The ASUS X99 Rampage V Extreme ROG Review
by Ian Cutress on June 22, 2015 8:45 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Asus
- ROG
- Haswell-E
- X99
CPU Performance
Readers of our motherboard review section will have noted the trend in modern motherboards to implement a form of MultiCore Enhancement / Acceleration / Turbo (read our report here) on their motherboards. This does several things, including better benchmark results at stock settings (not entirely needed if overclocking is an end-user goal) at the expense of heat and temperature. It also gives in essence an automatic overclock which may be against what the user wants. Our testing methodology is ‘out-of-the-box’, with the latest public BIOS installed and XMP enabled, and thus subject to the whims of this feature. It is ultimately up to the motherboard manufacturer to take this risk – and manufacturers taking risks in the setup is something they do on every product (think C-state settings, USB priority, DPC Latency / monitoring priority, memory subtimings at JEDEC). Processor speed change is part of that risk, and ultimately if no overclocking is planned, some motherboards will affect how fast that shiny new processor goes and can be an important factor in the system build.
For reference, the ASUS X99 Rampage V Extreme does implement MultiCore Turbo.
Video Conversion – Handbrake v0.9.9: link
Handbrake is a media conversion tool that was initially designed to help DVD ISOs and Video CDs into more common video formats. The principle today is still the same, primarily as an output for H.264 + AAC/MP3 audio within an MKV container. In our test we use the same videos as in the Xilisoft test, and results are given in frames per second.
Rendering – PovRay 3.7: link
The Persistence of Vision RayTracer, or PovRay, is a freeware package for as the name suggests, ray tracing. It is a pure renderer, rather than modeling software, but the latest beta version contains a handy benchmark for stressing all processing threads on a platform. We have been using this test in motherboard reviews to test memory stability at various CPU speeds to good effect – if it passes the test, the IMC in the CPU is stable for a given CPU speed. As a CPU test, it runs for approximately 2-3 minutes on high end platforms.
Point Calculations – 3D Movement Algorithm Test: link
3DPM is a self-penned benchmark, taking basic 3D movement algorithms used in Brownian Motion simulations and testing them for speed. High floating point performance, MHz and IPC wins in the single thread version, whereas the multithread version has to handle the threads and loves more cores. For a brief explanation of the platform agnostic coding behind this benchmark, see my forum post here.
Compression – WinRAR 5.0.1: link
Our WinRAR test from 2013 is updated to the latest version of WinRAR at the start of 2014. We compress a set of 2867 files across 320 folders totaling 1.52 GB in size – 95% of these files are small typical website files, and the rest (90% of the size) are small 30 second 720p videos.
Image Manipulation – FastStone Image Viewer 4.9: link
Similarly to WinRAR, the FastStone test us updated for 2014 to the latest version. FastStone is the program I use to perform quick or bulk actions on images, such as resizing, adjusting for color and cropping. In our test we take a series of 170 images in various sizes and formats and convert them all into 640x480 .gif files, maintaining the aspect ratio. FastStone does not use multithreading for this test, and thus single threaded performance is often the winner.
Synthetic – 7-Zip 9.2: link
As an open source compression tool, 7-Zip is a popular tool for making sets of files easier to handle and transfer. The software offers up its own benchmark, to which we report the result.
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frodbonzi - Monday, June 22, 2015 - link
This board is many months old... why is the review coming out now?!!?!?Saying that, it's a great board... If you are trying to use the M.2 SAS connector I should warn you that the cable will force your video card up in the first slot... Had a buddy blow his board that way (ASUS sent a replacement and acknowledged that it's a known problem!).
If you are trying to use a PCIE HD (I have the Intel 750), triple SLI AND use the USB 3.1 add-on card... let me know, as I'm still unable to get it to go (I thought I could get the SSD into the black PCIE_X4 slot, but there doesn't seem to be enough room with all the red PCIE_x16 slots occupied (3 TitanX and the USB 3.1 card)...
mazzy80 - Tuesday, June 23, 2015 - link
Why add a M.2 slot on a EATX board, with limit capacity, even more on a Extreme board ?The space is not a problem on a Big Tower, a PCI-e slot SSD is not limited on the PCIe lanes or capacity.
maybe a day it'll possible to buy a full slot x16 PCIe 3.0 SSD for extreme performance...
SATA Express is a waste of space, useless..
why a integrated Audio card ? If I can pay $500 for a motherboard I can pay $100 for a top of line Audio card of my choice.
I don't see how X99 can match the X79 success. A underwhelming High-End platform that will look old in 2 month when Skylake will be out... 2 gen ahead... with the new DMI 3.0, new SAS ports, cheaper and faster.
frodbonzi - Monday, June 22, 2015 - link
Another thing... when reviewing such a high-end motherboard, why are all of the benchmarks (except for the last Shadow of Mordor one) in 720p or 1080p?If you're buying a $1000+ processor and $400+ motherboard, you are most likely gaming at at LEAST 1440p, if not 4k...
ggathagan - Monday, June 22, 2015 - link
Generally, sites will test motherboards and CPU's at lower resolutions to eliminate the GPU from the equation as much as possible.pseudoid - Tuesday, June 23, 2015 - link
Thanx for the review!Back in the day of Intel X38 Core2 Extreme, I had the Asus Maximus Formula SE MoBo, based on AnandTech's review! It would not die! But now that Asus has decided the ROG boards are not worthy of dual NICs, I won't go near them, as I got spoiled running a NAS off the 2nd LAN. It is also funny that Asus has never seen fit to integrate a cheezy $2 speaker on their MoBoz, when boot errors are detected/occur!
AnandKid - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
I like the RAMdisk solution - they should work on that in next generation of MOBOs. For instance add a Li-ion battery to keep RAM disk refreshed for some time - that would enable using it as 'normal' disk drive and boot the system option should be then added. I still remember in 2006 Gigabyte i-RAM card - amazing thing! (http://techreport.com/review/9312/gigabyte-i-ram-s... should make another one for PCIe 3.0. no need to wait for PCIe 4.0 - come on ASUS bring it on!skypine27 - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
Im a high end, and target audience, user of this board. System specs:*CPU: Intel 5960x @ 4.2 ghz on Corsair H110i GT WaterCool Unit
*Mobo: Asus Rampage V Extreme
*RAM: 32 GB DDR4 G.Skill Ripjaws4 3000 (set to 2400)
*Graphics: 2 x Titan X (Nvidia Reference cards) SLI
*Monitor: LG 34UC97 curved 34" 3440 x 1440 @ 60hz
*Storage A: Samsung SM951 512MB Windows 8.1
*Storage B/C/D: 2 x V-Raptor 1.0TB Raid0. 1 x Crucial M4 512MB. 12TB USB 3.0 External Raid0
*Case/PSU: Thermaltake V51+ Corsair AX1200i PSU + Windows 8.1 Pro 64-bit
People that are complaining "E-ATX kills it for me...". Well, go back and google the Extreme lineup from Asus. They have been E-ATX for a LONG time. These aren't, and never were, aimed at guys going for a tiny build.
I like the M2 slot. The SM 951 Im running as a boot drive (+ Star Citizen) gets performance that clobbers even a 2 x SSD Raid 0 setup. And, it tucks out of the way and is totally concealed beneath my #1 Titan X.
Anyway, if size is a concerning, don't waste your time ever looking at an Asus Extreme product. They will always be "max size"
Oscarcharliezulu - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
The grammar in this article is giving me headache. It reads like a clean up of a google translation.Oscarcharliezulu - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
One benefit I found from my old gene mtx board other than it worked so damned well was the fantastic resale on eBay - I bought it second hand and sold it 2 years later and got a lot of my money back. ROG are top of the line so people seek them out rather than cheaper boards. And this was a 775 chipset which was 2 generations old when I sold it.godzrule - Monday, July 20, 2015 - link
Can I have a 5820k i7 running 2x980ti in 16x and 8x(or16x?) and then have my 951 M.2 running at its full speed on 4x as my Boot drive? The 5820k has 28 pcie lanes and so 16+8+4=28 But i would like everyones thoughts on this as its been impossible to find solid info thanks!