As ECS continues developing its firmware, we’re looking at a product that appears nearly perfect and full of value. Of course, appearances can be somewhat deceptive.
The M.I.B. X main menu provides all of the chipest ratio and voltage controls we require, disappointing us only in that those voltage settings are represented by added or subtracted voltage, rather than fixed-mode values.

The CPU Overclocking submenu includes base and Turbo Boost ratios, along with voltage increases for Turbo Boost and current limit overrides.
Memory ratio, primary, and secondary timings are also available from the Memory Overclocking submenu.
All of those options should be enough to get us to the limits of our CPU, or at least this board. However, the shipping firmware’s inability to support our C2-stepping processor put a wrench in our overclocking plans. ECS did hurry to send us a replacement firmware, which did the trick, but presented us with a couple of other issues.
Yes, the replacement UEFI worked. But giving ECS another shot after our cut-off date for submissions would have forced us to re-do all testing on the other five boards as well. Plus, there's the fact that end-users don't have the luxury of swapping out a new C2-based processor for a C1 chip to flash a new firmware. This is a compatibility issue that'll create sticky situations until all of the X79R-AX boards available include ECS' latest build. The consolation that we offered was a chance to participate in our benchmark suite using the older C1-stepping CPU. We simply couldn't count our overclocking attempts on two different processors, though.
- Can LGA 2011 Be Made More Affordable?
- ASRock X79 Extreme4
- X79 Extreme4 Firmware
- Asus P9X79
- P9X79 Firmware
- Biostar TPower X79
- TPower X79 Firmware
- ECS X79R-AX Black Deluxe
- X79R-AX Deluxe Firmware
- Intel DX79TO
- DX79TO Firmware
- MSI X79A-GD45 (8D)
- X79A-GD45 (8D) Firmware
- Test Settings And Benchmarks
- Benchmark Results: DiRT 3
- Benchmark Results: Metro 2033
- Benchmark Results: StarCraft II
- Benchmark Results: Audio And Video Encoding
- Benchmark Results: Productivity
- Power, Heat, And Efficiency
- Overclocking
- Which X79-Based Motherboard Offers More Value?




Since the boards all have vastly superior profit margins, your statement is misleading. Why is everyone too afraid to reveal the truth about motherboard pricing?
A comparison of the time between the power button being pressed and the installed bootloader starting would be very interesting to me. I was thinking it might be easiest to measure this by having no OS on the boot media and measuring the time to the "please insert boot media" message, but I'm sure you can think of other ways of doing it.
I'm also informed that on some boards the boot time varies dramatically dependent on whether any Overclocking is enabled, as compared to the stock settings - that would also be worth knowing.
not anymore, asrock is no longer affiliated with Asus and is owned by Pegatron Corp.
But I'm wondering why AMD continues the ATI brand on the ASrock motherboard? Seems odd. They had everyone replace the CCC as soon as they rebranded and here we are looking at the ATI logo on the ASrock board.
Also, even though there is so little difference when comparing boards using the same architecture, why no BF3 in the gaming section of the review? I thought this was one of the games mentioned in the 2012 goals for Tom's when reviewing gaming performance?
I settled on the ASRock Extreme4-m. I did have to wait for a new BIOS chip to arrive in order to make use of it though. They overnighted one to me last week and I got my system up and running over the weekend. So far so good. I've been quite happy with it now that it's working. I can't say that I've tried the overclocking features.
With the ASRock Extreme4-m the memory slots and CPU 8-pin power connectors are very close to the radiator. I went with the Intel liquid cooler for my build. It's a 120mm fan and radiator. I placed these in a Silverstone FT03 as exhaust from the top of the case. It's important to pick out RAM that doesn't have any crazy fins or spikes on it. I went with some Kingston HyperX DDR3 1600 4x4GB that were on the official support list. There is a 4 to 5 mm gap between the RAM and radiator. it is plenty of room for the 8-pin wires to clear without touching the RAM or radiator. It's tight, but it works. I originally was going to buy GSkill RAM that was $20 cheaper, but there's no way the big red fins on those sticks would have fit.
I don't blame them for skipping BF3. Since the most recent video drivers I've been having all sorts of issues with BF3. It's the only game on my machine to display a "Something went wrong" error and crash the entire system. I'd imagine it's hard to benchmark such an unstable game. My Extreme4-m, i7 3820, and Radeon 7950 system has no trouble with Just Cause 2, GTA IV, Crysis, and others, but BF3 has this remarkable capability to come up with the most ridiculous of error messages and strange behavior. That game still has issues.