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andychow - Tuesday, March 12, 2019 - link
These days, pcbs come with anywhere from 1 to 14 layers. I'm assuming that this means the audio circuits are isolated on their own layers.sonny73n - Tuesday, March 12, 2019 - link
Then it should be stated as "The audio PCB is on its own layer”. But I’ll have to break it down to see it for myself.Alexvrb - Tuesday, March 12, 2019 - link
"ASRock has built this motherboard to support AMD Threadripper with a thermal design point of up to 180 W, which means it can only support up to 16 core processors such as the AMD Threadripper 2950X."Zen 2 will pack more cores in that same envelope. I find it highly likely even an entry-level TR4 board like this will support more cores when the next-gen models hit the market - after a BIOS update, of course.
Smell This - Tuesday, March 12, 2019 - link
El-Oh-El @ 'post latency'Want some whine with that cheese, much?
sorten - Tuesday, March 12, 2019 - link
Weird product offering, considering Threadripper isn't a gaming CPU.TrackSmart - Wednesday, March 13, 2019 - link
Agreed regarding Threadripper and gaming-centric builds. It doesn't make a lot of sense.Of course, to look at the marketing used on computer components, one would clearly come to the conclusion that *almost all* powerful computers are primarily designed for gaming!
Now, please explain to the finance department why we appear to be purchasing "gaming" equipment for our high-end workstations...
xray9 - Wednesday, March 13, 2019 - link
I am wondering why thunderbolt is still not available with AMD boards. AFAIR Intel ceased license fees for this technology. Even for Intel boards this option is rare, especially if you want to build a Xeon based system to get ECC RAM as well. Do you know why this is the case ?AMD would be interesting as platform supporting ECC RAM compared to Intel Xeon, because the AMD CPU offering look good and are cheaper compared to Xeon.
One proposal for mainboard reviews. Could you kindly perform DPC latency measuring with LatencyMon in your reviews ? One time with default BIOS settings and one time with energy saving disabled ?
It would be very useful for people to identify good designed mainboards to achieve a very responsive systems for i.e. recording or gaming.
I had for example in the past a bogus mainboard where kernel timer latency was relatively high which caused audio drops. The only way was to use higher ASIO buffer sizes for recording, which is in some situations not so ideal.
I replaced the mainboard with the successor of this board on the same system.
And of all sudden the kernel timer latency went down to the absolute minimum of ~2 microseconds on an IDLE system, which was never possible with the other mainboard.
On some Laptop Reviews I saw in the past that they deliver these figures, which I regard as very useful. The lower kernel latency is, the quicker CPU cores are available for working on processes and threads without lag.
Valantar - Wednesday, March 13, 2019 - link
I wish this board was around back when I built my partner's TR workstation in late 2017. We went for the Asus X399-E Strix, and frankly I think I would have preferred this. More m.2 (the Strix has one + one on a kinda awkward bracket), standard ATX size, and very noticeably cheaper. The BYO WiFi solution is good IMO - m.2 WiFi cards are dirt cheap, you can pick whatever rocks your boat, or leave it if you don't care. I just wish the WiFi bracket was instead integrated into the I/O plate - there's room in the middle there. Other than that: Good job ASRock.Valantar - Wednesday, March 13, 2019 - link
... and I entirely forgot to mention the 2.5Gbit Ethernet. That's a _huge_ plus (if only someone were to launch some cheap-ish 5p 2.5/5GbE switches!)guyr - Saturday, April 6, 2019 - link
I'm a software developer, and this board looks great for that application. I want cores, high clocks and fast storage; I specifically don't care about multiple GPUs, so the 4x16 configuration of most of the existing Threadripper motherboards was overkill. This board appears to have what I actually need, saving cost on features I don't: 8 DIMMs for plenty of memory, 3 M.2 for fast storage, and of course the Threadripper. 16 cores is fine for software development, though perhaps with Zen 3 we'll get 32 cores in the 180 watt envelop. Kudos to ASRock for diversifying the market.