Features & Specifications

Swiftech has long been a major influencer in the liquid cooling industry. Known for custom watercooling blocks and being at the forefront of providing complete, boxed liquid cooling kits for overclockers and enthusiasts in the early 2000’s, Swiftech continues to provide high-end cooling solutions for the latest PC hardware.

Fast-forward to 2017 to the release of AMD’s highly anticipated Threadripper CPU platform.  Aimed at the performance desktop and enthusiast PC power user, Threadripper chips and their server-side counterparts, Epyc, both utilize a socket larger than any the PC industry had yet seen. Waterblocks--which were originally designed to fit both Intel and AMD CPUs--had to be re-engineered to provide adequate coverage and cooling capability for Threadripper.

Swiftech took its new Apogee SKF CPU block, designed a version specifically to meet the size and cooling demands for AMD’s Threadripper CPUs in the Apogee SKF-TR4, and slapped on a not-inexpensive (but reasonable) $108 price tag, which is a fair bit less than the $140 competing EK-FB MSI X399 Monoblock, which is only designed for a few specific boards.

As you'll see below in our specs chart, the Swiftech block weighs almost a pound, if we’re going by Imperial measurements. Making extensive use of copper and nickel, Swiftech built a purpose-designed block here, and brought over its signature design accent markings and contrasting metals. Our version is part of the “Heirloom Series” limited edition blocks, which can be customized upon order from the Swiftech product website, including optional laser engraving along the block’s side.

The Apogee SKF-TR4 Heirloom block comes shipped in a wooden box, bundled within a crushed-velvet, logo-adorned drawstring bag.Clearly the company wants you to know you're getting something special with this product.

Tucked underneath the block, inside the box, sit a few additional bundled components: a syringe of Swiftech thermal compound and a controller/distrubution block for managing LED lighting within the block itself. An extension cable is also provided to reach from the CPU block’s LED header to the remotely mounted controller.

Within the Apogee SKF-TR4 block, Swiftech utilizes its new copper cooling engine, comprised cooling fins that are reportedly only 125 microns thick (we didn't break out the microscope to measure). Looking through the standard G1/4 threaded ports and the acrylic window, you can easily see the scale and breadth to which the copper fin array covers the pure copper base below it.

The copper base of the Apogee SKF-TR4 is mirror-smooth, and while it doesn't exactly appear so in the above photo, let us assure you that the contact base is as smooth as anything we’ve seen on a waterblock. The copper base fully covers the Threadripper CPU IHS, while the integrated threaded spring studs and powder-coated steel plate hold the block firmly over the processor using the motherboard’s integrated socket mounts.

We mentioned LED lighting a bit earlier on, and while the Apogee SKF-TR4 does have lighting and some minimal control from the power block, the lighting is very subtle and accent-oriented, rather than offering up a visually aggressive color statement. While many manufacturers are seemingly hanging RGB LEDs off of every surface, Swiftech have opted for a subtle approach, allowing the design of its waterblock to be the center of attention, rather than squint-inducing lights.

Mounted to our MSI X399 Gaming Prod Carbon AC motherboard, the Apogee SKF-TR4 block fits the color scheme of the surrounding hardware, and offers the kind of bold design watercooling enthusiasts are often after. Because the CPU block is designed only for cooling AMD's Threadripper chips, there are absolutely no clearance problems or obstructions, which we often encounter while installing other cooling solutions.

Specifications

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How We Test: Watercooling Components

One of the challenges with testing individual watercooling components lies not with the component itself, but with maintaining consistency with theremaining pieces comprising the cooling loop. For this, we’ve chosen common, dependable watercooling loop hardware which is designed to limit any specific weakness and provide us with a consistent platform in which to isolate testing components. You can find our hardware list below.

Watercooling Hardware

Our watercooling testbed loop combines excellent flow rates, high-volume fans, and a great performing radiator to focus all results on those produced by the water block samples themselves. Here's a look at the rest of our testbed hawrdware.

Testing Hardware

Our testing hardware closely mimics the standard Intel CPU cooler test system, with the only differences being the AMD Threadripper 1900X processor instead of the Intel i7 5930k and MSI X399 Gaming Pro Carbon AC motherboard, rather than the MSI X99S XPower AC. While this does not allow for apples-to-apples comparisons with Intel tests, the majority of the environment variables are otherwise eliminated.

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Testing Results & Conclusion

Comparison Products

Comparison of the Swiftech Apogee SKF-TR4 Heirloom and the EK-FB MSI X399 Gaming RGB Monoblock on the same system platform will provide us with the direct hardware comparison we need. The overclocked AMD Threadripper 1900X running at 4.10Ghz and a vCore of 1.40v provides plenty of thermal load while running Prime95 v27.9 with an AVX FFT length of 8k.

CPU load temperature differences show the narrowest of margins here, with less than a single degree Celsius separating the cooling performance of both CPU blocks at each full- and half-speed fan readings. Given that both manufacturers here are known for their high-performing cooling products, this honestly comes as no surprise. Performance watercooling is often a matter of fractional differences, and our testing further supports this.

Since both cooling tests were completed using the same exact pump and radiator fans, these two graphs effectively just show value of limiting our testing environment variables.

Without evaluating the exact same acoustic efficiency, we wouldn’t be able to do a direct comparison of each CPU block as overall performance value to unit pricing. The incredibly close cooling performance and lower retail price provides the Swiftech Apogee SKF-TR4 Heirloom CPU block a nice edge overall. With a retail price of $108, the Apogee SKF-TR4 could be seen as a nicely positioned alternative to the EK-FB MSI X399 Monoblock, primarily due to the fact that the EK block fits only specific motherboards, while the Swiftech Apogee SKF-TR4 fits any TR4 or SP3 socket board.

Testing numbers shouldn't be the only area of focus when choosing a CPU block. Since watercooling is an enthusiast cooling solution, great aesthetics are often a major part of the decision-making process. Swiftech absolutely does not disappoint with the Apogee SKF-TR4 Heirloom waterblock for AMD’s Threadripper platform. While the cost of the block might shock some-- it costs more than a complete AIO cooler system alone--the delivered performance and design speak for themselves.

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Features & Specifications

For almost two decades, EKWB has been an iconic liquid-cooling vendor for the custom-cooling community. Widely known for offering high-quality water blocks and components, the company has grown to become a prolific one-stop vendor for providing complete cooling-loop kits, step-by-step component selection, and extreme-performance products.

The introduction of AMD’s Threadripper processors in 2017 required redesigns of all current cooling products to account for the larger surface area of these new CPUs. EK has been providing CPU-plus-motherboard monoblock products for several socket revisions, so it was only a matter of time until enthusiast TR4 socket boards would get the same treatment.

EK released early versions of its Threadripper CPU blocks, but the company found itself redesigning these parts in the midst of something of a block-performance controversy. However, the part being tested on our lab system includes the newly re-engineered block and cold plate, which was the result of EK working to make things right for its customers. (Read more on that issue here.)

The EK-FB MSI X399 Gaming RGB monoblock we are testing here is made for use with certain MSI X399 motherboards. (EK also offers versions for other makers' X399 Threadripper boards; see the full line here for Gigabyte-, ASRock-, and Asus-compatible offerings.) It comes packaged only with installation-specific items, typical for hardware designed for such a focused use. A small syringe of amusingly named "Thermal Grizzly Hydronaut" thermal paste is a welcome surprise. Installation directions step through the use of the included thermal pad, screws, and washers; you'll remove and replace the MSI stock voltage regulators’ heatsink to allow the monoblock to instead absorb heat and provide cooling.

Weighing in at 1.3 pounds, the EK-FB MSI X399 monoblock feels every bit as hefty as it looks. Using such a large amount of copper and solid acrylic proves the dedication that EK has toward using quality materials in its products.

Our Threadripper reference system uses an MSI X399 Gaming Pro Carbon AC motherboard and plays host to an AMD Threadripper 1900X processor overclocked to 4.1GHz. So naturally, this would be a perfect fit for the EK-FB MSI X399 RGB Monoblock. The full copper block is milled to exact fitment within the confines of MSI X399 boards, and nickel-plated to a lustrous, silvery finish.

The acrylic plexi top is also milled and includes a pair of liquid-cooling industry-standard G1/4 threaded connector ports. The inlet port is directly over the center of the TR4 CPU die, and the outlet is near the block’s voltage-regulator contact bar. The use of clear acrylic provides a monolithic, industrial look by providing view of the O-rings, hex screws, and milled channels below. The quad TR4 mounting bolts are embedded within the block and make use of firm spring mounts to be torqued down via the included Allen key.

A laser-cut aluminum corner trim piece, with “Threadripper” etched into it, contrasts and provides accent for the polished nickel finish.

As expected, the EK-FB MSI X399 Gaming RGB monoblock provides full coverage of the Threadripper CPU heat spreader. The nickel base and voltage-regulator contact plate also get the same plating and polish treatment. One benefit of being produced as an exact-fitment piece for specific mainboards allows mounting hardware to be engineered and milled directly into the block itself. An integrated four-pin RGB cable extends from under the laser-cut Threadripper logo plate and is compatible with standard four-pin RGB motherboards or third-party controllers.

With the EK-FB MSI X399 RGB monoblock installed on our MSI X399 Gaming Pro Carbon AC motherboard, the block dominates the PCB landscape while allowing access to all DIMM slots and nearby motherboard headers. The finish and design of the block are right at home with the silver-and-black color scheme of the MSI board.

With built-in RGB LED lighting, the EK-FB MSI X399 Gaming RGB monoblock is compatible with standard four-pin RGB lighting controls, including those on our MSI X399 Gaming Pro Carbon AC motherboard. Under low-light conditions, the LEDs produce impressive luminance and glow directly around the center of the block's inlet port.

Specifications

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How We Test: Watercooling Components

One of the challenges with testing individual liquid-cooling components lies not with the component itself, but with maintaining consistency with remaining pieces comprising the cooling loop. For this, we’ve chosen common, dependable loop hardware that is designed to limit any specific weakness and provide us with a consistent platform on which to isolate testing components.

Watercooling Hardware

Our liquid-cooling testbed loop combines excellent flow rates, high-volume fans, and a great-performing radiator to focus all results on those produced by the water-block samples themselves.

Testing Hardware

Our testing hardware closely mimics our standard Intel CPU cooler test system, with the only differences being the AMD Threadripper 1900X (instead of the Intel Core i7-5930K) and the MSI X399 Gaming Pro Carbon AC motherboard (rather than the MSI X99S XPower AC). While this does not allow for apples-to-apples comparisons with Intel tests, most of the environment variables are otherwise eliminated.

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MORE: All Cooling Content

Testing Results & Conclusion

Comparison Products

Using previous testing data, we can evaluate the EK-FB MSI X399 Gaming RGB monoblock against the Swiftech Apogee SKF-TR4 Heirloom block. Our AMD Threadripper test system is overclocked to 4.1GHz at a vCore of 1.40V and provides us with the thermal loads needed for comparison on the TR4 socket platform.

Load temperatures over ambient show the EK-FB MSI X399 Gaming RGB monoblock with a minimal edge over the Swiftech Apogee SKF-TR4 Heirloom block. The EK monoblock also shows a slight edge for motherboard voltage regulators, likely because the block makes direct contact with these components. Keeping your power delivery cool and stable is necessary for overclocking and hardware longevity.

Seeing as our tests include the same cooling-loop components, our pump and fan speeds are identical, which allows us to focus purely on the performance of the blocks in the comparison.

Again, using the same fans and pump highlights the lack of variables in our cooling loop.

With the EK-FB MSI X399 Gaming RGB monoblock posting a slight thermal advantage and every other variable remaining identical, we do see a slight advantage going to the EK monoblock here, as both parts perform very well.

Adding a dollar value to the performance evaluation of hardware allows us to complete the picture of how well the cooling gear completes its mission. At the time of this writing, the EK-FB MSI X399 Gaming RGB monoblock has a retail price of $140, which is a body blow relative to the Swiftech in the chart above. Both the EK and Swiftech parts are considered flagship performance waterblocks, but the 23% price premium of the EK-FB MSI X399 Gaming RGB monoblock over the Swiftech SKF-TR4 Heirloom is a consideration that liquid-cooling enthusiasts will have to ponder.

We know that custom liquid cooling is an expensive hobby. But we also know it can be a very rewarding cooling solution with solid planning and the careful choice of components. Since EK offers several TR4 monoblocks for enthusiast-grade MSI, Gigabyte, ASRock and Asus motherboards, your watercooled Threadripper build has some excellent-performing options.

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Season's Greetings!

11/25/2017 Update: added five new items to slides 20 through 24.

11/18/2017 Update: added five new items to slides 15 through 19.

11/2/2017 Update: added five new items to slides 10 through 14.

As we enter the biggest shopping holiday of the year, everyone will be working to find the perfect gifts for the PC enthusiasts in their lives. This can be difficult, but we happen to know a little bit about enthusiasts and gamers, so we put together this gift guide to show you some of the best ideas we've come across for that loved geeky one in your life.

Of course, if you're reading this and you're a regular visitor of Tom's Hardware, you're probably the biggest tech enthusiast you know. If that's the case, simply point your friends and family here to help them find the perfect gift for you.

These aren't your typical PC parts -- the things we usually write about. For gift ideas like that, please visit all of our Best Picks articles (easily accessible from our home page). Also make sure to come back and check out this slideshow again and again, because we'll be updating it a couple times with more ideas.

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Grindbay USB Rechargeable AA Batteries

These batteries have a 1450 mAh capacity, and they are only rated for roughly 500 charges, but they have one special feature: they can be recharged via USB. No need to worry about losing the charger between charges. You can also recharge them anywhere there is a USB port.

Aukey 104 Vintage Typewriter-Style Keycap Set

Aukey designed these caps to mimic the keys of a vintage typewriter, which were (Editor: and are, you young whippersnappers) typically rounded. The keycap market is wide, deep, and often weird, and even these caps are a bit outside of the norm. With these, you're getting a fun look moreso than sublime quality. These caps are made of ABS plastic, and they come with a keycap removal tool to make the replacement process easier. They're Cherry MX compatible, which means you can use them on switches from manufacturers such as Kailh, Gateron, and Outemu.

Metro Datavac Duster

Although compressed air works well for cleaning out PCs, eventually the air runs out. What about something that's more reusable? The Metro Datavac Duster is essentially a compact air compressor designed to push air with sufficient force to clean out your PC without damaging any components. This model is also ESD safe, and it comes with a few attachments to get dust out of those hard to reach places.

LED Light Strip

LED light strips are an easy way to add some color to a PC case. This kit includes four LED strands that are roughly each 20" long. This should be more than enough to cover the inside of the average PC case with the bright 5050 LEDs. The lights are USB powered, but they are not designed to be controlled by USB. Instead, a remote is included to control the color of the lights.

Optimal Shop PSU Tester

Whether you're building a new PC or troubleshooting an existing one, you want to ensure the PSU is working properly. This simple, affordable PSU tester lets you quickly determine if the power supply is providing sufficient power over any of its power connections.

Logitech G13 Programmable Gameboard with LCD Display

This feature rich keypad includes 25 programmable keys, an LCD panel, a thumbstick, and a few other fixed-function keys. The LCD panel can display in-game information, messages from friends, or information about your PC. It also has a soft palm rest for comfort during long gaming sessions.

Nintendo Super NES Classic Edition

The Super NES Classic Edition is designed to look like a miniature version of the classic 1990s SNES console. It also comes loaded with 21 of the best games ever released for the SNES, including The Legend Of Zelda: A Link To The Past, Super Metroid, Super Mario World, and Super Mario RPG: Legend Of The Seven Stars. This system is an excellent gift for fans of the original, as well as for younger gamers who've never experienced the joys of Super Nintendo.

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Akust Anti-Vibration Rubber Fan Screws

Case fans are essential to keeping your PC cool and functional, but the noise they generate can be bothersome. Anti-vibration rubber fan screws help to remedy this situation by keeping the fans from vibrating against the case, which reduces the amount of noise they produce. Because these are technically unnecessary, they often don't make it into a system builder's budget, which means your techie friends likely won't have them, which will make them very well appreciated.

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Logitech M570 Wireless Trackball

For some, a trackball mouse is a superior alternative to the traditional PC mouse. The mouse remains stationary, while the trackball is maneuvered by your fingers to navigate the cursor around the screen, and some users believe this gives them superior control, but it isn't for everyone. There are newer, more expensive models, but this is one of our favorites.

Netgear AC1200 Range Extender

Netgear's AC1200 WiFi extender's key function is to pick up a wireless 802.11ac signal and rebroadcast it to extend the signal coverage area. In this mode, the repeater can also provide wired network access to PCs via the RJ-45 port. It can also function as a compact router, however, if connected directly to an Internet modem with an Ethernet cable.

Fallout Board Game

Bethesda's taking its hit video game to a place it has never gone before: your kitchen table. Fallout: The Board Game allows for up to four players to explore the wasteland as they strive to survive an onslaught of mutated creatures, crazed robots, and lethal radiation.

Fractal Design Celsius S24

Fractal Design's Celsius S24 cooler is one of the best AIO liquid coolers we've tested, and we use it in many of our reference test platforms now. If your PC's getting too hot, or you just want to push your overclock higher, then this is an excellent gift choice.

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Phanteks Halo Lux

Phantek's Halos Lux adds bright RGB LED lighting to any 120mm case fan. They are also available for 140mm fans.

Airfox USB 3.0 Mouse Bungee

This versatile mouse bungee also serves as a three-port USB 3.0 hub and TF card reader. It doesn't have RGB lighting, but it does have adjustable LED backlighting, available in seven colors.

Funko Vinyl Cuphead

If you are a fan of the Cuphead game, then you can enjoy taking this Cuphead collectible with you everywhere you go, or just stick it next to you on your desk. This is the four-inch model.

Dremel 3000-1/24

With a Dremel in hand, you're more than ready to make heavy modifications to your PC case, or even minor alterations to many other items. This is a must-have tool for any wanna-be modder. This particular Dremel also comes with a 24-piece kit.

Blue Yeti USB Microphone

This Blue Yeti has become a go-to microphone these days, and it's designed to capture high-quality audio with an exceedingly low amount of noise. It includes three condenser capsules, and you can select cardioid, bidirectional, omnidirectional, or stereo recording patterns. Handy for high quality Twitch streaming, Skype calls, and more.

Altec Lansing VS2621

This Altec kit includes two speakers with two-inch drivers and a four-inch side-firing subwoofer. The system has a peak power draw of 56W, and it's a good value.

Hcman RGB LED Gaming Mousepad

"Mousepad?" you say. Well, sure. This mouse pad has RGB LED lighting all around the edges and under the company's name. The lights are powered by a USB port, and can be set to one of nine different lighting modes. If you're going to bling, might as well go all out.

NieR: Automata Yorha Figurine

Yorha is the main character of NieR: Automata. If you like this game, you'll surely want this six-inch collectible figurine.

Kingwin Hot Swap Bay

Something more practical, perhaps? This hot swap bay can hold three 2.5/3.5" drives. The drives can be removed without shutting down the PC, making it easy to recover data from a storage device on the fly. It also makes it easy to access multiple drives if you lack sufficient space in your PC case. It's also got a power and drive activity LED, a fan status LED, and a temperature status LED.

Logitech C920 HD Pro Webcam

Logitech has become the go-to manufacturer for webcams. The C920 supports 1080p video using H.264 protocols. It also has a built-in microphone, and it comes with a built-in stand to sit snugly on your display. It uses Carl Zeiss optics with premium 20-step autofocus.

Intel Optane Memory Module 32GB

Intel's 32GB Optane memory module can read data at up to 1,350MB/s and write data at 290MB/s. In this configuration, it's highly useful as a cache for slower storage devices (namely HDDs). You can read our Intel Optane Memory review here.

SteelSeries Rival 110

This inexpensive mouse has an 7,200 CPI optical sensor and is relatively light at just 90g. The ambidextrous mouse has a total of six buttons, and it is decorated with RGB LED lights around the scroll wheel and back of the mouse. It should work well for competitive PC gaming or for any other task, and is competitively priced.

Cougar Puri TKL

Cougar designed this tenkeyless keyboard with Cherry MX Red switches and white LED backlights. The LED backlights can be controlled by key commands, negating the need for software. Cougar also provides a protective magnetic cover with this keyboard.

Mini USB Keyboard Vacuum

It doesn't matter how careful you are around your computer, eventually the system's going to get dirty. This mini vacuum is designed primarily for cleaning dust and loose debris out of your keyboard. Although it may not get everything, the vacuum suction mixed with the brush on the end should remove most dirt and dust. If you've had to painstakingly pull every key off your keyboard to clean, you'll quickly see this product's value.

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Creative Sound BlasterX H5 Tournament Edition

Creative's Sound BlasterX H5 is a Beyerdynamic's clone, and that heritage gives it excellent quality, but at an attractive price. It uses 50mm neodymium drivers and produces high quality sound. Faux leather is used for the ear cuffs and headband, but we've found them to be light, and comfortable, and they fit very well. They are one of our top gaming headset recommendations.

Creative Sound BlasterX G5

Creative designed this headphone amplifier with its SB-Axx1 multi-core processor to accelerate the decoding of high-end audio. It also has a high-quality Cirrus Logic CS4398 DAC and a Texas Instruments TPA6120A2 amplifier chip. This hardware allows the device to provide significantly louder and clearer audio than your average PC.

Sol Republic Bluetooth Headphones

Sol Republic's Bluetooth headphones are designed to be affordable and comfortable. The two earbuds are connected to a soft plastic body that holds the battery, controls, and all other hardware. The body rests on your neck while the headphones are in use, and this keeps the weight of the device from straining your ears. These headphones can be used for up to eight hours on a single charge.

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Raspberry 3 Pi Model B

The Raspberry Pi is one of the ultimate gifts for tech enthusiasts. You can use it to study software development, and eventually you can use it as a controller for robotic devices. Or if you aren't interested in developing software, you could use it as a lightweight computer for watching videos, browsing the web, or playing Android games. The Raspberry 3 Pi Model B is significantly more powerful than the original Raspberry Pi or the Raspberry Pi 2. It uses a Broadcomm SoC with a quad-core 1.2GHz ARM processor. The SoC uses Broadcom's VideoCore IV graphics processor as well.

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Steam Link

The Steam Link allows you to use your high-end gaming PC to play games in other rooms. All you need is a display, a network connection, and Steam setup on the PC.

Edifier USA e25 Luna Eclipse

Edifier's compact Luna Eclipse Bluetooth speakers come with a 3" bass driver and a 19mm tweeter on each speaker. They also contain dedicated DSP and DRC hardware to enhance audio and reduce noise. Although these speakers use Bluetooth, they are not completely wireless like many other Bluetooth speakers. They do not contain batteries, and must be connected to a power source for use. They also must be connected to each other.

Belkin 55-Piece Computer Tool Kit

This 55-piece tool kit has a wide range of tools for building a computer or working on electronics. The kit has the basic screw grabber and screw drivers that you find in essentially any tool kit, but it also has a soldering iron and wire cutters for repairing damaged electronics. There is also a small socket set, which really isn't useful for building a PC but still may come in handy.

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Prolimatech PRO-PK2-1.5G Nano Aluminum Thermal Paste

Prolimatech's Pro PK-2 is one of the most efficient thermal compounds available on the market. It is also fairly inexpensive. Most system builders have a favorite, go-to thermal paste (feel free to tell us in the comments, as always), but if your gift recipient doesn't play favorites, you can't go wrong with PK-2. If it helps them drop a few degrees on their CPU and overclock a little further, it might just be their favorite gift this year.

Related Content:Thermal Paste Comparison, Part One

Related Content: Thermal Paste Comparison, Part Two

Arctic Silver ArctiClean Thermal Material Remover

Removing thermal paste can be a pain. Common rubbing alcohol does the trick in a pinch, but it doesn't always get the CPU IHS completely clean. The two ArctiClean solutions, however, work in conjunction with each other to give the IHS and the base plate of your cooler a spotless mirror shine.

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Hiwill Solar Charger Power Bank

This power bank has a capacity of 12000mAh, and it can be charged by traditional USB cable or via the solar panel (1.8W) latched onto one side of the device. The power bank also doubles as an LED flashlight and is waterproof, with an IP67 rating.

Caloics Boruit LED Headlamp

Working on a PC can be challenging if it's difficult to see what you are doing, especially once you've started working inside the case. This headlamp, which obviously makes PC building a hands-free affair, can emit light at three different levels. The large LED in the center can be used by itself, or the two smaller LED lights can be used without the primary LED in the center. If you need more light, you can use all three, which emits 5,000 lumens. The headlamp's 3000mAh 18650 batteries are rechargeable and can power the headset for up to three hours.

Plextor M8Pe 256GB NVMe SSD

Plextor's M8Pe 256GB SSD can achieve 2,000 MB/s sequential reads and 1,400 MB/s sequential writes. It's capable of 280,000 random read IOPS and roughly 240,000 random write IOPS. Plextor included a heatsink with the SSD to help keep it cool, and that heatsink also gives it a more appealing look.

Genesis Heat Gun

A heat gun is your friend if you enjoy repairing portable devices, many of which come with parts—screens, rear covers, etc.—glued together. A heat gun is also an essential tool for bending those hard tubes when making custom liquid cooling loops.

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SilverStone 120mm Fan Filter And Grill

This fan filter and grille will help cut down the dust that gets into your PC while reducing heat build-up.

Swiftech PWM Fan Controller

Swiftech designed this PWM fan controller to control up to eight fans. This way you can attach more fans to keep your PC cool when it is in heavy use. It also helps keep the PC relatively quiet when it is idle because the fans don't constantly operate at full power.

Fideco HDD Docking Station And USB 3.0 Hub

This docking station can support two SATA-III HDDs, and it connects to your PC using a USB 3.0 port. This allows quick access of the data on the drives, and is an excellent tool to have if you frequently need to transfer data between hard drives. It also has three USB 3.0 ports for connecting other devices.

Seagate BarraCuda 1TB SSHD

Seagate's BarraCuda 1TB SSHD comes with 8GB of SSD NAND that is used as an extra cache by the HDD to store frequently accessed files. This accelerates load times while also maintaining a relatively low price point and a large 1TB storage capacity. There is also 128MB of cache to help improve performance. Its features make it an excellent upgrade for a notebook computer, but it would also work well for a desktop PC.

Fenvi 9801 AC1300 PCI-E Adapter

Fenvi designed this dual-band 802.11ac adapter with a Broadcom BCM94360 Wi-Fi controller. This allows it to send and receive data at 1300 Mb/s. It comes with four antennas to improve signal strength, and supports Bluetooth 4.0. If you're still surfing the web on an older 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi adapter, this could help significantly boost network performance. Who doesn't like faster Internet?

Panasonic Eneloop Rechargable Battery Kit

Panasonic's Eneloop batteries are rated to last for up to 2100 recharge cycles. This kit includes 10 AA batteries with a capacity of 2000mAh, four AAA batteries with a capacity of 800mAh, and a wall charger. Panasonic claims that the batteries can maintain up to 70% of their charge after a five year period.

Asus Travelair N 1TB Wireless HDD

Asus' Travelair N 1TB Wireless HDD has a built-in Wi-Fi transmitter, which lets you wirelessly connect to the HDD and access its data from any smartphone, tablet, or computer. This can be far more convenient than a traditional external HDD, because more than one person can access the HDD simultaneously, and you don't need to have extra wires connecting the drive to your computer. The drive also supports NFC file transfers and has a built-in card reader to further expand its storage capacity.

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Silicon Power 128GB Elite microSDXC

You may question why someone would need to hold 128GB of data on their smartphone or tablet, but if you travel extensively, having this much storage on your phone often comes in handy. That's literally days of videos and music, and it could hold dozens of large Android games. As a word of caution, however, you may want to double-check your smartphone model first, because not all smartphones will accept a 128GB microSDXC.

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Corsair Flash Survivor Stealth 128GB

Flash drives are everywhere, but few can match this one. Corsair designed the Flash Survivor with 128GB of storage space, and it can achieve sequential read/write speeds of 330 and 303 MB/s respectively. At these speeds, it is almost like a thumb-sized SSD. Almost.

Adata UE700 64GB

Adata's UE700 has a capacity of 64GB and can read sequential data at up to 190 MB/s. It writes data at 100 MB/s. It is currently one of the fastest 64GB flash drives on the market.

Kingston Digital MobileLite Wireless Pro G3

The Kingston Digital MobileLite Wireless Pro G3 is unusual because it combines a portable wireless storage device and a power bank into a single device. The device has just 64GB of storage space, but you can be expand capacity with USB flash drives, SD cards, or microSD cards. The MobileLite Wireless Pro G3 transmits a Wi-Fi signal and gives you wireless access to the files stored on the drive. The power bank has a total capacity of 6,700mAh, and it can charge your smartphone or tablet while also giving you access to the stored data.

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$25 Newegg Gift Card

If your gift recipient really wants a new part for their computer, but it is out of your price range, you could always just give them a Newegg gift card. What better gift than being able to buy eggxactly what you want? (See what we did there?)

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Steam $50 Gift Card

Let's take the gift card idea a step further. How about getting your gift recipient a card towards something fun, like what they can find on Steam. That way when they tell their significant other they just blew $50 on video games, arguments don't ensue. (Not that we have any experience with that.)

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Amazon $50 Gift Card

An Amazon gift card is a perfect option if you're really unsure what gift to give. Your gift recipient can pick out their own technology, or even buy something non-tech related, even food items from Whole Foods.

Swiftech sent word that it, too, has developed a new mounting bracket for AMD’s HEDT Threadripper processor. The upgraded bracket can be used with the following Swiftech products:

• Apogee XL2 waterblock
• Apogee XL waterblock
• Apogee Drive II (Any Model)
• H140 X AIO cooling kit
• H220 X AIO cooling kit
• H240 X AIO cooling kit
• H220 X2 AIO cooling kit
• H220 X2 Prestige AIO cooling kit
• H240 X2 AIO cooling kit
• H240 X2 Prestige AIO cooling kit
• H320 X2 AIO cooling kit
• H320 X2 Prestige AIO cooling kit

This upgraded mounting bracket is designed in such a way that it’s also compatible with previous AM2/AM3/AM4 and legacy AMD sockets.

Currently, AMD includes a TR4-ready mounting bracket with its Threadripper processor that fits any Asetek-built all-in-one cooler. Because of that, the mounting bracket supplied by AMD covers products from a variety of AIO cooler manufacturers such as Thermaltake, EVGA, Corsair, and Fractal Design to name a few. Other companies, such as Cooler Master and Alphacool, have turned to custom designed mounting brackets for their products. Enermax took it one step further by developing a water pump with a cold plate that completely covers the processor’s integrated heat spreader.

Even though Swiftech is technically just announcing a mounting bracket upgrade kit for AMD’s Threadripper, it should be noted that all the company’s water blocks are built using a 60 x 60mm copper cold plate that covers the majority of the Treadripper’s 68 x 51mm integrated heat spreader.

Swiftech’s mounting bracket upgrade kit is available now for $9 from the company website.  

Swiftech announced its first “Heirloom Series” event featuring the new Apogee SKF. During this limited-time event, customers will be able to mix and match water block components for a truly customized look.  

The Apogee SKF features an entirely new cooling engine made of densely packed fins that are less that 125μm (microns)thick. The company claims that this new process is at least "one generation ahead" of the competition. Fin count is important because the greater the surface area you have exposed to the coolant, the more heat energy can be drawn into the cooling system. Think of it the same way you would a traditional heatsink except, instead of using air to cool the fins of the heatsink, water is forced through the inlet side of the block, across these extremely fine cooling fins, and then out of the block via the outlet, taking absorbed heat energy with it. This new design will be the foundation for Swiftech’s next-generation water blocks.

Those of you looking for a custom look, or simply to color match your system, will no doubt like the fact that the new Heirloom Series blocks will be available in five different finishes, with cover plates that come in a half dozen colors, eight logo colors, and two different color mounting brackets. Swiftech even offers (for an additional charge) a custom engraving option for up to sixteen characters on the water block. This allows for a multitude of different combinations and style options.

Swiftech said this is the first of many "Heirloom Series” events. This event will run for either four weeks or until the company's stock of fin plates is depleted, whichever comes first. Future events are planned for other components such as GPU water blocks, reservoirs, and radiators. These new CPU blocks can be pre-ordered now for $95. Shipping begins in August.  

Introduction, Specifications And Features

Tom's Hardware has tested many cooling devices, but open loops are rarely among them. The reasons for that are numerous, beginning with the fact that most open-loop systems are built from custom-selected components. A rash of complaints always follows any selections made by us, so we leave those choices to the manufacturer. The open loops we've tested have primarily been complete component kits.

The benefit of an open loop should be obvious to anyone who has ever wanted to add an extra component, such as a graphics card block, to their installed radiator and pump. This simply can't be done with closed-loop hardware, at least without hacking it up and voiding the warranty. Most closed loops don't even have the fill ports present on Swiftech's factory-filled configurations.

That's not to say closed loops lack benefits. The previously-mentioned novice can install one of these without worrying about getting the line length right, filling the entire loop, or priming the pump (they don't pump air after all). There's no vent for liquid to evaporate out of or get contaminants into, and no practical reason to blame yourself for a leak (unless you damage something).

Using standard 3/8" tubing and standard G1/4 port threads, Swiftech's pre-filled cooling systems allow users to switch from one set of advantages to the other as their courage builds. The H240 X2 includes two 140mm Swiftech Helix fans, the firm's Apogee XL2 CPU water block, a custom radiator with integrated 11 liters/minute pump and acrylic reservoir, AMD and Intel mounting kits, Swiftech Tim-Mate 2 thermal compound, a fan hub with LED controller, and three colors of liquid coolant dye.

As shown in Swiftech's product image, the best reason for the system to ship with clear coolant and include extra dye is to match the lighting modes of its LED controller. We'd like to suggest trying the various lighting modes inside your case prior to attempting to match the coolant color to the lighting.

Specifications

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Features

Lighting modes are controlled via a tiny button on the fan hub, but the hub also has a pair of pins for those who would like to add an external button. We might have suggested a bay panel switch, if not for the popularity of bay-free cases. Interfacing a motherboard's CPU fan header and powered by a SATA power cable, the fan hub uses that PWM signal to control both the pump and fan speeds.

The H240 X2 is packaged with Intel mounting brackets installed. The motherboard support plate is spaced only for LGA 115x (1156, 1155, 1150, 1151) interfaces, and the top bracket's screw holes are slotted to support the threaded mounts of square ILM LGA 2011x (2011 and 2011-v3). AMD users need only remove their factory four-screw clip bracket in addition to replacing Swiftech's Intel kit with its AMD kit. Users of Intel's LGA 1366 or those with pinned-on AMD clip brackets will need to purchase a threaded support plate separately.

Removing the support plate and protective sticker, we find a highly-polished and supremely flat base on the Apogee XL2 water block. The top bracket is threaded for LGA 2011x, and uses short standoffs to fit the finer threads of the LGA 115x support plate.

Swiftech rates its Helix fans at 700-1800 RPM and 35-90 CFM at 2.4W.

I'd love to devote a page to H240 X2 installation, but we're using an LGA 2011-v3 motherboard and it simply screws onto the motherboard's integrated support plate. Of course we applied thermal paste before installation, and followed up by plugging the fans into the fan hub. The hub's single PWM cable feeds back only pump RPM to the motherboard's fan sensor.

Test Results And Conclusion

Comparison CPU Coolers

We retain the hardware configuration from previous big-cooler reviews to maintain result consistency. Here's how it compares dimensionally to other models in today's test.

Test Results

The H240 X2 is much heavier than the Kraken X61, but it also has the extra parts needed to make it re-configurable. The Kraken X61 integrates its reservoir on the radiator end cap, while the H240 X2 integrates its pump under the radiator, so each has a uniquely large dimension. Placement of the H240 X2's pump and reservoir towards the radiator's outer edge keeps its thickness (and associated clearance) near the motherboard at 2.2".

The Frostflow 240L stands in as the top value in smaller (2x 120mm) radiators. For both the H240 X2 and Kraken X61, we hope that the extra cooling of a larger radiator outpaces its added cost.

The H240 X2 starts out slightly behind the Kraken X61 in cooling, and that's most likely due to its fans being mounted between the radiator and top panel. In the default "Intake" orientation, it's pushing against the pressure of the case's intake fans. In the alternative "Exhaust" configuration, it's pulling rather than pushing air through the radiator. Fans generally work a little better in the "push" orientation. The Kraken X61 is able to both push air through the radiator and operate as case exhaust by mounting its fans beneath the radiator, whereas the H240 X2's under-radiator pump and reservoir make this impossible.

Flipping the case's front fans to exhaust orientation would remove its dust filtration capability, and mounting the radiator on the front panel as an intake would require moving the stock fans to top-panel exhaust. Either of these would defeat the concept of a directly matched comparison, and front-mounting wouldn't even jive with the Swiftech's installation illustrations.

Swiftech's pump is slightly larger than NZXT's, so a lower rotational speed makes sense. An errant RPM reading is also possible, particularly since the tach outputs of some pumps pulse more than once per revolution.

Surprisingly, the Kraken X61 is a little noisier at full speed compared to the H240 X2. Maybe that's why it also had a slightly lower temperature? Still, fighting against the pressure of intake fans couldn't have improved its airflow.

The H240 X2 has better cooling performance per decibel than the Kraken X61, but doesn't quiet down as much at lower speeds. Settings below a 50 percent duty-cycle might have helped the H240 X2 low-speed noise-to-temperature ratio, but once again we're trying to keep our test methods consistent.

The extra $10 buyers pay to get Swiftech's high-end removable connectors, large pump and fancy lighting work against it in a price-to-performance comparison, but we understand why an enthusiast would scoff at this chart. So, we'll not add or subtract anything from that discussion.

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Thomas Soderstrom is a Senior Staff Editor at Tom's Hardware, covering Cases, Cooling, Memory and Motherboards. Follow him onTwitter.

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Swiftech introduced two new series of all-in-one liquid cooling systems that build upon the success of the company’s H220 X series coolers by using updated components and adding RGB lighting to keep up with the latest trends.

Swiftech has six new liquid cooling systems divided into two different series. The company said the Drive X2 series is meant to be an affordable option for the average person, and the Drive X2 Prestige series is targeted towards the enthusiast that wants a more premium package.

Both the Drive X2 and Drive X2 Prestige series share most of the same components. Swiftech swapped the Apogee XL block that was included with the H220 X with the updated Apogee XL2 CPU block with a chrome plated copper base. The company said it redesigned the block to use a 100% acrylic top that lets you see the coolant flow through it.

Swiftech said both lines of Drive X2 coolers make use of completely redesigned radiator/pump/reservoir combos. The new coolers include a full size acrylic tube reservoir mounted to the lower side of the radiator that provides a better view of the fluid than the older design of the H220 X reservoir. Swiftech also installed Mayhem Ultra Clear Tubing, which it said was chosen for being maintenance free.

Swiftech’s new Drive X2 and Drive X2 Prestige AIO liquid coolers come prefilled with clear Propylene Glycol, but the company includes Red, UV Blue and UV Green dyes to choose from if you’d prefer a colored look. Swiftech also installed RGB lighting for the CPU block, reservoir and accent lighting on the radiator, which should allow you the freedom to customize your setup as you wish.

The only real differences between the Drive X2 series and the Drive X2 Prestige series are the fans used to cool the radiator and the fittings used for the tubing. The Drive X2 comes equipped with basic barb fittings and standard high pressure helix fans. The Prestige series liquid coolers employ Noiseblocker eLoop fans and Lok-Seal black chrome compression fittings.

Swiftech said the new Drive X2 and Drive X2 Prestige liquid coolers are available now through the company’s worldwide distribution channels. Each series is available in three different sizes: the dual 120 mm H220 X2 and H220 X2 Prestige, the dual 140mm H240 X2 and H240 X2 Prestige, and the triple 120mm H320 X2 and H320 X2 Prestige.

Follow Kevin Carbotte @pumcypuhoy. Follow us on Facebook, Google+, RSS, Twitter and YouTube.

We just saw the paper launch of the AMD Radeon R9 Nano, but that doesn't mean that manufacturers have forgotten about the R9 Fury X. This time around, the folks over at Swiftech unveiled their Komodo R9 FuryX ECO, the company's first and only water block for the AMD R9 Fury X.

The manufacturer claimed that the block is the sexiest product that it's created thus far, and it follows the standard recipe for a full-cover water block. At the center of the block is a micro-fin array, through which all the fluid is pushed to cool the GPU and HBM memory. The block also covers the VRM circuitry, although like all other blocks, it does that without a microchannel structure because the VRM circuits don't need as much cooling.

One thing that we particularly like about this block is that it comes with pre-applied thermal pads, which saves you the time you would otherwise have needed to cut these out and apply them, which can be a rather tedious process.

The cooling plate is made from a piece of CNC-cut copper, which is then chrome-plated. To cover the block, Swiftech CNC-cut a huge acrylic piece, too, which spans the surface of the cooling plate to ensure that the entire graphics card is covered.

To really cover the entire card, Swiftech also built a backplate out of aluminum, and anodized it in black.

Pricing for the water block sits at $115.50, and the backplate will set you back an additional $29.95. Both are available immediately directly from Swiftech.

MORE: AMD's Official Statement On R9 Fury X Pump Noise

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Introduction

Gamer Storm should be synonymous with Deep Cool by now, as the company lists products from both its enthusiast and commercial builder business on the same web page. Growing out from oversized air to “AIO Cooling” where “all in one” refers to closed loops, Gamer Storm represents its latest generation in liquid cooling. The best news for enthusiasts might be that Deepcool is bucking the trend of $140 coolers, with its Captain 240 now selling for $110.

The big question is whether that 20 percent lower price will cost Captain 240 buyers anything in performance. It may simply be true that some of Deepcool’s competitors are over-charging. Or, Deepcool might have a more-efficient supply stream. Or, its competitors might be spending all that extra money on marketing. We’d certainly like to know, so we’re putting the Gamer Storm on an overclocked Haswell-E system to find out.

CPU Cooler Feature

Getting To Meet The Captain

The Captain 240 also adds AMD’s rectangular mounting pattern to its behind-the-motherboard support plate, where Swiftech’s pricier and more-configurable solution requires builders to use their motherboard’s original threaded support plate. While Swiftech’s solution is easier to use, Deepcool’s solution is preferable for those rare motherboards that have unthreaded support plates.

Like its most closely sized rival, the Captain 240 is equipped with a PWM fan hub. However, Deepcool’s hub supports only four fans, and lacking any auxiliary power input, it's limited to the output capacity of a single motherboard fan header.

The Captain 240 doesn’t include a tube of thermal compound, but instead ships with a sheet of the stuff pre-applied. Beneath it, the copper base is very flat and smooth, but not polished.

LGA-2011 (v3) users get a set of standoffs for mounting the Captain 240’s cooling head (the pump and water block combination), while everyone else gets a set of long screws to go with the board’s universal support plate. Both sets of hardware can be seen four photos above, and both sets use the same set of knurled nuts to complete the installation.

The entire pump cap lights up, shining through a clear tube of coolant. We expected to see a few bubbles flushed out upon first use, but those expected bubbles had already been evacuated to the radiator by the time we turned the system on.

Test System

We’re using our 2015 Reference PC minus its open test bed (and obviously the reference cooler) to test the H220-X in a closed system. The CPU frequency is up to 4.2GHz in today’s test.

Test System Components

Software And Drivers

Benchmark Suite

Since we’re not testing the capacity of a case, but instead testing the capacity of a CPU cooler inside a high-airflow case, the graphics card will be allowed to idle throughout today’s test.

Comparison Coolers

Before we get to that, here’s how the Captain 240 compares to recently-tested competitors.

The gamer storm differs from Swiftech’s H220-X in a couple important ways, the first being that it’s a true sealed system rather than a factory-sealed collection of open-loop components. Those extra line fittings alone might be worth Swiftech’s price premium, but only if you’re actually in need of a system that can be opened-up to add more components (such as a GPU cooler).

Test Results

Perhaps I was a little too harsh on Swiftech’s H220-X in our last review, noting its cooling capacity deficit compared to the 2x140mm Kraken X61. Then again, it also fell behind the NH-D15. Deepcool’s Gamer Storm Captain 240 (try saying that three-times, fast) falls somewhere between the similarly-sized H220-X and the enormous Kraken X61, and that gives us hope for the overall performance and value analysis.

“Tach 2” in the above chart is the motherboard reading for either the second fan of an air cooler or the pump of a liquid cooler. Many pumps produce multiple tachometer signals per revolution though, and we believe the 5252 number seen here is twice the pump’s actual RPM.

What the Captain 240 gained in lower temperatures it lost in the noise battle, being the second noisiest cooler tested.

Where once we saw tiny air coolers reach superb cooling numbers while using screaming fans, today’s larger coolers are somewhat optimized for the noise expectations of actual consumers. The true measure of a cooler’s performance is a comparison of its temperature reduction to its noise increase, and the oversized Kraken X61 topped that metric. Supposing you only have room for a dual-120mm cooler, the H220-X takes second place, followed by the Gamer Storm Captain 240.

Conclusion

Regardless of whether you call its brand Deepcool or Gamer Storm, the Captain 240 produces slightly lower temperatures than its most closely-sized competitor, at a far lower price, and with far greater noise. In fact, it produces more noise in low-speed mode than that competitor produces at full speed. There must be an advantage somewhere though, right?

An actual price reduction of nearly 24 percent allows the Captain 240 to gain a one percent performance-per-dollar advantage over its high-end counterpart. We need to look at NZXT’s larger radiator and fans if we want to find a liquid cooler with enough of a performance advantage to gain the upper hand in value. Unfortunately, many cases don’t support NZXT’s two-by-140mm configuration.

We could talk about the elephant in the room, Noctua’s NH-D15. Speaking of elephants though, that big air cooler hangs nearly three-pounds of metal off the CPU socket. Though I still use big air in my immobilized office machine, that’s just a little too much heft to be moving around in such an insecure manner. We’ve broken a few boards that way.

Weight is the biggest reason any of us would choose a mid-sized liquid cooler over big air. Sure, there’s also more space around the CPU socket to install and remove memory, but heft is the thing that weighs on our minds. The Gamer Storm Captain 240 by Deepcool is both light on the socket and light on the wallet.

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Thomas Soderstrom is a Senior Staff Editor at Tom's Hardware, covering Cases, Cooling,Memory and Motherboards. Follow him on Twitter.

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Opening Up Closed Loop Cooling

While ease-of-installation tops the list of why closed loop builders out-sell open loops, reduced maintenance is also a big factor for most buyers. Only the most die hard liquid cooling enthusiast could enjoy constantly checking coolant levels, topping them up, and flushing out algae growth when their coolant isn’t “toxic enough”. Regular users, including part-time enthusiasts, are better off with a system that doesn’t have evaporation holes or air exposure.

On the other hand, there’s not much a person can actually do with a closed loop cooler other than attach it to a single component. OK, we’ve seen a few closed loop GPU/CPU combo coolers, but those were all factory-connected to a graphics card. If you wanted the option of configuring your own CPU and GPU cooling combo, you formerly needed to build an open loop system. Swiftech hopes to change all that with a closed-loop cooler that builders can open.

Technical Specifications

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The H220-X' thickness numbers are a little less straightforward than competing products, since both the pump and flow inductor hang below the radiator. Because these protruding parts are also offset towards the radiator’s outside edge, most builders will only need around 2.2” of mounting room above the motherboard. Component clearance between these parts and the radiator’s inner edge ranges from 1.7 to 2.5 inches, which should be more than enough for tall RAM.

Getting To Know The H220-X

The H220-X is either a closed loop cooler with replaceable G¼ fittings and a fillport, or an open loop cooler that’s factory sealed to provide low maintenance. The big difference compared to typical open loop coolers is that it doesn’t have a big reservoir, but instead appears to rely on the stretchiness of its hoses to allow a small amount of expansion as the system warms. With far less air exposure than open loop systems, Swiftech is even comfortable filling it with a non-toxic anti-freeze mixture.

The H220-X includes a comprehensive mounting kit, fan hub, three replacement color filters for the LED-lit water block and a tube of Swiftech TIM-Mate 2 carbon micro-particle thermal compound. The system arrives already filled from the factory, and all the hoses are secured with aluminum clamps which are custom-sized to the application in order to prevent over-tightening.

The included fan hub breaks out the motherboard’s PWM-based fan controller to eight fans. This allows the motherboard to control all attached fans via firmware, rather than software, and spares the builder from using any USB headers.

Based on Swiftech’s pricey new Apogee XL water block ($65), the $140 H220-X is factory-configured to fit every Intel desktop LGA from 775 to 1150 (including 1366). A second set of brackets fits AMD motherboards that have a threaded 4-hole support plate (after removing AMD’s top bracket). Fitting LGA 2011 and 2011-V3 requires a screw change, which is far more difficult than changing brackets. The clip used to secure these just won’t let go!

Swiftech polishes the base of its Apogee XL water block to a mirror finish. It’s very close to being flat, but we can still see ripples in its reflection.

After replacing the pins, LGA-2011 (v3) users are able to screw the Apogee XL water block directly to the motherboard. The pump and fan header are each powered by SATA-style connectors, and the system is running within minutes. Users of other Intel platforms must reach around the back of their motherboard to install the support plate, and AMD users must remove the clip bracket from the top of their motherboard before screwing the cooler into the motherboard’s support plate.

How We Test

We’re using our 2015 Reference PC minus its open test bed (and obviously the reference cooler) to test the H220-X in a closed system. The CPU frequency is up to 4.2GHz in today’s test.

Test System Components

Software

Benchmark Suite

Comparison Coolers

Benchmark Results

Since we’re not testing the capacity of a case, but instead testing the capacity of a CPU cooler inside a high-airflow case, the graphics card will be allowed to idle throughout today’s test.

We were a little surprised to see Swiftech’s H220-X under-perform the NZXT Kraken X61. Thinking this might be due to increased case air pressure from its intake-oriented fans, we opened the case and found that the difference hovered between 0 and 1 °C. Upon further consideration, we realized that the Kraken X61's larger radiator and fans are its most likely performance advantage, and would like to encourage our most enthusiastic builders to seek out cases that support a 12.3"-long radiator.

Perhaps slower fans also contributed to the performance difference? Tachometer readings point in that direction, but what about noise levels?

Ah yes, the H220-X is far quieter than the Kraken X61, at least at max fan speed. This is the first closed-loop cooler we’ve seen in this build to compete directly for low-noise honors against big-air.

A comparison of cooling-to-noise shows us that focusing on max fan temperatures and noise really isn’t the best way to rate these coolers. The Kraken X61 has a killer cooling-to-noise ratio at low fans, and if we slide back up to the top chart we can see that it also achieves sufficiently cool temperatures at its reduced fan speed. On the other hand, Swiftech's H220-X fits more cases and is also re-configurable.

Conclusion

Air cooling has an inevitable price advantage over liquid, but it just so happens that the NH-D15 is also large enough to provide similar temperatures to most mid-sized liquid cooling systems. NZXT’s Kraken X61 had noticeably lower temperatures at full fan speed but also had far greater noise levels, climbing to second place in the performance-to-value score only at reduced fan speed. Today’s test subject, the H220-X is significantly quieter and fits far more cases than the Kraken X61, but is still slightly noisier than the air cooler. Supposing your case is capable of supporting any of these three coolers, the H220-X achieves third place in value.

That’s not to say we recommend big air to everyone who has room for it. We’ve wrecked a couple complete systems just moving them around with heavy CPU coolers, we’ve received damaged machines from boutique builders for the same reason even after those builders filled the inside of their systems with removable foam bracing. We’ve also been forced to disassemble our own System Builder Marathon machines before shipping them to SBM giveaway winners after seeing damage from mid-sized air coolers breaking free.

That means we see a couple options here for those who must move their systems around, the re-configurable H220-X and the fixed-configuration Kraken X61. Had they provided similar performance, expandability would have given Swiftech the easy win. Had they been the same size, the Kraken X61 would instead get a broader recommendation. We’re instead left questioning whether the H220-X has enough capacity to add something as power-hungry as a high-end graphics card, or whether it might need more-powerful fans to get there.

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Motherboards In Small Packages

The old idiom “good things come in small packages” is particularly applicable to babies and jewelry. But small is a relative term. For instance, mini-ITX gets lots of attention. But it doesn't have the flexibility to suit the needs of typical high-end gamers. Worse, mini-ITX steals the spotlight from what I consider to be a truly useful form factor, microATX.

Lop the last three slots off of a full ATX motherboard and you've just defined the microATX standard. That means microATX still has enough room around the CPU interface to include a big voltage regulator or support four memory channels. Builders still get up to four slots, which is enough for most, and two-way CrossFire or SLI, which also covers the majority of enthusiasts. In fact, microATX’s only performance-oriented restriction is that, with less slot space to waste, manufacturers tend not to blank out the top slot space in favor of oversized on-board devices.

Many builders realized microATX’s potential for semi-portable gaming machines right before they forgot about them in favor of mini-ITX. A few stood by the design, though. A handful of companies kept the candle lit with power user-class motherboards until recently, and now other companies are stepping in to fill the niche.

We recently gave EVGA’s X99 Micro our seal of approval for standing up to its full ATX rivals in every measurable metric. Now it’s ASRock’s turn. A comparison of its X99M Extreme4 and Fatal1ty X99M Killer motherboards to the X99 Micro may be enlightening, but a comparison between the two ASRock boards is even more entertaining.

ASRock uses the same PCB for both boards, just like Asus and Gigabyte did when they were part of this group. But unlike those competitors, ASRock doesn’t leave any component space unfilled on the less-expensive version, instead switching to a cheaper Ethernet controller from the same brand. Both boards have dual-networking to stand against EVGA’s extra USB 3.0 in value calculations, and the Killer also adds goodies to the box to justify the price hike over its Extreme4 sibling.

ASRock X99M Series Motherboard Overview

Side-by-side is the fairest way to compare two products that have as much in common as the X99M Extreme4 and Fatal1ty X99M Killer. You’ll notice, for example, that they have the same port and slot arrangements.

They also have the same Ultra M.2 interface taking up the second slot's space. And both boards use all four of Haswell-E's leftover PCIe 3.0 lanes to feed it. That means that both boards lack PCIe 3.0 signaling for the third slot, which is probably alright since it’s often covered up by the second card's heat sink. I'm also fine with the lack of a second slot, since every configuration requires at least one graphics card.

This layout gives ASRock’s matching boards a duality in marketing. Both products support CrossFire or SLI, while single graphics card users are left with a PCIe 3.0 x8 and a PCIe 2.0 x4 slot to fill. Given the platform's ability to support up to eight cores, the latter option rings “mini workstation” and “mini server” bells in my head.

Maybe it’s because I just got my bells rung, but the presence of all ten internal SATA ports also looks a little server-oriented to me. ASRock gaming boards might not appeal as enterprise solutions, but some serving needs are less mission-critical. I even have the case picked out.

Both of ASRock’s X99M motherboards share the same 12-phase voltage regulator, and I can even see mounting holes on the X99M Extreme4 for the Fatal1ty X99M Killer's extended power regulator heat sink. Using the same circuit board gives both products the same pros and cons, including a well-placed USB 3.0 header that won’t interfere with card installation and the same eight-pin (EPS/ATX) CPU12V connector that will probably get blocked in by any oversized CPU cooler. At least the latter issue isn’t a clearance/fitment issue.

Both boards shove the front-panel audio header as far as possible into the bottom-rear corner, and I’ve experienced cases (even from Lian-Li) with cables that either wouldn’t reach or barely reached. In those marginal situations, the problem was that the cable was stretched too tightly to allow installation of a card into the second or third expansion slot.

Remember on the previous page when I mentioned the Killer added goodies? For exactly $19 (not $20) more than the X99M Extreme4, the Fatal1ty X99M Killer provides a three-month premium membership certificate for XSplit Gamecaster, a $26.85 value. That’s in addition to its upgraded Killer Ethernet controller.

ASRock X99M Firmware

The difference between ASRock’s standard (X99M Extreme4) and Killer (Fatal1ty X99M Killer) firmware? Colors!

Both boards offer the same factory-programed overclocks and the same overclock settings. I preferred two of my red screen shots over the blue, but have included both in our photo album.

Like most motherboards, ASRock’s X99M series can read our memory’s XMP-3000 settings. But the processor’s maximum DRAM data rate of 26.66x requires that any X99 motherboard use a higher base clock to get there. A higher “boot strap” of 1.25x keeps system frequencies in check at a 125MHz BCLK, pairing it with a 24x multiplier to reach DDR4-3000. My final overclock yielded stability at DDR4-2975 by reducing the BCLK to 124MHz.

Both motherboards reached the same 4.45GHz at 101MHz BCLK and 1.28V, and neither was able to push this CPU to 4.5GHz at 1.30V. That makes sense because they have the same voltage regulator.

ASRock splits adjustments across separate menus for internal and external voltage controllers. Our DRAM reached 1.35V at both boards' 1.33V setting. The XMP default 1.35V resulted in too-high a voltage level (over 1.37V) to maintain high-frequency stability with this particular processor’s memory controller.

Useful firmware utilities include the five overclocking profiles from ASRock’s OC Tweaker menu, System Browser to show device connections, several utilities for extracting or downloading drivers to a thumb drive, firmware flashing and oddball functions like Dehumidifier, which heats the system up periodically to reduce condensation in damp environments.

ASRock's Bundled Software

While the X99M Extreme4 includes ASRock’s A-Tuning software, the Fatal1ty X99M Killer instead has F-Stream. Apart from the logos and border color, it’s the same product.

Both boards reached 4.3GHz at 1.2V core using the program’s auto-tuning routine, and both boards crashed after approximately 30 minutes of 16-thread, AVX-optimized Prime95. Pre-programmed overclocks of 4GHz at 1.20V, 4.2GHz at 1.22V, 4.4GHz at 1.3V and 4.5GHz at 1.36V were stable as long as the processor remained under its thermal threshold. The 4.5 GHz setting eventually forced thermal throttling.

The A-Tuning / F-Stream OC Tweaker menu provides hardware access to firmware-level controls. But unlike the programed overclock, it doesn’t require a reboot for most changes. I was able to confirm that BCLK, CPU ratio and certain voltage changes were operational using software and a volt meter, though my changes were far below the software’s range.

Both motherboards include ASRock’s XFast LAN (by cFos) packet prioritization software, but the Fatal1ty X99M Killer’s integrated Killer Network controller adds that component's corresponding management suite.

Remember that I mentioned the Fatal1ty X99M Killer’s XSplit Premium three-month software code? The motherboard’s installation disc includes the software.

How We Tested ASRock’s X99M Series

Swiftech’s ancient Apogee GTX keeps appearing in my flagship processor reviews, and for good reasons: it has monster capacity and it’s built into my test bench.

This Prescott-era workhorse was updated six years ago with an LGA 1366 bracket, and today uses that same bracket with newer spring-loaded screws to fit both LGA 2011 and LGA 2011-v3 support mechanisms.

Rumored power-on troubles with C7 power state-enabled motherboards and certain power supplies finally hit home when I tried to pair our earlier SS-760KM unit with one of the boards in today’s test. Since my newer AX860i was already being used to test other parts, I hauled Antec’s HCP-1200 out of storage. Success!

PowerColor’s LCS AXR9 290X runs quietly on a second cooling loop.

This is a new platform, so memory and the CPU couldn’t be pulled from spare parts. G.Skill’s quad-channel F4-3000C15Q-16GRR DDR4-3000 kit was added with Intel’s Core i7-5960X to today’s parts list.

Benchmark Results

Last month, we compared EVGA’s X99 Micro to full-sized X99 boards, and found the small platform's performance to be average. That’s not a bad thing, since there’s little performance difference to be found on products that rely so heavily on component integration. This month, ASRock’s X99M Extreme4 and Fatal1ty X99M Killer take on their Micro ATX rival.

Futuremark 3DMark And PCMark

Similarities between different motherboard models mean that nothing’s broken and nobody is cheating, though Intel’s integration does leave a little wiggle room for one brand to beat the other based on memory timings. Sandra could sort that out.

SiSoftware Sandra

Indeed, both of ASRock’s X99M motherboards take a slight lead in Sandra Memory Bandwidth when using the DRAM’s default (SPD) values. We don’t expect to see much difference in most applications, though higher bandwidth occasionally helps in games.

3D Gaming

ASRock’s X99M series picks up about 1FPS in Battlefield 4 and 4FPS in Grid 2 at each game’s lower-detail test settings. While those presets might be adequate for most gamers, the high frame rates will have quality-craving enthusiasts using the higher, less-impacted visual settings.

Encoding, Creativity, Productivity And File Compression

We see a dead heat in most of our non-gaming applications, with ASRock’s X99M series claiming small victories in 3ds Max and 7-Zip. The 7-Zip result is particularly hard to track down since it’s repeatable and beyond the difference in memory bandwidth. I’m calling it a fluke.

Power, Heat, Efficiency And Overclocking

Does a network controller pull more energy than a USB 3.0 controller? These are the major differences between ASRock’s and EVGA’s hardware configurations, and both ASRock boards require slightly more power.

A look at the voltage regulator temperatures might be revealing, as the more power-hungry ASRock X99M-series runs a little warmer than the X99 Micro. Whatever the cause for added hunger, the X99M Extreme4 and Fatal1ty X99M Killer end up around 2% below average in efficiency.

Note that all averages are for all X99 motherboards reviewed to-date. It’s a running tally that will cause class-average power consumption to go up as we address boards with better feature sets.

Overclocking

Based on the same circuit board, the X99M Extreme4 and Fatal1ty X99M Killer have the same overclocking options and ranges in firmware. Like the EVGA X99 Micro, these boards are able to hit 4.4GHz at 44 x 101MHz BCLK and 1.28V core, but aren't stable at 45 x 100MHz BCLK even with a 1.30V core. Because of this, I’ve settled with a 1.28V core as the new reference setting.

EVGA stood out as the best memory overclocker in its review, and retains that position here. The Fatal1ty X99M Killer surprises with a slightly higher BCLK at the processor’s 1.25x internal core/uncore strap ratio, and the biggest cause for surprise is that it outpaces its nearly-identical sibling.

The ASRock boards have better memory bandwidth at DDR4-2666, just as they had better bandwidth at default SPD setting (DDR4-2133). EVGA might be getting its DRAM overclocking advantage through looser timings.

Does ASRock Have Better Value?

When we compare added features between ASRock’s $231 X99M Extreme4 and EVGA’s $249 X99 Micro, we come up with a virtual wash. ASRock adds a second network controller while EVGA adds USB 3.0, and the X99M Extreme4 is cheaper.

We can only recommend EVGA's X99 Micro to those who really want to run DDR4-3000, because everyone else will find better value in ASRock's X99M Extreme4. But what about the company's sibling product, the Fatal1ty X99M Killer?

At $250, the Fatal1ty X99M Killer outperforms the X99 Micro barely enough to overcome its $1 price penalty. That’s insignificant. It also adds a Killer E2200 PCIe network controller in the secondary position, beating the specs of other products in the above comparison (though this is probably significant to only a small portion of buyers). It also includes three months of premium XSplit service, which itself only matters to gamers already interested in the service. At a minimum, the features and services that some buyers want are worth more than its price difference.

Either of ASRock’s X99M series is capable of standing up to, and even dethroning EVGA’s X99 Micro in value. Because the X99M Extreme4 has the most value for most users, I’m even giving it our value award!

Because the Fatal1ty X99M Killer’s enhanced network controller and temporary software license will appeal only to a select few builders, I’m labeling it with our stamp of approval.

ASRock X99M Extreme4

ASRock Fatal1ty X99M Killer

In the world of all-in-one water cooling, it takes a lot to stand out, and one of the few manufacturers that has managed to persistently do so is Swiftech. The company announced its H140-X customizable all-in-one CPU cooler, which follows the company's latest trend for creating patent troll-proof coolers.

Before we continue, we must note one small detail. During the summer of 2013, Swiftech faced potential litigation from Asetek, which lead to Swiftech removing its rather excellent H220 liquid coolers from the U.S. market. Naturally, they still sold elsewhere in the world, and in the US they eventually sold under the Cooler Master brand, but Swiftech also wanted its own name in the US market. To make that happen, the company released the H220-X in the summer of 2014, which was such a radically different device that it couldn't possibly draw legal attention. The same went for its larger brother, the H240-X.

The H140-X features the same radical design, with the pump, radiator, and reservoir all molded together into a single unit. Tubing goes out from there to the LED-lit Apogee XL water block, which can be used to cool your CPU. The 140 mm fan on the unit is PWM-capable and will spin at speeds between 700 and 1800 RPM, pushing between 35 and 90 CFM, and making between 8.3 through 28.8 dBA of noise. At max speed it will generate a static pressure of 2.29 mm of water. The fluid is pushed around inside the loop by an MCP30 pump, which operates with a maximum power draw of 6 W.

Of course, the biggest advantage of Swiftech's all-in-one CPU coolers, aside from the quality, is that you can disassemble them and expand the loop. This is useful if you want to, say, add a graphics card, or another radiator. That said, we likely won't see a lot of folks opening this one up and expanding the loop, as anyone who's planning to do that will likely get the 240 or 280 mm variant, which provides more cooling power. Running a graphics card and a CPU on a single 140 mm radiator just doesn't make sense in most situations.

"The release of the H140-X closes the first chapter of a promise we made at CES 2014: to offer a complete range of low noise, high performance, enthusiast grade, all-in-one CPU Coolers based on our Patent Pending Technology," said Swiftech's CEO, Gabe Rouchon. "It took us a little longer than anticipated, but the overwhelming market response and total customer satisfaction we are seeing now prove that it was worth the wait."

Swiftech priced the H140-X at $129.95, which is pricy for a 140 mm liquid CPU cooler, but it isn't half bad considering the gear you get for that money – this is essentially a pre-built custom liquid cooling loop.

Follow Niels Broekhuijsen @NBroekhuijsen. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

Right-Sizing For X99 Express

A great many enthusiasts once believed that enormous performance required an enormous case full of drives and add-in cards mounted to an ATX or even EATX motherboard. Then Y2K gave them something else to talk about.

That’s right, motherboard manufacturers have been able to deliver full-sized performance in mid-sized machines for the entirety of this millennia. You’ll still see some dinosaurs claiming that enthusiast-oriented machines need to be huge, but compact system builders have known for a long time that the performance of a PC isn’t always proportional to its size. Most of us use no more than two graphics cards and fewer than six drives to build gaming monsters. Some even try to squeeze all of that performance into single-card mini-ITX systems. Yet, practicality points towards the middle option. Supporting up to four total slots or two double-slot graphics cards, and with the same CPU area as a full ATX motherboard, microATX is the answer to a question many of us forget to ask.

How much PC do you really need?

EVGA hasn’t forgotten anyone. Following a path of mid-sized gaming boards blazed by products such as Asus’ Gene-series, its X99 Micro provides two true 16-lane PCIe 3.0 via Intel’s latest six- and eight-core processors in a 9.625”-square package. Yes, microATX is old enough to be based on fractional inches.

The X99 Micro even supports three-way SLI if you can find single-slot cards and SLI bridges to support it, and comes with a three-year warranty…if the firm chooses to honor it. I still have a P55 SLI replacement board that the company refused to service after it quickly succumbed to Foxconn’s infamous 1156 pin death while installed in a non-overclocked office PC.

Getting To Know The X99 Micro

Intel’s X99 PCH is packed with enough features that most users won’t need a bunch of added-on controllers. Four of the chipset’s six USB 3.0 ports are found on the I/O panel, and two connect to a front-panel header. Perfectly adequate for things like game controllers, mice, keyboards and printers, USB 2.0 serves the other six I/O panel ports.

Nestled among those ports, a CLR_CMOS button helps overclockers get out of a mess.

The X99 Micro has only one front-panel USB 2.0 header though, and some of our machines have four ports (or two ports and a front-bay card reader). That means the only reason we might really need more USB 3.0 ports on the rear is to free up space for another USB 2.0 header internally. As an add-in, USB 3.0 is more fashionable than its elder sibling.

A status code display, Power, Reset and CLR_CMOS buttons along the X99 Micro’s front edge ease overclocking outside the case. EVGA also adds its Probe-It header, though this motherboard doesn’t output a voltage signal from any of the CPU’s internally-regulated circuits. Most important of those missing outputs, CPU core voltage can only be read from software.

A mere six SATA ports makes the X99 Micro appear as though it might be a revamp of an unreleased X79 design, since the former chipset had only six exposed ports. A closer look reveals that there just isn’t any room to break out the platform controller hub's remaining four ports along the front edge of a microATX motherboard. This isn’t even a limitation for most builders, since most microATX cases can’t hold more than six total drives.

We’d still have liked to see an M.2 storage slot on the board, if only to use up two of those leftover ports. We instead find a “Key-E” M.2 that’s compatible only with notebook-style Wi-Fi cards. In spite of its promise, M.2 turned out to be a cluster of conflicts.

The X99 Micro could potentially hold a pair of triple-slot cards, though SLI mode would require a 40-lane version of Haswell-E (Core i7 models -5960X and -5930K) to enable this mode through the third slot. And even then, the six slots those cards consumed would require a full ATX case. That kind of math leads me to not worry about whether a bottom-mounted graphics card would block the front-panel USB 3.0 header. Instead, I'll treat the X99 Micro as a two-slot solution that supports only double-slot graphics cards.

Other than a few SATA ports (hey, EVGA could have added eSATA), the only thing noticeably missing from the X99 Micro is the second set of memory slots. A quad-channel platform, placing only one 8GB DIMM on each channel still gets builders to 32GB.

The X99 Micro includes four SATA cables—the same number supplied with most full-sized motherboards—plus an SLI bridge, Probe-It connector cable for volt meters, I/O shield and cosmetic port cover. Made of black-anodized aluminum, the cover can only be seen from above the board (generally speaking, in a windowed case).

X99 Micro Software And Firmware

Software

Specifically targeting experienced gaming and overclocking enthusiasts allows EVGA to simplify its software portfolio and focus on its E-LEET Tuning Utility X.

In spite of EVGA’s narrow focus, over half of the E-Leet Tuning Utility X menus are devoted to system monitoring and/or status reporting.

The E-Leet Tuning Utility X Overclocking menu provides base clock and CPU multiplier control, but no voltage settings.

Two additional menus provide core affinity and overclocking profile selection. Profiles allow tuners to save a known-good O/C configuration before trying something even more aggressive, and then return to the known-good settings without being forced to remember every detail.

Firmware

EVGA divides its firmware overclock settings across two menus, of which one is actually named “Overclock.” This is where we find CPU and PCH controls.

Like every other X99-based board we’ve tested thus far, the X99 Micro pushed a top overclock of 4.45GHz from this Core i7-5960X sample using 101MHz base clock and a 44x multiplier.

This core is able to reach even higher frequencies at higher voltage levels, but those greater voltage levels eventually cause thermal throttling under extended full-load testing. A throttled overclock is not a successful overclock, no matter how good the motherboard.

EVGA’s X99 Micro exposed the problem that prevented every other motherboard from reaching our memory kit's DDR4-3000 rating. That problem is that the memory needs at least 1.35V to run its top data rate, but our CPU’s memory controller doesn’t tolerate voltage levels exceeding 1.365V. Two voltage detection points on EVGA’s “Probe-It” connector correspond to each of the two memory channels, easing our assessment of these limitations.

EVGA’s X99 Micro eventually pushed our memory samples to DDR4-3030 at 126 MHz BCLK and a 24x memory ratio. The CPU’s top memory ratio of 26.66x requires the higher base clock in order to reach high data rates.

The magic of a 24x 125MHz DRAM to BCLK ratio is that it uses the CPU’s internal 1.25x strap. The “strap” is a multiplier that allows certain parts of the system to see 125MHz, while other parts only see the stock 100MHz.

DIMM voltage isn’t adjustable on the X99 Micro’s “Overclocking” menu, but is adjustable from its “Memory” menu. If you missed that, you’ll find redundant voltage controls within its “Advanced” menu.

How We Tested EVGA's X99 Micro

Swiftech’s ancient Apogee GTX keeps appearing in my flagship processor reviews, and for good reasons: it has monster capacity and it’s built into my test bench.

This Prescott-era workhorse was updated six years ago with an LGA 1366 bracket, and today uses that same bracket with newer spring-loaded screws to fit both LGA 2011 and LGA 2011-v3 support mechanisms.

Rumored power-on troubles with C7 power state-enabled motherboards and certain power supplies finally hit home when I tried to pair our earlier SS-760KM unit with one of the boards in today’s test. Since my newer AX860i was already being used to test other parts, I hauled Antec’s HCP-1200 out of storage. Success!

PowerColor’s LCS AXR9 290X runs quietly on a second cooling loop.

This is a new platform, so memory and the CPU couldn’t be pulled from spare parts. G.Skill’s quad-channel F4-3000C15Q-16GRR DDR4-3000 kit was added with Intel’s Core i7-5960X to today’s parts list.

Benchmark Results

The big difference between EVGA’s X99 Micro and X99-based full ATX boards is that this microATX version has fewer slots. That’s everything, so we don’t expect any noticeable performance changes.

Futuremark 3DMark And PCMark

Other than its odd (and strangely repeatable) bump in PCMark’s “Work” score, EVGA’s X99 Micro looks right at home among its full-sized, mid-market rivals.

SiSoftware Sandra

Though CPU test results are close to constant between all motherboard brands, each company plays with memory timings a little to push better stability and/or higher performance from its product. EVGA takes second place in Sandra's Memory Bandwidth routine, and we’ll see on our overclocking page how well it performs at the CPU’s highest 26.66x DRAM multiplier.

3D Gaming

Motherboard form factor has no effect on CPU or GPU frequency, so we shouldn’t expect any difference in gaming performance between EVGA’s X99 Micro and its full-sized rivals. The competition can support a third or fourth graphics card, but two is probably enough for most gamers.

Audio And Video Encoding

EVGA’s X99 Micro runs through our entire transcoding suite with identical performance to the average of its competition, again proving that microATX’s only limitation—slot space—has no bearing on overall performance.

Adobe Creative Suite

As with our other benchmarks, Adobe Creative Suite demonstrates that the only reason to evaluate stock performance differences between motherboards is to identify problems, and that without any problems our benchmark tests are a little dull.

Productivity

Occasional benchmarking bugs like a previously-discovered oddity in 3ds Max, provide the only relief from a benchmark set that’s intended to find configuration issues that rarely exist.

File Compression Times

EVGA’s X99 Micro runs with the best of our previously-tested full-sized boards in 7-Zip, WinRAR and WinZip. It also runs with the worst of them, but that’s only because there’s so little difference between best and worst. We simply haven’t come across a misconfigured X99-based motherboard yet.

Power, Heat, Efficiency And Overclocking

Power, Heat And Efficiency

EVGA’s X99 Micro fits mid-pack in energy consumption, which means that it should also appear mid-pack in efficiency. That quick-and-dirty analysis comes from its average-looking performance in the majority of benchmarks.

The X99 Micro did suffer slightly higher CPU temperatures, but differences this small can be caused by paste placement as much as by voltage differences. Power consumption was consistent with the other products, after all.

I guessed at the top of the page that the EVGA X99 Micro’s mid-pack performance and power consumption would place it dead center in efficiency. The actual results are close, but the X99 Extreme4’s extra-low power consumption bent the curve.

Overclocking

Every X99 motherboard we’ve tested is able to push this Core i7-5960X to a 44 x 101MHz core clock, where the additional voltage needed to achieve even higher core frequencies eventually causes thermal throttling. There’s nothing lost or gained in the X99 Micro in this respect.

The X99 Micro ties for last place in BCLK overclocking, though it will allow that same 2% increase to be applied to the 1.25x CPU strap for a 128MHz setting. That will be important when we begin to search for the ultimate in memory bandwidth.

To get that high memory bandwidth, we first need to find a high data rate. EVGA’s X99 Micro helps us by outputting near-perfect DIMM voltage, where both the CPU and DRAM need near-perfection to reach the RAM's rated DDR4-3000.

Memory settings that we don’t often notice, such as slower tertiary memory timings, often allow better overclocks at the cost of bandwidth. EVGA takes the top DRAM data rate, while ASRock and MSI compete for bandwidth superiority.

Big Value, Small Package?

EVGA offers the entire gamut of desktop motherboard form factors, from the oversized HPTX to the undersized mini-ITX, and most of the arguments I’ve seen between forum members have divided enthusiasts between those two camps. Though many discussions give the impression that it takes a non-enthusiast to understand the concept of right-sizing, we have seen a few manufacturers succeed in the microATX gaming realm. That’s where EVGA’s X99 Micro takes us.

Unfortunately, it’s hard to say exactly how much the “free stuff” of a larger motherboard is worth. More connectors certainly cost more money, as will a larger circuit board, yet the full-ATX ASRock X99 Extreme4 costs less than the X99 Micro.

On the other hand, microATX is a smaller portion of the enthusiast market. That means it doesn’t get as much cost benefit from large-scale production. Fewer products need to pay for the same development and tooling costs.

Without another Micro ATX X99 motherboard to compare, I’m left in a value quandary. On the other hand, I can say with relative certainty that the X99 Micro is a solid board. While I might not have enough microATX comparison data to give it a value award, my pleasant overclocking experience certainly qualifies this well-performing product for Tom’s Hardware’s stamp of approval.

Back when Swiftech was selling the H220 liquid cooler in the US, it almost faced litigation. In order to avoid that, the company simply took the cooler off the US market and came up with something else – the H220-X.

The H220-X featured such a radically different design that it couldn't possibly attract any legal attention (Swiftech may have been trying to make a point there), but it only came in a 240 mm variant. Now, the company is introducing its H240-X, which follows the same design but is a little bigger, featuring the popular 280 mm size.

The radiator on the unit has a rather odd configuration, as it also houses the pump and reservoir. The water block is Swiftech's new Apogee XL block, which has built-in LEDs and comes with four interchangeable color plates. The reservoir is also LED lit. Air is pushed through the unit by two 140 mm Helix 140 fans which spin at up to 1800 RPM, are PWM controlled, push up to 90 CFM and make up to 28.8 dBA of noise while maintaining a static pressure of 2.29 mm.

The MCP30 pump is also PWM controlled, nominally draws about 6 W and can spin at speeds between 300 and 1200 RPM. Both the pump and the fans are rated at an MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) of 60,000 hours.

All things considered, aside from some compatibility issues in certain cases, this may be the best all-in-one water cooler that money can buy. It will certainly outperform most other closed-loop liquid coolers, and once you've reached a point where you want to expand your loop, you can.

Swiftech claims that the unit is maintenance-free for a three-year period, but you can always open up the loop to add more radiators and one or more water blocks for graphics cards. Included with the unit is an 8-way PWM splitter, which can take a single PWM signal from your motherboard and send it to eight PWM compatible fans.

The Swiftech H240-X is available immediately for $149.99 and comes with a three year warranty.

Follow Niels Broekhuijsen @NBroekhuijsen. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

More, Less Or Just Different?

Let's say you read Intel Core i7-5960X, -5930K And -5820K CPU Review: Haswell-E Rises, and really liked the idea of Intel's latest-gen enthusiast-oriented processors. But what's the price premium on X99 motherboards (not to mention DDR4), and what does it get you? A quick look at the specs show that LGA 2011-v3-based platforms priced between $240 and $300 sport close to the same added features as a Z97-based board selling between $120 and $180.

At least from the motherboard angle, that sounds like a fairly mainstream recipe to me. But it's the technology built into Intel's newest Core i7s that make them so high-end.

You get up for 40 PCIe 3.0 lanes, for example, allowing advanced graphics configurations like four-way SLI. You’d have to pay an extra $60 to get a lane-multiplying switch enabling that feature from Z97 Express, and the price premium on these boards is only twice as high. You also get ten SATA 6Gb/s ports, and the extra four ports are connected directly to the X99 PCH instead of sharing a couple of 5 Gb/s PCIe lanes, as they would on Z97. And then there are those four channels of DDR4 memory, compelling motherboard companies to build beefier circuit boards.

Perhaps the biggest cost-adding feature on X99-based desktops is all of that PCIe connectivity. You actually pay twice for it, since the controller is built into your expensive Core i7 processor. If that doesn’t make complete sense, consider that the entry-level LGA 2011-v3 processor, Intel’s $390 Core i7-5820K, has only 28 lanes rather than 40. If you want the same number of cores to connect all 40 PCIe 3.0 lanes, you’re forced to buy the $590 -5930K.

Yet, the motherboard market is so competitive that price-gouging is nearly impossible. Intel consequently gets credit for adding most of the complexity and performance, and then getting to charge for it. You can’t have one without the other.  And now that we’ve acclimated ourselves to the high cost of a mainstream motherboard for Intel’s high-end socket, we’re ready to look at how motherboard manufacturers have addressed its additional interfaces.

MSI doesn’t call its X99S Gaming 7 a four-way SLI board, and there are a couple reasons for that. Still, our experience with multi-GPU graphics arrays suggests three cards is often the sweet spot for big-spending gamers. We’re not going to go too hard on MSI’s technical marketing team over the nomenclature (or the missing quad-SLI bridge), but this does leave Gigabyte’s X99-UD4 as the only four-way SLI-capable solution in our round-up.

One of the companies you might have expected to appear told us that it wanted a few more days for firmware development before seeding review sites with its most price-appropriate model. Sure enough, the other three manufacturers all sent new firmware builds a few days after we started testing. Unfortunately, catering to every firmware change starts an update loop that keeps us from completing stories, since updates are often issued in the middle of our comprehensive testing.

ASRock X99 Extreme4

The least-expensive of today’s contenders, ASRock leans exclusively on chipset features to provide four I/O panel and two front-panel USB 3.0 ports, along with a slew of USB 2.0 ports spread across internal and external connectors, in addition to 10 SATA 6Gb/s ports shared with M.2 and eSATA.

A CLR_CMOS button on the I/O panel is handy for overclockers, as are the two socket-mounted firmware ROMs along the X99 Extreme4’s bottom edge. Thanks to a selector switch, users who really screw up their firmware can switch, reboot, switch again, and hot-flash the other chip without the risk of removing components on a powered-up system. And if you somehow kill both parts, the sockets allow you to replace them with pre-programmed ICs. Any of those advanced techniques are “at your own risk” operations best left to the most experienced hands.

You’ve probably noticed that the X99 Extreme4 has four PCIe x16 slots, but that one of these wasn’t mentioned in the introduction. That’s because the second PCIe x16 slot wired as a two-lane PCIe 2.0 link to the motherboard’s PCH. An included three-way SLI bridge bypasses it entirely to connect the first, third, and fourth x16-length slots, since those are the X99 Extreme4’s only SLI-compliant interfaces.

You probably also noticed that Ultra M.2 connector located between the first and second x16-length slots. It supports PCIe 3.0 x4 by robbing the bottom slot of four lanes when you drop in a PCIe-based M.2 SSD. ASRock disables the expansion slot whenever PCIe is enabled over the M.2 interface, knocking the X99 Extreme4 down to two-way SLI or CrossFire support.

Do you want M.2 and three-way SLI? Communication through SATA is also an option for the X99 Extreme4’s M.2 interface. But ASRock only powers the slot using a single 6 Gb/s port, which is shared with the third standard SATA connector so that only one can be used at a time. The eSATA port is similarly shared with the second internal SATA port.

Other three-way SLI exclusions include the use of a 28-lane (Core i7-5820K) CPU. The reduced lane count drops board’s slots to x16/x8/x4 (as opposed to its full x16/x16/x8 configuration), and Nvidia requires at least eight lanes for each card in an SLI array. AMD’s not as fussy, so you’re still able to use three Radeons in CrossFire with your lower-cost CPU.

ASRock knows a good layout, placing its first and third x16-length interfaces with triple-slot spacing to allow extra-large graphics coolers in concert with two-way SLI or CrossFire. And since the third slot is also SLI-capable (whenever you’re not using a PCIe M.2 card), ASRock makes sure that all of the headers along the board’s edge support crush-friendly cables. USB 3.0 is the one cabled interface that can't be bent over, so ASRock puts a header along the X99 Extreme4’s front edge, just above the board’s center line.

Looking harder for layout problems, we find only that the front-panel audio connector is placed in the bottom-rear corner, where Intel thinks it should be. The reason that’s a potential problem is that the cables of some cases are around ½” too short to reach the corner.

We’d have also liked to see an extra fan header near the top edge, since many cases have a pair of top-mounted fans.

Are you still having trouble thinking of any DDR4-supporting three-way SLI motherboard as being mainstream? Then take a look at the X99 Extreme4’s cable kit, which only includes four SATA cables to serve its 10 SATA headers. At least ASRock was kind enough to include a two-drive power cable to connect its HDD Saver power-control software.

ASRock X99 Extreme4 Software

ASRock’s A-Tuning software includes a few basic modes that can save you about a watt (Power Saving) or keep Turbo Boost “on” more often (Performance mode), plus advanced modes with factory-programmed overclock settings and auto-tuned overclock settings.

Programed overclocks include 4 GHz at 1.15 V (292 W full-system in our CPU load test), 4.2 GHz at 1.17 V (315 W), 4.4 GHz at 1.25 V (384 W), and 4.5 GHz at 1.30 V (crashing at around 430 W system power).

The auto-tuning method found a supposedly-stable 4.3 GHz at 1.1 V, but I managed to crash it with an AVX-optimized run of Prime95.

A-Tuning’s Tools menu includes submenus for most of the board’s included software, such as XFast RAM (RAM disk), XFast LAN packet prioritization, FAN-Tastic Tuning, and USB Key security.

OC Tweaker gives users access to firmware-level clock and voltage controls from Windows. Our small changes worked, and were instantly recognized by CPU-Z.

A-Tuning’s System Info menu shows all of the clock, thermal, and voltage levels that we care about when overclocking, also providing quick access to a visual representation of installed parts that can help troubleshoot if something isn’t connected properly. Unfortunately, the visual map did not identify our memory modules.

Seen in A-Tuning, ASRock X-Fast LAN is an interface for cFos’ prioritization software. X99 Extreme4 software also includes the original version of that interface.

ASRock X99 Extreme4 Firmware

The X99 Extreme4’s OC Tweaker menu opens to a group of factory-programmed overclocks similar to those of its software, but with a slightly different voltage slope. Turbo 4.5 GHz ramps up 50 mV past our desired 1.30 V limit, so we started our overclock with the more longevity-friendly Turbo 4.4 GHz setting.

The highest frequency we’ve been able to reach with this Core i7-5960X sample and a 1.30 V core is 4444 MHz, give or take a few MHz of BCLK rounding error, based on a 101 MHz BCLK setting at 44x CPU multiplier. The X99 Extreme4 gets us there, rounding down to 4543 MHz.

Because data rates exceeding 2666 MT/s require an increased base clock, the DRAM Configuration submenu includes a redundant BCLK setting. The X99 Extreme4 picked 125 MHz x 24 as the appropriate setting for our DDR4-3000, but our CPU couldn’t take the strain.

Dropping to 124 MHz BCLK at that same multiplier helped us to reach a stable DDR4-2975.

A 1.30 V CPU core setting was spot-on according to CPU-Z, and our thermal readings were consistent with other motherboards using these same settings at full load.

Other firmware-integrated applications allow users to download drivers, update the firmware, set fan slopes, or even send an email to ASRock tech support before the OS is loaded.

Gigabyte X99-UD4

For a few dollars more than ASRock’s board, Gigabyte’s X99-UD4 upgrades buyers to four-way SLI capability, dual M.2, one onboard SATA Express connector, and an added pair of USB 3.0 ports. You'll even find a Wi-Fi antenna bracket to use with your M.2 Wi-Fi card.

Those previous three words are important to note, as the second M.2 slot is PCI Express-only, and designed exclusively for notebook wireless cards. The only real-world advantage I can find over the earlier mini-PCIe standard is that it’s a little narrower, though I’m sure the M.2 name will win over some customers. And I thought the point of M.2 was to simplify the whole mini-SATA-versus-mini-PCIe debacle.

The upper M.2 slot is the real deal, and by that I mean it’s for storage. It’s not an “Ultra M.2” PCIe 3.0 x4 device, so it won’t steal valuable lanes away from any four-way SLI configuration. On the other hand, being limited to either two SATA or two PCIe 2.0 lanes means that its “M.2_10G” label indicates a noteworthy bandwidth disadvantage compared to the Ultra slot on ASRock's board.

The only way to break the X99-UD4’s four-way SLI capability is to install a Core i7-5820K, since it only gives you 28 of the platform’s 40 PCIe 3.0 lanes.Downgrading from a 40- to 28-lane CPU also drops the X99-UD4 from x8/x8/x16/x8 to x8/x8/x8/x4 mode. Remember, SLI requires at least eight lanes per card. Conversely, AMD's CrossFire technology runs on four PCIe 3.0 lanes without protest.

Hardware limitations imposed by sharing are mostly confined to the “M.2_10G” slot, with both SATA ports and both PCIe ports also connected to the board’s SATA Express connection. And, since SATA-E uses two standard SATA connectors, your SATA Express cable fills two of the board’s 10 SATA 6 Gb/s ports.

It's nice that Gigabyte doesn't force us to explain a cluster bomb of resource conflicts. But that’s not to say that there aren’t any mechanical conflicts with four-way graphics arrays. Gigabyte places the X99-UD4’s only front-panel USB 3.0 header at its bottom edge, where it'd get covered by the heat sink on almost any graphics card. The inflexibility of USB 3.0 cable ends means that anyone who wants this feature will essentially be stuck with a three-way motherboard.

And then there’s the occasional front-panel audio connector problem, where the cables of some cases are just a little too short to reach the motherboard’s bottom-rear corner. Case manufacturers carry most of the responsibility for this issue, but some motherboard designers previously slid the connector forward a little to compensate for a case maker’s poor judgment.

Gigabyte generously  includes two three-way SLI bridges at different slot spacing, a four-way SLI bridge, along with two-way CrossFire and SLI flexible bridges in its X99-UD4 installation kit. On the other hand, a mere four SATA cables don’t represent the same completeness. And while some motherboard manufacturers have added multiple CPU power connectors for extreme overclocking power loads, Gigabyte beefs up its single eight-pin input and adds a three-to-one power combiner cable.

Gigabyte X99-UD4 Software

Gigabyte’s OC Tuner continues to provide users with a wide range of Windows-based overclocking functions that are also reflected in firmware. Some changes, such as DRAM multiplier, still require a reboot in order to take effect through firmware, but base clock, CPU multiplier, and voltage levels are all ready-to-go.

Manufacturer-configured overclocks for Intel’s Core i7-5960X include 3.70 GHz at 1.10 V, 3.90 GHz at 1.15 V, and 4.10 GHz at 1.20 V. These settings appear almost ideal for our CPU, as its Auto Tuning app also finds a stable maximum of 4.10 GHz at 1.20 V. We’re not certain how accurate the term Extreme is though, since we feel safe up to 1.30 V CPU core.

Apart from the DRAM configuration that required a reboot, manual settings we tried were quickly reflected in CPU-Z.

Gigabyte’s Cloud Station includes a server application that lets you access system settings from an iOS or Android device.

Cloud Station’s remotely-controlled menus can also be accessed from the desktop via Cloud Station Client. These settings include remote overclocking, monitoring, and management.

Besides monitoring, Gigabyte System Information Viewer also includes a few settings, such as fan slope.

Vintage apps like “Smart Recovery 2” and “USB Blocker” remain, but we were also surprised to find a universal graphics overclocking tool among the X99-UD4’s applications.

Gigabyte Smart Switch adds a traditional start menu to desktop mode.

Gigabyte X99-UD4 Firmware

Gigabyte’s M.I.T. menu continues as a launch point for multiple submenus, where actual adjustments can be made.

Our processor is cable of approximately 4444 MHz at 1.30 V, fully loaded, with an actual result of 4451 MHz on the X99-UD4 thanks to its slight rounding error of our selected 101 MHz BCLK.

Because Haswell-E’s top DRAM practical data rate multiple is 26.66 times base clock, the X99-UD4 attempted to reach our memory’s rated DDR4-3000 at 125 MHz x 24. Following a boot failure, we tried reducing the BCLK in 1 MHz steps, eventually giving up on the 1.25x BCLK strap.

Somewhere in the middle of all that is where X99-UD4 overclocking falls apart. Every boot failure resulting from too-high of a BCLK triggered the motherboard’s “Corrupt BIOS” detection, causing it to automatically reflash the main firmware ROM from an old firmware image on the backup ROM. There is no workaround for this, as the board doesn’t have a way to disable the feature (for manual CLR_CMOS) or even a simple jumper to select between ROMs. Over an hour of re-updating firmware with the correct image finally got us to the point where we could define a DRAM limit of DDR4-2832 at the board’s highest-stable "1.00x strap" base clock (106 MHz) and a memory data rate ratio of 26.66x.

CPU-Z showed that the 1.30 V firmware setting produced the expected voltage, and RealTemp confirmed similar overclocking temperatures compared to the two competing products.

MSI X99S Gaming 7

A great-looking product with four PCIe 3.0 graphics card slots, the X99S-Gaming 7 is both the most feature-packed and expensive product in today’s round-up. A $30 premium over the competing Gigabyte sample buys another four USB 3.0 ports, a four-lane Ultra M.2 PCIe 3.0 slot, a Killer E2205 network controller and, for a limited time at Newegg, a free MSI Steelseries Mouse valued at $30.

X99S Gaming 7 owners also get a digital system code display, on-board power/reset/OC-profile buttons, and a selector switch to choose between two soldered-on firmware ROMs. Even if we ignore the temporary single-vendor mouse offer, the X99S Gaming 7 looks like it just might be worth more than its $30 price premium.

Yet, MSI is also the company known for most blatantly inflating its slot count through PCIe pathway sharing, and the X99S Gaming 7 is no exception. The Ultra M.2 interface shares lanes with the fourth PCIe 3.0 slot, so that installing a card there turns off all of the M.2 interface’s PCIe 3.0 lanes. Your PCIe-based SSD doesn't disappear though, because the X99S Gaming 7 instead switches it over to two of the chipset’s PCIe 2.0 lanes.

The illusions don’t end there. Supposing you have a 40-lane CPU like the Core i7-5960X or -5930K, MSI wants you to configure your three-way SLI in the motherboard’s first, second, and fourth slots. That gets you a x16/x16/(x0)/x8 configuration, while crippling the bandwidth of the M.2 slot.

Anyone who thinks that’s a rude thing to do to a potentially-32 Gb/s SSD will want to use the first, second, and third PCIe 3.0 slots for their graphics cards. The third slot borrows half of the first slot's lanes, yielding a x8/x16/x8 graphics configuration, no lanes to the bottom slot, and full PCIe SSD performance.

Value-minded enthusiasts who opt for the Core i7-5820K’s 28 lanes instead get a x16/x8/x0/x4 configuration. You'd need to drop to x16/x8/x0/x0 (no card in the forth slot) to get full Ultra M.2 performance, but you can still donate half of the top slot's bandwidth to the third slot for a x8/x8/x8/x0 three-way SLI configuration. Apart from the middle slot having only eight lanes, this is the configuration MSI recommended against when using a 40-lane CPU.

Could all of these marketing-based configuration recommendations be the reason why MSI calls this a three-way, rather than four-way board? Perhaps it’s just as likely that the single-slot spacing between PCIe 3.0 slot three and four is the culprit. Either way, MSI could have avoided the mixed configuration recommendations and M.2 bandwidth inconsistencies by leaving out the fourth slot. We might not prefer the board to have that alteration, but at least I wouldn’t have spent three paragraphs explaining it and an hour or so with a graphics card and an SSD confirming it.

The rest of the X99 Gaming 7’s layout is close to spot-on, including a forward-facing USB 3.0 front-panel header that tucks easily under the top graphics card, and a second USB 3.0 header above that serves two more front-panel ports.

If we consider this a three-way SLI/CrossFire product, layout deficits become extremely minor. The upper half of the X99X Gaming 7 only has three fan headers (including CPU and rear panel) where we’d have preferred four, and the front-panel audio jack is still just a little too far into the bottom-rear corner to connect with the slightly-short cables of certain cases.

MSI provides a generous six SATA cables in two different lengths with the X99S Gaming 7, and even adds an optional power input cable to help boost audio output current. But the company is not as generous when it comes to SLI bridges. Rated for three-way SLI, the board lacks the extra-long third cable needed to jump from the top card to the bottom card.

MSI X99S Gaming 7 Software

"MSI Gaming App" is a shortcut to one overclocking profile, in this case 3.7 GHz at 1.05 V, which was already on the installation DVD when we received our motherboard sample.

MSI Command Center wasn’t included on the X99S Gaming 7’s installation DVD, but that’s probably because the firm needed a few more days to update its overclocking and management suite. By the time we did our tests, version 1.0.0.79 was available on the motherboard’s download page.

Changes to CPU base clock and core voltage were quickly detected by CPU-Z, but DRAM ratios were stuck. We also had to wait a few seconds for the application of clock multiplier changes.

MSI’s RAMDisk software made a nice little partition on some of our spare memory.

Additional voltage controls are available through an “Advanced” pop-up menu.

The “Settings” button links to extra fan and system logging pop-ups.

MSI Mobile Control provides remote access to overclocking functions briefly mentioned in our previous motherboard round-up.

MSI X99S Gaming 7 Firmware

Our CPU reached its approximate 4444 MHz 1.30 V limit at an actual 4446 MHz on the X99X Gaming 7, thanks to a slight rounding difference on the 101 MHz base clock setting.  

The X99S Gaming 7’s 1.30 V CPU core setting was detected as such by CPU-Z, and the full-load temperatures produced were very close to that of the other two contenders in today’s comparison.

The X99S Gaming 7 tried to set our DDR4-3000 RAM using the CPU’s 1.25x strap to run 125 MHz with a 24x multiplier. Failing that, we reduced our BCLK to 124 MHz at DDR4-2976.

Everything about the DRAM is adjustable per-channel, including the voltage level. Fortunately, selecting “Link” as the main menu’s “DRAM Timing Mode” allows us to set identical timings for both channels, without manually entering those values twice.

Like some of its competitors, MSI allows custom fan slopes to be configured in firmware. Unlike other competitively-matched features, such as overclocking profile registers, MSI does its fan control a little more stylishly.

MSI even adds “Board Explorer” to show the detected location of each connected device. A mouse-enabled interface, hovering over the highlighted areas reveals more information about devices attached there. This is great for builders who can’t figure out whether or not a component is being detected.

How We Tested X99 Motherboards

Swiftech’s ancient Apogee GTX keeps appearing in my “Big Socket” reviews, and for good reasons: it has monster capacity, and it’s built into my test bench.

This Prescott-era workhorse was updated six years ago with an LGA 1366 bracket, and today uses that same bracket with newer spring-loaded screws to fit both LGA 2011 and LGA 2011-v3 support mechanisms.

Rumored power-on troubles with C7s-enabled motherboards and certain power supplies finally hit home when I tried to pair our earlier SS-760KM unit with one of the boards in today’s test. Since my newer AX860i was already being used to test other parts, I hauled Antec’s HCP-1200 out of storage. Success!

PowerColor’s LCS AXR9 290X runs quietly on a second cooling loop.

This is a new platform, so memory and the CPU couldn’t be pulled from spare parts. G.Skill’s quad-channel F4-3000C15Q-16GRR DDR4-3000 kit was added with Intel’s Core i7-5960X to today’s parts list.

Results: 3DMark, PCMark And Sandra

3DMark

Since this CPU has already been separately reviewed, today’s test looks for performance differences attributable to minor variations in memory timing and power controls unique to each motherboard. Covert overclocking would be the only reason for a major performance increase, and misconfiguration the only reason for a major decrease, so no news is good news for all three manufacturers.

Futuremark’s 3DMark shows the expected level of performance consistency.

PCMark

I had minor trouble running PCMark (this was prior to a patch addressing issues with X99-based platforms), yet the most important storage score remains consistent between all three contenders. Minor storage performance differences between this configuration and previous Z97 tests are attributable to my use of an older-model SSD, where the newer SSD is being used to test more Z97 motherboards.

Sandra

Covert overclocking and/or incidental underclocking (due to mismanaged power settings) are most easily found in Sandra’s CPU tests. Fortunately, we find no issues here.

The X99-UD4 falls noticeably behind in Sandra's Memory Bandwidth module. Some manufacturers use slower tertiary timings to allow added stability, so we’ll see how that works for Gigabyte in our overclocking tests.

Results: 3D Gaming And Encoding

3D Gaming

Remember the X99-UD4’s slightly lower Sandra Bandwidth scores? They’re reflected in games, albeit barely, at our least-stressful settings. Not that anyone really cares about a few averages FPS at such high performance levels.

Audio And Video Encoding

The X99S Gaming 7 falls one second behind in both iTunes and Lame, which are best known for being single-threaded and frequency-optimized. We enabled all of Intel’s energy-saving schemes; perhaps this motherboard isn’t resuming as quickly?

Results: Adobe CC, Productivity And File Compression

Adobe Creative Cloud

The X99 Extreme4 take a small lead in After Effects, though the actual scale of the difference is probably being disguised by the benchmark’s short duration. A millisecond is all it takes to round a number up or down!

The X99-UD4 falls slightly behind in Photoshop’s OpenCL-optimized filters. That difference might be tied to its slightly lower memory bandwidth, as retesting validated this result.

The X99 Extreme4 comes out on top of Acrobat XI as well, though the longer benchmark time make the one-second lead appear smaller.

Productivity

The X99 Extreme4 takes marginal leads in a few benchmarks, but it pulls ahead a little further in 3ds Max. The X99S Gaming 7 gets a small lead in ABBYY FineReader.

File Compression

The X99-UD4 falls slightly behind in 7-Zip and WinZip EZ, which could be due to its lower memory bandwidth.

Results: Power, Heat And Efficiency

ASRock’s X99 Extreme4 has the lowest power consumption at both zero and full load conditions. MSI’s power consumption looks a little high, though it does pull along a couple of extra controllers.

The X99 Extreme4 also demonstrates the lowest thermal readings, so there’s a chance that its superior energy savings could be due to below-spec voltage. We’re happy with slightly less voltage when it doesn’t hurt stability.

Average performance gains of less than 1% are tied to average power savings of just over 5%, giving the X99 Extreme4 a 6.2% lead in efficiency.

Results: Overclocking

All three mid-priced X99-based motherboards reach the same 44 x 101 MHz base clock setting, though fractional differences in actual base clock could create the illusion of leadership. We call this a tie.

After seeing that none of the test samples were stable at the 125 MHz needed by our RAM to reach the highest DDR4 data rates, we scratched the test off our list and stuck to a 100 MHz strap. We found that Gigabyte’s X99-UD4 could potentially push a “locked” processor a little further, if Intel ever introduces one.

Not that we’d want to overclock with the X99-UD4, though. Going over the edge caused it to read a firmware error and reflash the chip with an old backup copy. If our hardware required new firmware to function (as sometimes happens after the introduction of a new CPU), we would have been stranded.

Our inability to reach DDR4-3000 at 125 MHz x 24, and Haswell-E’s inability to run 30x data rate ratios meant that we were stuck going backwards from 125 MHz to find each motherboard’s highest data rate, at 124x 24 for both the X99 Extreme4 and X99S Gaming 7. All of those re-flashes on the X99-UD4 eventually pushed us to try the board’s class-leading 106 MHz base clock in conjunction with the CPU’s highest 26.66x data rate multiple, for a grand total of 2832 MT/s.

The lack of a DDR3-2800 setting again forced us to use Haswell-E’s 26.66x maximum memory ratio to find each board’s peak bandwidth. This test was added to a previous platform after finding out that a brand not represented here today was using hobbled timings to win overclocking competitions, but Gigabyte was first to fall behind on this occasion.

Picking A Mid-Priced X99 Winner

Value is an important consideration in most round-ups. But it's not as simple a conclusion to reach as a performance-per-dollar chart might show. After all, these charts don’t reflect differences in on-board features or overclocking. These days, there's very little point to performance-per-dollar on a motherboard, and much more reason to judge based on functionality. Yet, when it comes to quantifiable comparisons, our options are few.

The X99S Gaming 7, for example, only needs a 10% “better” feature set than the X99 Extreme4 to claim realistic value leadership. We can’t arbitrarily call one feature 10% more valuable than another, but we can say that all of those added controllers and switches probably added 10% or so to MSI’s manufacturing cost. Buyers must make the final decision of cost-versus-worth. However, we see the X99S Gaming 7 and X99 Extreme 4 as a value tie at two slightly different equipment levels.

But what about the X99-UD4? It’s the only board in today’s round-up to properly support four-way SLI. This used to be considered the “killer feature” for any high-end platform. We even thought it might be the one capability to set the X99-UD4 apart for a higher award level. Unfortunately, you can’t use four-way SLI and front-panel USB 3.0 at the same time, and the latter of those two is a basic feature. May the Force be with anyone who tries to run DDR4-3000 on this thing. Your system might never boot again!

Gigabyte claims to have solved similar firmware-reflashing issues in past products through firmware updates, so our overclocking fiasco might just be unfortunate timing. After all, Intel did pull in the Haswell-E launch by almost two weeks, forcing vendors to hustle to hit the introduction. We’d probably consider re-examining the board after it gets a few firmware updates. But it's hard to forgive that one layout feature I keep harping on.

After a lengthy silence, Swiftech announced several new products, including the Apogee XL CPU water block back in April, and a patent-troll proof H220-X liquid CPU cooler just last week. Even more recently, the company announced the Maelstrom V2, a new dual-bay reservoir, and the MCP50X, a high-power water pump.

The MCP50X pump is designed to pack some power into its small format, pushing up to 14.3 LPM (Liters Per Minute) while maintaining a pressure of 4.8 m of water (yes, that single "m" is intentional.) To accomplish this, the pump can spin at speeds of up to 4500 RPM for power, and as low as 1200 RPM for silence. Power consumption can rise to a hefty 25.8 W. Swiftech has rated the pump with an MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) of 50,000 hours, and claims that it is durable enough to also be suited for use in many "other industrial applications."

"The pump is the heart of any liquid cooling system, and with the release of these new products we are now offering more powerful, reliable and economical solutions to our enthusiast system builders," said Gabriel Rouchon, CEO and founder of Swiftech.

The Maelstrom V2 reservoir is a fairly straightforward reservoir that sits in two optical drive bays. It include the MCP50X pump. The reservoir can hold up to 355 ml of coolant, has an acrylic window and LED lighting.

Pricing for the pump is set at $69.95, while the reservoir and reservoir combo will set you back $139.95. It is available immediately if purchased directly from Swiftech, with channel partner availability soon.

Follow Niels Broekhuijsen @NBroekhuijsen. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

Swiftech has been through plenty of trouble with its renown H220 water cooling unit. To avoid litigation, the company decided to simply stop selling it in the U.S., and instead sold it through other companies with their branding on it. Of course, Swiftech still wants its name on an all-in-one water cooling product, so the company is releasing a new unit that is wildly different from anything we've ever seen before. Pictures of this unit did get leaked a few months back.

The new H220-X follows the same principle idea of the original H220. It is a closed loop liquid cooler that can be opened up and expanded. This cooler is built using a dual-120 mm radiator with a built-in reservoir and pump. The powerful MCP30 pump is capable of handling very long water loops. The CPU block is the new Swiftech Apogee XL block, which comes with adjustable LED lighting. The reservoir is also LED lit.

Given the way the reservoir and pump are mounted to the radiator, we do foresee some compatibility issues. In most cases, the fans will be mounted in a 'pull' configuration, and the protruding reservoir and pump might get in the way of optical drive bays or other elements in certain cases. We're also curious to see whether it can be mounted in various orientations, or if it can only be mounted in the pictured orientation.

"Our patent pending technology is the result of years of development and it clearly demonstrates Swiftech's ability to think outside the box. The H220-X CPU cooling kit embodies everything we stand for at Swiftech: innovation, performance, quality, and most importantly an unwavering dedication to our customers," said Gabe Rouchon, CEO and Founder of Swiftech. "I also want to take this opportunity to thank the entire staff at Swiftech for the passion and perseverance that have led us to this moment. Development of the H220-X has allowed us to implement several enhancements to the pump that is also at the heart of the original H220 kit, and the H220 will continue to be marketed in regions where intellectual property rights are not disputed; in the end, both H220 and H220-X have greatly benefited from these efforts, and I look forward to see them fill different market niches based on users' tastes and preferences.”

Oh, and if you're worried that this unit might also face litigation, worry no more. Chispy, from the Guru3D forum, who appears to be associated with Swiftech, wrote: "No worries this time as Asetek cannot patent troll and ban Swiftech from selling in the USA because of the patent BS in the past, as this is an exclusive patent pending design 100% made by Swiftech."

Pricing is set at $139.99, which is actually quite friendly for all the gear you get. It also comes with a three-year warranty, and the company claims that the unit is maintenance free for this entire period.

Follow Niels Broekhuijsen @NBroekhuijsen. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

After recently announcing its Komodo-NV LE water block for high-end Nvidia graphics cards, Swiftech is also announcing its luxury water block for high-end AMD Radeon cards. This water block will be known as the Komodo-R9 LE, and it'll work on reference AMD Radeon R9 290 and R9 290X graphics cards.

Because this is the "LE," or Luxury Edition water block, it comes with LEDs built in. By using color strips, users can change the color of the lighting to shine either red, green, blue or plain white. Combine this with the new recently announced Swiftech Apogee XL CPU block and you can build yourself quite a shiny water loop.

The water block itself covers the graphics card's GPU, VRM and memory. It also comes with a backplate for additional cooling as well as good looks. Connecting the block to your loop should be a snap with the standard G1/4" threads.

The water block will be available from Swiftech as well as other select retailers with an MSRP of $179.99.

Follow Niels Broekhuijsen @NBroekhuijsen. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

Swiftech has announced a new water block for high-end GPUs, specifically for Nvidia's high-end GPUs. The water block is called the Komodo-NV LE, where NV stands for Nvidia and LE for Luxury Edition. Komodo is the branding that Swiftech uses for graphics water blocks.

This water block will work on reference solutions of the GeForce GTX 780, GTX 780 Ti, GTX Titan, and GTX Titan Black graphics cards. The blocks are built to cover the entire graphics cards, and as such, they come with a backplate. When used with a GTX Titan, this backplate cools the memory placed on the rear side of the card. The block cools the GPU, memory and VRM circuitry, and there are standard G1/4" threads for maximum compatibility with the rest of the water loop.

What sets these water blocks apart from the rest is that they have built-in lighting. LEDs are built-in, and along with various color strips, users can have the blocks light up to either green, red, blue or plain white. The new Swiftech Apogee XL also has built-in lighting with the same color options, so if you're bothered, you can get your CPU block to match the lighting of your GPU water blocks.

Pricing for the water block is set at an MSRP of $179.95, so there is a good price to be paid for the bling.

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Water cooling component manufacturer Swiftech has announced a new water block, the Apogee XL. This water block is a new CPU block and, as is always the intention with product refreshes, claims to be better than the previous model. The Apogee XL is said to get your CPU running 1.0ºC cooler than the older Apogee HD water block. It'll also restrict flow by 10 percent less.

Swiftech has opted for G1/4" threads, which will make the water block compatible with pretty much all G1/4" fittings, the most widely adopted fitting sizes. The Apogee XL also comes with four different interchangeable color plates, behind which users will find an LED illuminating the Swiftech logo along with a few accents.

"The Apogee XL is manufactured in high volume since it will also be at the core of the upcoming and highly anticipated H220-X CPU cooling kit, and because of these economies of scale, we are able to offer it for sale at a very reasonable $64.95 MSRP," said Gabriel Rouchon, Swiftech's chairman and CEO.

The unit is immediately available.

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It's been a while since Swiftech has removed its H220 from the US market to prevent litigation. Even though Cooler Master now sells the Glacer 240L cooler (which is essentially a Swiftech H220 with Cooler Master branding), it's time for Swiftech to re-enter the all-in-one liquid cooling market with its own name. It seems that Swiftech is working on the H220X, which is, again, a wildly different offering from what's already on the market.

It seems that someone at Swiftech refuses to allow the company to bring out any unoriginal products.

The H220X, as reported by Hardware-360.com, is an all-in-one water cooling unit that features a 240 mm radiator, a pump, and a CPU water block. The difference with conventional units comes in the arrangement of these goods. Like the H220, the reservoir rests with the radiator, though this time in a slightly different manner. This is to hide the pump, which is attached to the radiator/reservoir combo.

The water block looks like it is a new block, since it has a design that we haven't seen before.

As with the H220, it looks like the unit will again be expandable, allowing the addition of graphics cards to the loop as well as additional radiators.

The report carried little information to make us look at the unit as formally in development. Instead, we'll tag this one as a rumor for the time being.

Cooler Master has announced its Glacer 240L liquid CPU cooler, which seems to be the second All-in-One unit that can be taken apart and expanded. Its ability to do this isn't particularly surprising because the unit is essentially a Swiftech H220 unit with a couple of subtle differences which include, but are not restricted to, the pump speed, aesthetics, and fans.

After Asetek's lawyers had approached Swiftech earlier this year, Swiftech had voluntarily decided to withdraw its H220 liquid CPU cooler from the U.S. market in order to prevent any litigation. The unit still sells in other places around the globe.

The unit features the premium radiator, which carries a built-in reservoir. The CPU block serves as both a cold plate as well as a pump, and will spin up to speeds of 3500 RPM. It is powered by a SATA interface, but it seems that it is still PWM controllable. The unit's fans are Cooler Master's 120 mm Blademaster fans that can spin at speeds up to 2400 RPM, though you'd probably prefer to turn them down with their PWM control.

Like its inspiration, the Glacer 240L can be taken apart, and the loop can be expanded further. Without opening it, it is also maintenance free for a period of three years. It is compatible with all the latest CPU sockets, including AMD's AM3 socket and Intel's LGA1150 and LGA2011 sockets.

The unit has already been listed on Newegg.com for a price of $129.99.

It’s an unfortunate fact that most motherboards don’t offer nearly enough PWM connectors to meet enthusiasts' requirements, especially if a liquid cooling system has been installed. Swiftech’s new SATA powered PWM splitter (8W-PWM-SPL) aims to resolve this problem by allowing up to eight PWM devices to be simultaneously controlled with a single motherboard PWM port.

Although the splitter will work on any 4-pin PWM port, the company recommends using the CPU fan connector since it usually allows a greater range of adjustments than the system or chassis ports.

The Swiftech 8-Way PWM Splitter retails for $9.95. At the time of writing it is currently out of stock on the company’s website.

Swiftech has voluntarily decided to withdraw its H220 liquid cooler from the US market in response to a claim of patent infringement from Asetek's lawyers who say the CPU cooler infringes on its patents, specifically US patents 8,240,362 (the '362 patent) and 8,245,764 (the '764 patent).

According to the company's press release, Swiftech maintains that it does not believe that the H220 infringes "any valid claim of the '362 and '764 patents" and has made the decision to withdraw the cooler to avoid litigation. The release also included a sincere "apology to its US customers for this extraordinary situation" and promised that full technical and warranty support will still be provided for the H220 and that the "product will continue to be sold in other countries."

I want our customers to know and expect with absolute confidence that Swiftech’s resourcefulness will once again be brilliantly demonstrated in the immediate future” - Gabriel Rouchon (Swiftech Chairman and CTA)

Finally, it is worth noting that Asetek filed suits against CoolIT in August 2012 and Cooler Master in January 2013 on similar grounds of patent infringement. Swiftech approached Asestek on June 27, 2013 for a "nonexclusive license for the asserted patents" but was denied on July 12, 2013 after receiving a response from Asetek's legal counsel that the company doesn't offer licenses.

Swiftech, a manufacturer of water cooling components and kits, has announced that it has reached record levels of revenue and profit throughout the 2012 fiscal year (FY).

Over FY 2012, Swiftech's revenues have increased by 14 percent, now up to $3.4 million. The net profits, after income tax provisions increasing by 118 percent, have reached $224,000.

"2012 was our best year since inception, both in terms of gross revenues and net profits. As a result, net cash from operations provided adequate funding for the acquisition of capital equipment and tooling in preparation for an aggressive 2013 growth plan. Among the fundamental changes in the company's activity in 2012 was the addition of an electric motor production line. This allowed us to manufacture in house the new generation of pumps used in the all-in-one H220 CPU cooling system that was unveiled during CES in January 2013. Once again, our entire organization continues to deliver on the company's goals by producing results that meet or exceed our highest expectations and I want to take this opportunity to thank our customers, vendors, employees and shareholders for helping us in realizing such strong and steady growth in 2012," said Gabriel Rouchon, CEO and chairman of Swiftech.

Due to the success during FY 2012, Swiftech has been able to make a significant entry to the All-in-One liquid cooling market. We first saw the Swiftech H220 liquid cooler at CES, which really impressed us.

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Swiftech's H220 all-in-one liquid CPU cooler is meant to bridge the gap between closed loop water cooling, such as Corsair's H100i or Thermaltake's Water 2.0, and custom water cooling loops. The H220 comes as a closed loop, maintenance free CPU cooler. However, the entire kit can be disassembled and expanded to create a hybrid custom loop.

There are a handful of features that really make Swiftech's H220 stand out. For starters, built into the CPU block users will find a powerful 6 watt pump. While this power would mean little in the stock configuration, it's meant to allow flexibility to expand the loop to support more radiators and cooling blocks without having to add another pump or replace the entire CPU block. Moreover, the pump is rated for a MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) of a respectable 60,000 hours.

Another feature that stands out are the pressure optimized, low RPM fans. They are able to run at a remarkably low speed of just 800 RPM. This, in combination with the powerful pump allows the H220 to run quietly. Moreover, the main radiator is made of a copper core rather than the cheaper aluminum core found on other products, which allows for even better heat transfer. The reservoir is also built onto the main radiator and can be user-refilled.

Swiftech has built the H220 CPU liquid cooling kit to be maintenance free during the entirety of its 3 year warranty period.

Availability is expected to be around the end of February, and the suggested retail price is $139.95.

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Bigger Than Your Biggest Fan

Editor's Note: Our Southern California lab recently signed for a big box from NZXT full of cases and power supplies to give away. If you'd like a chance to win one of three Phantom 410 chassis or one of three HALE82 power supplies, read through to the end of this piece and enter our sweepstakes!

CPU water cooling has been around since the early days of Tom’s Hardware. But enclosures specifically designed to hold large liquid cooling systems have always been scarce. And while the availability of mid-sized mainstream systems like Corsair's H100 pushes case manufacturers to at least support dual-fan radiators in their enthusiast-oriented models, high-end cooling support remains a rare feature, even in the highest-end chassis. Fortunately, the few solutions that do exist are fairly good.

If you missed our walk-through of these four enclosures last week, and you want a closer look inside each case before continuing, check out In Pictures: Four ATX Cases Perfect For High-Capacity Water Cooling.

Cooler Master tops the list in features, price, and weight, while Azza targets mid-budget enthusiasts with a mid-sized solution. Between those two pricing extremes, NZXT and Aerocool attempt to offer the best value with nine- and 10-slot designs. Today, we find out how well each case fits our parts and performs.

Before we move on to our installation notes, let’s take a quick look at the cooling system that made all of this testing possible.

Introducing Swiftech’s H20-320 Edge HD

Wouldn’t it be nice if someone would design a true high-capacity cooler that installed as easily as a self-contained unit? Swiftech thought of that with its H20-X20 Edge HD cooling kits. We tested the extra-long -320 model.

Though it looks complicated, most of the parts in the H20-320’s installation kit are adapters. On the left, for example, is a 120 mm spacer box that allows the radiator to hang off the back of a case (when it won’t fit inside). Likewise, various socket support plates are seen on the right.

The included MCR-320 Drive Rev3 radiator adds a pair of secondary return holes to support parallel flow configurations for lower-flow devices, such as memory and hard drive water blocks. An integrated pump on one end extends 7/8” above the radiator’s top surface, forcing builders to use fans as spacers, while dramatically reducing overall complexity of the loop.

The MCR-320 Drive Rev3’s integrated reservoir also simplifies the system’s cooling loop, extending beyond the radiator’s upper surface in a manner that necessitates the use of fans as mounting spacers. The shape allows air to be trapped in either horizontal or vertical orientation, and Swiftech places fill ports for both orientations.

The heart of a CPU cooling system is its water block, and Swiftech makes a good one. The Apogee HD mates a solid copper base with tiny machined fins to a plastic cover, reducing galvanic corrosion. A pair of secondary outputs allows the same parallel flow arrangement as the kit’s radiator.

Also available in black, we chose the white version for its ability to show brightly in photographs.

Gold electroplate protects the surface of the polished thermal interface from tarnish. A second set of screws supports the larger threads of Intel’s LGA 2011 integrated cooler brace, and installing them is as easy as removing e-clips from the original screws.

After applying thermal paste, the Apogee HD screws onto the motherboard’s cooler support threads. Springs provide even contact pressure across the entire CPU surface.

Cutting, clamping, and filling make the H20-320 only slightly more time-consuming to assemble than a sealed liquid system. On the other hand, we look forward to not drilling holes in these cases to install a pump and reservoir, not draining the system between installations, and not checking four more fittings for leaks. Swiftech’s Edge kits are designed to provide most of the cooling and configurability of a full component system, but without the extra clutter.

Building With Aerocool’s Strike-X ST

Aerocool’s Strike-X ST includes a user’s manual, an optional wheel set, and separately labeled screw packets. It does not include the 180 mm side fan from the manual’s image, and builders who prefer a rolling chassis must add around 2” to the height listed on the first page of this article.

Dual mounting patterns on all ten drive trays support 3.5” and 2.5” drives. Since the 2.5” drives most frequently used in desktop systems are SSDs with no moving parts, the use of noise-dampening grommets exclusively for 3.5” drives is perfectly acceptable.

Though we’re told that Intel actually designed the now-standard front-panel USB 3.0 header, this editor pushed that concept into the market. After all of that effort, it’s sad to see any modern case arrive without support for this two-year-old standard. The Strike-X ST uses rear-panel pass-through cables instead.

Designed exclusively for exhausting heated air, Aerocool’s 200 mm top fan had to be removed before we could install our triple-fan radiator. This same part is used as a front-panel intake by mounting it on molded-in spacers, but the Strike-X’s side panel doesn’t have this provision. We soldiered on without any side panel fans.

Swiftech’s MCR-320 Drive Rev3 radiator fits the Strike-X ST most easily with its pump on the front and reservoir on the back. The top panel also has room for some 3 x 140 mm radiators, but a larger radiator wouldn’t leave enough room for an integrated reservoir at the back end.

We wanted enough coolant line to fit the same system into all cases without having to drain it. By being the first case tested, the Strike-X ST sets the pace for evaluating other enclosures.

One small problem was that the USB 3.0 pass-through cables were too short to reach the appropriate ports on our motherboard, at least when using any of the chassis' original egress holes. We were instead forced to plug these cables into USB 2.0 connectors

A much larger problem was that the side panel tabs did not properly mate with six keyholes across the opening’s top and bottom edges, forcing many minutes of finessing before the panel finally closed all of the way—but even then was only mostly secure.

Front and rear fans feature red LED lighting.

Building With Azza's Hurrican 2000

Azza includes several cable ties, power splitters, a 3.5” external drive adapter, and a SATA cable in its installation kit. Screws are packed together in one messy bag, and a separate speaker allows use with a few older motherboards that lack this now-standard on-board feature.

A major shortcoming of the Hurrican 2000’s otherwise-exceptional backplane is its lack of support for 2.5” drives. The problem is nothing more than a lack of 2.5” mounting holes on the tray. Rather than modify the tray, Azza adds two 2.5” adapters.

While our drive fit into the adapters perfectly, using them prevents connector alignment on the backplane. Thus, Azza removes two connector boards from its backplane, dropping external plug-in support for the bottom two bays and limiting the system to a maximum of two SSDs. While that works for us, we’re sure most users would have preferred a redesigned tray to serve both functions.

Two very nice 230 mm fans were removed from the Hurrican 2000’s top panel to make room for Swiftech’s triple-fan radiator.

Unfortunately, the Hurrican 2000 has mounting tabs for only one 120 mm fan. Traditional liquid cooling systems could probably make do with this by sandwiching the grill between the radiator and fans, but MCR-320 Drive Rev3 uses its fans to fill the gap between its reservoir and pump. Rather than attempt to hang the radiator from one end, we sorted through our scrap bin to located a pair of metal tabs to support the opposite end.

Also notice that the pump is exposed beneath a hole at the front of the panel. Turning the radiator around could have aligned its fill hole with this convenient location, if not for a conflict between our memory and coolant lines.

The Hurrican 2000 has an almost-perfect amount of room for an ATX motherboard and three-fan radiator, in spite of its lack of secondary and tertiary 120 mm mounting holes. A different motherboard could have allowed the same radiator to fit in a better orientation, while a different radiator would have allowed the fans to be placed on top.

The finished build looks great, in spite of minor installation issues specific to our selected hardware.

Building With Cooler Master's Cosmos II

Adapter brackets allow the Cosmos II to support a second radiator in place of its lower drive cages. Cooler Master also adds an extra-long (approximately 12”) eight-pin EPS12V extension cable to the expected screws, standoffs, and cable ties in its installation kit.

Because its trayless backplanes only support 3.5” drives, we were forced to install our 2.5” SSD onto a drive tray without a backplane in the central drive cage.

External drives are secured via push-button latches. Also seen in the photo above, the side panel hinge brackets are slotted to allow easy panel removal.

Cooler Master’s installation kit contains most of the Cosmos II’s standoffs, but two standoffs are factory-installed. An extended collar on each of these special standoffs fits mounting holes tightly to positively locate the motherboard.

Cooler Master is one of the few companies to properly use the two-year-old internal USB 3.0 front-panel header. Most of its competitors are living in the far-more-distant past, though the feature is matched by one other product in today’s round-up.

As with Azza's competing Hurrican 2000, the Cosmos II is designed to support fans above the chassis top, and a radiator beneath it. This is how that installation would look, assuming the builder prefers to have these fans mounted as exhaust.

Unfortunately, our radiator requires the fans to be mounted directly to it, creating clearance for its integrated water pump and reservoir. That combination requires 2.3” of mounting space, and the Cosmos II has only 1.8”. Our installation ended here.

Why bother featuring the Cosmos II if we couldn’t test it? Cooler Master sent the case in good faith knowing that triple-fan radiators fit, and it does support most triple-fan radiators. It simply doesn’t fit this triple-fan radiator.

With that said, our invitation clearly stated, “We plan to use Swiftech's H2O-320 Edge HD to enable an easy transfer of the cooling system between cases,” complete with a link to Swiftech's product page. Instead, we’ll let our picture story describe the Cosmos II features that other builders might wish to employ.

Building With NZXT's Switch 810

NZXT is one of only two companies to supply an eight-pin EPS12V extension cable in its installation kit. Though the case is designed for the latest high-end hardware, the cable is particularly useful to owners of low-cost and older-model power units.

NZXT is also one of the few companies to include a proper front-panel USB 3.0 internal connector. Most of its competitors still rely on pass-through cables hanging out the back of the case, even though the internal standard is two years old.

The Switch 810 has only a single-drive backplane, but its tray bests competitors by fitting both 2.5” and 3.5” drives.

Two push latches release the center cover of the Switch 810’s top panel for easy access to its fan mounts. Fans can be installed on either side of the metal structure beneath.

Most builders won’t need to strip the case this far to install a radiator, but we removed the top panel completely to gain access to a latch that had broken in shipping. One side of the top 5.25” drive bay was also removed to make more wiggle room for radiator insertion.

We noted that reversing the radiator on a competing case would have allowed easier access to our radiator’s fill port. We also noted that the other case’ radiator placement prevented us from doing this, due to a space conflict between coolant lines and memory. NZXT’s Switch 810 doesn’t have that problem, at least with our motherboard.

In fact, we were forced to install the radiator the correct way in the Switch 810 because the lid of its second drive bay would have blocked our coolant lines as well. As a result, we can positively state that the Switch 810 is the absolute best match for our hardware. Most builders will want to shorten the cooling lines, but we wanted to test the case with the exact hardware used in the other configurations.

The H20-320's 2.3”-thick radiator and fan assembly blocks the Switch 810’s top 5.25” bay, so we mounted our optical drive in its second bay. The second bay doesn’t have set-back mounting holes to hold a drive behind its glossy white optical drive cover, so we flush-mounted it. Alternative radiators that allow the fans to be mounted above the case’s metal panel can be placed above the top bay, enabling the use of the Switch 810’s optical drive cover.

Power and drive activity lights are found on the front portion of the Switch 810’s top panel.

Test Settings And Benchmarks

While our Core i7-3960X heats up the radiator, a pair of GeForce GTX 580 graphics cards heat up the inside of our case. Maximum graphics fan speed make thermal and temperature testing consistent at full load, while automatic graphics fan mode and a long idle period brought down temperatures and fan speed for our idle noise tests.

Almost amazingly, this lab’s reference Seasonic X760 power supply continues to drive unreasonable loads throughout our torture tests.

Temperature, Noise, And Acoustic Efficiency

We tested the thermal properties of each case at maximum CPU and near-maximum GPU loads, using 11 threads of Prime95 and looping 3DMark 11's first test simultaneously. We locked the fans of our graphics cards at maximum speed to gauge the peak cooling performance without any added variability.

A well-placed intake fan and wide open side panel allow Aerocool’s Strike-X ST to lead at its highest fan speed. Azza takes second, place while NZXT follows close behind. Note that the Hurrican 2000’s fan controls are hard-wired to its top panel fans, which were replaced as part of our cooler installation.

We continued to use the fastest GPU fan speed through our full-load noise-level tests, but let those fans spin down completely for our idle tests. Mesh side panels usually fare poorly in this test at full GPU fan speed.

Remembering that low-speed fan mode gave Aerocool’s Strike-X ST a last-place finish in our temperature charts, we weren’t surprised to see a low noise level at idle. The noise under a full load is a completely different matter, as the same unit’s mesh side panel allows nearly 100% of the GPU cooler noise to pass through.

NZXT edges out Azza, and users who want the best of both cooling and noise can even try connecting their fans to thermally-controlled motherboard headers.

A comparison of temperature to noise should be a matter of simple division, except that we want the case with the lowest temperature to have the highest score. To achieve this inverse scale, we first divide the average temperature of all cases/all tests (52° C over ambient) by the average temperature of each individual case. We then divide the average noise level of each case by the average noise level of all cases (43 dB). Finally, we divide temperature (inverse scale) by noise (direct scale).

The resulting relative efficiency chart relates each case’s performance to the average of all tested cases. For example, at 105.4% of average, Aerocool’s full-fan-speed Strike-X ST performs 5.4% better than average.

Triple-Fan Water Cooling Cases, Evaluated

Hands-on experience can tell a tester as much about a case as its performance numbers. For example, Cooler Master’s Cosmos II had the heavy structure needed to provide superior noise dampening. It’s unfortunate that the radiator we told everyone we were using didn’t actually fit the Cosmos II, though we were able to verify that it holds traditional triple-fan radiators up to 1.8” thick.

Next in line for quality and features, Azza’s Hurrican 2000 is the least expensive unit in our round-up. Far smaller than the other cases in this review, it was still able to hold our cooling system once we tracked down a couple of metal tabs to secure it in place. We loved the super-value front-access hard drive backplane, were disappointed that the backplane didn’t support 2.5” drives natively, and lamented 2.5” adapters that required part of the backplane to be removed. Were Azza to slightly redesign the Hurrican 2000’s drive trays to hold both form factors natively, the company would certainly be in line to claim value supremacy.

Falling between those two in price, Aerocool’s Strike-X ST actually topped our cooling-versus-noise charts when it was running at full fan speed. It was still the noisiest, however, and didn’t have many of the features one might expect from a $200 enclosure. At this price, the presence of three fan controllers doesn’t offset the lack of any hard drive backplane. Furthermore, the combination of medium-gauge metal and slide-tab attachment should never be used on side panels that are this large.

NZXT’s Switch 810 sets a perfect example of how excellent design and manufacturing can assure proper panel fit—even when using metal that feels too thin for a case of its size. Advanced features, such as push-to-release latches on most access panels and dust filters, are certain to attract many buyers. Its use of a front-panel USB 3.0 internal connector also gets our stamp of approval. And though its “backplane” consists of only a single low-end bay adapter, we believe the balance of features brings it to value par with Azza’s similarly-priced, but smaller Hurrican 2000.

The Switch 810 is also the only case in the review to fit our cooling system and motherboard combination perfectly, rather than haphazardly. Yet, because most builders will install a different motherboard or radiator, that fitment doesn't qualify it for a universal recommendation. Instead of giving a generalized award to a product that didn’t top any of our performance charts and admittedly feels a little flimsy, we specifically recommend the NZXT Switch 810 to builders interested in copying our motherboard and cooling selection.

Editor's Note: We have some extra hardware on-hand, compliments of NZXT. For your chance to win one of three Phantom 410 chassis or one of three NZXT power supplies, enter our sweepstakes!

Update: Following up, our winners have been chosen, and their prizes shipped out. The lucky six are listed below, with their prizes. Congratulations all!

1. One (1) HALE82 850 W PSU: approximate retail value: $140 – Justin Rexroad of Winston Salem, NC
2. One (1) HALE82 750 W PSU: approximate retail value: $120 – Josh Steele of Kalamazoo, MI
3. One (1) HALE82 650 W PSU: approximate retail value: $110 – Christopher Ellis of Fisher, IN
4. One (1) Phantom 410 case: approximate retail value: $100 – Christopher Hailey of Mount Vernon, OH
5. One (1) Phantom 410 case: approximate retail value: $100 – Jeffrey Lopez of Chicago, IL
6. One (1) Phantom 410 case: approximate retail value: $100 – Sean Thompson of Grand Ledge, MI

Can LGA 2011 Be Made More Affordable?

Motherboard designers can approach cost-cutting from several different angles. They can selectively lop off certain features or change their layouts, facilitating fewer PCB layers. They can pare back value-added bundles or even offer mail-in rebates that a majority of folks never take the time to redeem. We've seen these approaches work really well on mainstream platforms, and we're sometimes surprised to find exceptional reliability persisting, despite the need to shave off precious dollars and cents. But Intel's LGA 2011 interface is a different animal entirely. Its four memory channels feed a complex processor, which attaches to a more expensive PCH. Together, that all results in a higher starting price for Core i7-3000-compatible motherboards.

And then you have to take the cost of Intel's processors into account. Even the lowest-end Core i7-3820 is expected to sell for close to $300, and that's a quad-core mode. Consequently, we can't expect too many enthusiasts to tolerate a cut-down, incomplete motherboard to complement any Sandy Bridge-E-based chip. 

Pricing and quality expectations come to a head in the sub-$260 LGA 2011 market, where some buyers will certainly wonder why an entry-level board still costs $100 more than LGA 1155-based platforms with seemingly similar on-board extras. Quite simply, the costs associated with Sandy Bridge-E are higher, in part because of Intel's prices and also because the boards are more difficult to design.

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Feature tables tell a lot about what each motherboard offers. But design and implementation make some features more valuable than others. We’re now ready to examine and detail the design, performance, and overclocking capabilities of these six not-quite-economical products.

Before we move on to the next page, though, we want to point out that, finally, all six of these vendors are on-board with similar three-year warranties, satisfying our former criticisms about a lack of value in the form of support.

ASRock X79 Extreme4

ASRock’s continued effort to provide higher-end hardware without letting this platform's inherent price premium get out of control is easily illustrated in an X79 Extreme4 that has three extra SATA 6Gb/s ports, eSATA, dual-controller USB 3.0 for internal and I/O ports, and a full set of O/C-friendly features.

Those O/C-friendly features include a Port 80 diagnostics display, an I/O panel CLR_CMOS button, internal power and reset buttons for bench testing, and a eight-phase CPU voltage regulator with oversized cooling.

Front-panel USB 3.0 and one of the added SATA ports are found above-center on the motherboard’s front edge for easy reach of front-panel connector cables. Conversely, the front-panel audio cable is located as far away from any front-panel connectors as it could possibly be, at the rear of the X79 Extreme4’s bottom edge. Remaining ports are designed to coexist with up to three double-slot graphics cards, and ASRock even adds an extra space between the board’s two true x16 PCIe slots for additional graphics cooling.

The provision of a full feature set on a low-cost board is never free of compromise, as the X79 Extreme4 has only four memory slots. Although you'd have to decide right away whether to use 2 GB, 4 GB, or 8 GB modules to achieve quad-channel functionality without any option for future memory expansion, low memory prices make this a reasonable production-cost concession in our minds.

This is the first ASRock Extreme-series board in recent memory not to include the firm’s USB 3.0 front-panel bay adapter. We partly credit case manufacturers with making this part unnecessary, as removing it allows ASRock to further reduce cost and pricing.

We would have liked to see more than four SATA cables, however, even though this is probably enough to serve the budget-enthusiast market.

X79 Extreme4 Firmware

ASRock attacks the overclocking market on two fronts, with “CPU EZ OC” profiles up to 5.0 GHz, plus full manual controls. We recommend keeping any of Intel’s 32 nm CPUs below 1.40 V for increased longevity, and we perform our own comparative analysis at 1.35 V.

After suffering through two motherboard round-ups with a CPU bug for which only one of ASRock’s competitors had a workaround, we finally moved on to a new bug-free processor based on Intel's newer C2 stepping. Choosing 47 x 100 MHz gets us to a respectable 4.7 GHz, though the board’s 1 MHz BCLK increments prevented us from seeking a few MHz more (we would have liked to see more granularity there).

Memory data rates up to DDR3-2400 are available at stock base clock, though most Sandy Bridge-E processors require advanced tweaking to reach this data rate.

Voltage controls include CPU core and CSA, the latter assisting primarily in memory controller overclocking. Benchmarked at default settings, our memory gets bumped up to its recommended 1.65 V when overclocked.

Unlike most entry-level boards, the X79 Extreme4 adds secondary and tertiary timings to its manual memory configuration.

Asus P9X79

Asus puts all four of the P9X79’s USB 3.0 ports on the rear panel, eliminating the possibility of a front-panel header. The board does, however, retain eSATA and IEEE-1394 ports from its more-expensive siblings, along with Asus’ USB BIOS Flashback and Quick BIOS Screen Capture features.

USB BIOS Flashback uses a custom IC to enable firmware flashing from a USB drive with no other hardware installed. That’s particularly beneficial to users who actually need a firmware update to simply support hardware they bought with the board. As you'll see shortly, this is a very real concern, and a competitor was affected by its inability to accommodate our C2-stepping processor right out of the box.

The P9X79 beats several competing products in maximum memory support by including eight slots. While the board also gives up any additional SATA ports, most enthusiasts will expand beyond four modules long before they see the need to expand beyond the X79 Express' six SATA ports.

The P9X79 includes switches and a button for Asus’ EPU, TPU, and MemOK modes. EPU is an automatic underclocking routine for enhanced power savings under low loads, TPU is an automatic overclocking routine, and MemOK temporarily underclocks memory to ease booting with improperly-programmed modules.

Like most other entry-level X79-based platforms, the P9X79 relies on Sandy Bridge-E’s 40 PCIe 3.0 lanes to support up to three graphics cards with x16-x16-x8 connections. Asus pushes the x8 slot to the bottom of the board, however, where installing a dual-slot graphics card requires an eight-slot case (in addition to smashing flat any cables connected to headers along the board’s bottom edge). This is particularly frustrating for users who hoped to take advantage of Asus’ Q-Connector cable bundling feature. Dual-card users fare better, since the board provides an extra space between its two x16 slots for improved airflow.

Though the P9X79 supports three graphics cards, it does not include a three-way SLI bridge. A two-way SLI bridge, I/O shield, and four SATA cables complete its installation kit.

P9X79 Firmware

P9X79 firmware includes several automatic and manual overclocking options in addition to Asus OC Tuner, which is designed to automatically find the company's idea of an optimized overclock based on incremental clock increases and stability tests. We’re a little cautious with core voltage settings, though, and prefer to set this manually.

We didn’t quite reach 4.7 GHz on the P9X79, but small 0.1 MHz BCLK increments allowed us to set 4672 MHz using the same 47x CPU multiplier.

The P9X79 plays on our love of simplified menus by placing key voltage controls on the main Ai Tweaker menu. Per-channel DRAM reference voltage levels might be perceived as over-the-top, however, since only the most persistent tweakers use these.

Choosing “Ultra High” CPU Load-line Calibration from the DIGI+ Power Control submenu allows us to retain a CPU core voltage very close to our targeted 1.35 V under heavy processor loads.

Disabling EIST within the CPU Performance Settings submenu let us lock in a constant 47x CPU multiplier, exceeding non-Turbo Boost ratios even though the menu shows Turbo Mode disabled.

The P9X79’s DRAM Timing Control submenu adds slew rate to the familiar primary, secondary, and tertiary timings.

Biostar TPower X79

Often perceived as a contender for extracting some of the best overclocking value, Biostar stepped its game up a bit with its TPower X79 by providing twice as many USB 3.0 ports compared to most competitors. We find six of those connectors on the I/O panel and two available via front-panel header.

Biostar's customers aren’t even forced to give up a bunch of other features to get those extra ports, since the board still features a third-party SATA/eSATA controller, three PCIe 3.0 x16 slots electrically wired to run at x16-x16-x8, a Port 80 diagnostics display for overclocking failure analysis, and integrated power/reset/CLR_CMOS buttons for bench testing.

The TPower X79 even has two high-capacity EPS12V connectors to feed its mid-capacity voltage regulator. Perhaps the most significant compromise is a quartet of memory slots, giving you one shot to grab the quad-channel kit you need and no room for an upgrade. With a Web price of only $230, that sacrifice is fairly small in exchange for such a wide range of added controllers.

Unfortunately, installing a third graphics card will be problematic for performance enthusiasts, since the extra-stiff USB 3.0 front-panel connectors of most cases block the installation of most cards. As with Asus' board, two-way CrossFire and SLI are preferred, and Biostar provides an extra space between the top two x16 slots to assist airflow between a pair of boards.

Competitors could learn a thing from Biostar about low-cost installation kits, as the TPower X79 includes six SATA cables to support all of the chipset’s native ports. But perhaps Biostar could also learn something from ASRock, the company that enables three-way SLI with a bundled bridge and smarter header placement. The TPower X79 is almost exclusively focused on dual-card graphics configurations, though going the single-GPU route is certainly an option too.

TPower X79 Firmware

Biostar copies over its familiar O.N.E. menu from earlier BIOS implementations to its UEFI with a few modifications, such as moving the menu bar to the bottom of the GUI.

Unfortunately, this particular board was uncharacteristically difficult to overclock compared to the firm’s other recent efforts, with nonfunctional boot failure recovery and a lack of overclocking profile storage that forced us to continuously clear all settings and then reset everything to known-good values in our overclocking attempts. We finally reached a stable (but frankly pretty weak) 4455 MHz overclock using a below-stock 99 MHz base clock with a 45x multiplier.

We also had to set a 1.37 V Vcore to achieve something close to 1.35 V.

Primary and secondary memory timings are also available from the main O.N.E. menu.

Though voltage settings are few, core, DRAM, and CSA voltage are all available. Unlike the CPU voltage found further up its menu, this CPU core voltage setting is an offset that complements the baseline figure.

ECS X79R-AX Black Deluxe

ECS' X79-based branding is a little strange. Its “Black Extreme” moniker applies to a high-end part labeled X79R-AX, while its “Black Deluxe” moniker goes to the mid-range part officially called the X79R-AX Deluxe. Those official names come from both the company's Web site and the descriptor labels applied to its boxes. In other words, the Deluxe is a lower-end model than the non-Deluxe, and the word Extreme rarely appears on the top-end variant. In order to keep things simple, we’re ignoring the word Black and going by the label’s official X79R-AX Deluxe designator.

Deluxe could refer to the board’s support for four graphics cards, its four rear and two front-panel USB 3.0 ports, or perhaps its quad SAS 6Gb/s connectors. Two of those features are unique amongst today's contenders.

Pathway switches allow the X79R-AX Deluxe to go from two full-bandwidth PCIe 3.0 x16 links to four x8 connectors by sending eight of each grey slot’s lanes to the corresponding white slot. That only happens when the switches detect a card in the white slot, though.

Of course, four-card arrays aren't for everyone, and they may not even be for anyone shopping in the X79R-AX Deluxe's price range. They certainly can't be used if you also want front-panel USB 3.0 support, since the front-panel header is placed too closely to the fourth graphics slot for a card and a cable to coexist. Three-way CrossFire is still a solid possibility, but the slots are most suitably situated to support two really big graphics coolers.

The CPU’s remaining eight lanes of third-gen PCIe are reserved for on-board devices, with four of them providing a communications pathway for the PCH's SAS controller. These are the same ports Intel decided to disable on desktops, and ECS was the only manufacturer to enable them anyway. These must be enabled in both firmware and by Intel drivers supplied by ECS. Mixed tales of triumph and tragedy have been attributed to the use of these ports, and the tragedies are mostly likely related to the fact that Intel decided not to support them.

In the days to come, Intel will introduce the server/workstation version of this same PCH, which will be largely identical to the desktop version, aside from its name. That'll be the product to look to for official Intel SAS support.

The X79R-AX Deluxe officially supports six drives and actually includes six SATA cables. ECS adds a single SLI bridge. You'll need to look to your graphics vendor for a CrossFire bridge.

X79R-AX Deluxe Firmware

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.

Intel DX79TO

Intel now counts itself amongst the motherboard vendors with thorough overclocking functionality. Its DX79TO stands out most clearly for its lack of passive voltage regulator cooling compared to the other boards tested in this round-up. A fairly large heat sink positioned where you would have expected to find a northbridge is nothing more than an extension of the PCH cooler that alleviates any need for a chipset cooling fan.

Intel adds two USB 3.0 ports to its rear panel and not much else. Though a Port 80 diagnostics display, a power button, and a reset switch all aid in bench testing, IEEE-1394a is its only other concession to add-in connectivity.

We would expect Intel’s reduced-price motherboards to maximize the platform's built-in capabilities, and were pleased to find eight memory slots available for quad-channel upgrades. On the other hand, a mere three 1/8" analog audio jacks on a board that lacks even a single digital output is far more disappointing, and we're left to wonder where the CPU's eight remaining lanes--normally reserved for a third graphics slot--have gone.

At least the board still includes Intel’s Back-to-BIOS button, which allows the system to boot at its default configuration, while still retaining custom settings in its firmware GUI.

While a mere two graphics slots is likely sufficient for most enthusiasts, those same enthusiasts could save even more money by simply switching to LGA 1155. Slot connectors are relatively cheap, and the eight lanes that most competing products use for a third slot are native to all LGA 2011 CPUs. Intel doesn't even take advantage of the reduced graphics support by spacing remaining slots farther apart for increased graphics cooling. Though we're certain some LGA 2011 buyers are simply looking for a low-cost yet reliable way to support Intel's latest six-core processors, competing platforms that include both an extra graphics slot and extra space between the two primarily slots should be far more attractive to the majority of buyers.

A board with fewer internal headers should inherently be easier to lay out, though we would have preferred to find the front-panel audio header a little further forward from its bottom-rear corner placement. The cables of some cases come up less than an inch short of reaching this location.

Four SATA cables and a single SLI bridge illustrate Intel’s focus on cutting cost in the DX79TO’s least-significant places. These savings add up to a board that comes in as the least expensive of today’s competitors, in spite of Intel’s reputation for arming its boards with stability through thorough validation.

DX79TO Firmware

Intel’s atypical GUI is easier to use than a number of competing firmware implementations, though it does take a few minutes to master. The main “Performance” menu, for example, shows many settings, but only a few are selectable.

Host Clock Multiplier refers to the setting formerly known as a boot strap on older LGA 775 boards. This sets the ratio between the X79 PCH and CPU base clock. Other settings include base clock, CSA voltage, I/O and PLL voltage, and PCH core voltage.

CPU core voltage is found in the DX79TO’s Processor Overrides submenu, along with V-Droop control, current limits, and Turbo Boost ratios. Setting Runtime Turbo Ratio to Enable allows a single Turbo Boost multiplier to be adjusted from within Windows while reducing firmware GUI ratios to a single setting. We used the 47x ratio with a slightly underclocked 98.88 MHz BCLK to reach a stable 4.616 GHz overclock.

The DX79TO’s Memory Overrides submenu includes memory voltage and multiplier, plus primary and secondary timing controls.

MSI X79A-GD45 (8D)

MSI rivals Asus in offering the fewest extras for the money by integrating two USB 3.0 controllers and chipset-only SATA (compared to Asus’ eSATA ports and lack of front-panel USB 3.0). Both boards support triple-card CrossFireX, though, and both have a full set of eight DIMM slots.

It bears mention that the X79A-GD45 (8D)’s extra USB 3.0 connectivity is a little less valuable than Asus' eSATA because you can't use the front-panel USB 3.0 header with three graphics cards installed. Short add-in cards fit. Thin add-in cards fit. But USB 3.0 front-panel cable ends are simply too stiff to fit under a graphics card heat sink.

The other two x16-length slots each have a single PCIe 2.0 pathway suitable only for low-bandwidth devices. That functionality could include low-end graphics cards serving 2D needs.

Apart from the unfortunately-positioned USB 3.0 front-panel header, we have no major objections to the X79A-GD45 (8D)’s layout. It's somewhat inconvenient to have the front-panel audio header positioned a little too far back for some of our cases. That's offset by a minor design triumph in MSI's inclusion of a manual switch for its dual-BIOS function.

Supporting up to six internal SATA drives, the X79A-GD45 (8D) includes all six SATA cables. MSI’s M-Connector cable bundler, a single SLI bridge, and an I/O shield complete the installation kit.

X79A-GD45 (8D) Firmware

Overclockers generally know what settings they want to change. Meanwhile, MSI sets its firmware's fonts really large for the most trivial settings and really small for the most important settings. Could that reverse emphasis be designed to discourage more casual users from playing with the wrong option?

All primary clock and voltage controls are found within the main OC menu, including base clock, chipset ratio (Clock Strap), CPU multiplier, and DRAM ratio.

CPU Core, CSA, VTT, and PLL voltages are all adjustable.

If you choose not to manually specify CPU voltage but still want a little more performance using Intel’s stock voltage scheme, use the separate Override Voltage option. DIMM voltage is adjustable in channel pairs, while DIMM reference voltage is further divided into single-channel settings.

While Turbo Boost ratios are adjustable based on the number of active cores within the CPU features menu, our target was to simply find one stability limit with all cores loaded. Hitting that target was as simple as setting the base ratio to 47x in the main menu, pushing our CPU to 4.70 GHz.

Primary and secondary memory timings are adjustable from the Advanced DRAM Configuration submenu. Shown timings correspond to XMP values for our test modules.

Test Settings And Benchmarks

A credit to Swiftech’s reliability, its LGA 775-era Apogee GTX kit keeps our CPU temperature well below its thermal throttling limits under every test condition, even while using its original coolant and nothing more than a bracket and screw change to fit the newer LGA 2011 platform. We added an SFF21D cooling fan above its water block to assist voltage regulator and DRAM cooling.

G.Skills Ripjaws DDR3-2200 allows us to test the overclocking capabilities of each motherboard at one module per channel, and the basic performance of each board at default DDR3-1600 SPD values. The firm sent a second set for our eight-DIMM tests using the same ICs, but different XMP values.

Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 580 pushes our CPU limits under games, enhancing any small performance deficits that some motherboards occasionally exhibit.

Samsung’s MZPA256HMDR 256 GB SSD keeps load times and idle power low.

Benchmark Results: DiRT 3

For most games, our lowest settings show differences in CPU and/or memory performance, while our highest settings show differences in GPU and/or PCIe performance. We expect substantially similar results across all tests, but look for any large gains to expose less-than-honest default clock rate settings or large losses to expose implementation problems.

ECS leads DiRT 3, followed closely by Intel, but no evidence to suspect anything out of the ordinary. Both boards show spot-on base clock frequencies in CPU-Z.

Benchmark Results: Metro 2033

Metro 2033 chokes most systems, making this already-old game an excellent replacement for the ancient, original Crysis. Once again, we look for large differences to expose non-standard clocks or configuration issues.

The leaders from DiRT 3, ECS and Intel each take top positions in one of the two test charts. Typical variations of roughly 0.5 FPS between consecutive runs point to performance that’s very close to par for all tested boards.

Benchmark Results: StarCraft II

ASRock and Biostar lead in StarCraft II, though those leads are within the typical performance variation between consecutive runs (around 2-3 FPS). Those leads vanish completely at 2560x1600.

Benchmark Results: Audio And Video Encoding

Though we haven’t seen any consistent performance leadership up until this point, both of our audio encoding applications favor the same three motherboards. Both applications are also single-threaded, scaling based on the clock rate of a single core. We didn't see a noticeable difference in base clock, though, which would have allowed one platform to run slightly faster than the others.

HandBrake shows no performance difference between motherboards.

One of the three motherboards to top our audio transcoding charts, Asus’ P9X79, leads again in MainConcept.

Benchmark Results: Productivity

Performance differences in Adobe Photoshop are too small to detect during a one-minute project.

Biostar picks up a miniscule lead in 3ds Max.

Two of the three leaders from our audio encoding benchmarks retake top positions in file compression.

Biostar’s TPower X79 picks up its second productivity win in ABBYY FineReader.

Power, Heat, And Efficiency

Intel demonstrates the lowest idle power consumption, while MSI matches it, on average, with the lowest full-load power consumption. ECS' idle power result could be slightly off due to the fact that we had to use a C1-stepping processor with its qualifying firmware revision.

A big heat sink on MSI’s voltage regulator, along with moderate power consumption, contributes to impressive thermals at stock CPU settings. Biostar’s second-place temperature is equally notable given its higher power consumption.

With less than 1% performance difference separating various motherboards, efficiency is primarily a reflection of power consumption. MSI's 0.1% advantage in the benchmarks barely puts the X79A-GD45 8D over Intel's DX79TO for the top two positions.

Overclocking

The TPower X79's fixed and offset Vcore settings can be used simultaneously, boosting its theoretical maximum to 2.06 volts.

Though several of this round-up’s motherboards offer base clock increments of less than 1 MHz, the best overclockers weren’t among them. ASRock’s X79 Extreme4 and MSI’s X79A-GD45 both reach 4.70 GHz. Neither could push our processor to 4747 MHz (which would have been required for 47 x 101 MHz), and the lack of more granular base clock settings results in a tie.

ECS gets excluded from this overclocking comparison because its old firmware did not support our newer C2-stepping CPU. Comparing a C1 overclock to a C2 wouldn't yield a fair result, especially since our C1-stepping chip is afflicted with a bug that prevents proper operation above a certain multiplier (and only Asus has been able to work around it). The new CPU is also less capable of supporting a 1.66x chipset-to-CPU multiplier, which puts the boards employing it at a disadvantage.

Every Sandy Bridge-E processor has a frequency window that includes an underclocking floor. ASRock’s 152 MHz base clock, which is achieved using a 1.66x strap, requires the base frequency be underclocked to 91 MHz, which is roughly the lowest setting this CPU supports.

The 1.25x strap is far easier to use, and the top three boards to employ it all reach 134 MHz. This capability is particularly useful to owners of locked processors like the Core i7-3820, since they’re still be able to increase their CPU’s frequency up to 34% beyond its highest multiplier.

Asus does wonderful things with memory overclocking, which is why we often use its products as our reference platform in memory reviews. Intel follows closely behind, though it isn’t able to effectively use its DDR3-2133 setting when all eight slots are filled. Pushing past the possible DDR3-2400 setting would require far-more-aggressive voltage adjustments than we’re comfortable using.

Which X79-Based Motherboard Offers More Value?

Today’s motherboards range from Intel’s $210 DX79TO to a $260 price shared by Asus, MSI, and ECS. Gigabyte’s X79A-UD3 might have also fit within our qualifying range, had its board not already been used for our $260 to $320 roundup. If you want to know more about the Gigabyte platform, check out Seven $260-$320 X79 Express Motherboards, Reviewed.

Because all of today’s boards exhibit similar performance, a price-per-performance chart primarily reflects price.

For $5 more than Intel's baseline, ASRock’s X79 Extreme4 adds three-way SLI, front-panel USB 3.0, rear-panel digital ports, twice as many analog audio jacks, three more SATA ports, and eSATA. While all of those features are worth several times as much as the price difference, we're left wondering how much money ASRock saved by leaving out the second set of DIMM slots.

Biostar’s TPower X79 goes a step further by integrating four more USB 3.0 ports compared to the X79 Extreme4. It still has only a single set of memory slots, however, and we’re unhappy to find its front-panel USB 3.0 header located less than one space below its third graphics slot. While most builders at this budget level don’t plan to use three graphics cards, we like to leave that option available when the slots are there. Furthermore, the TPower X79 is an extraordinarily troublesome overclocker. All of these things diminish the value of its added peripheral connectivity, compelling us to choose between ASRock and Intel.

Asus’ P9X79 splits the difference between the two most value-oriented boards by offering four rear-panel USB 3.0 ports but—strangely—no front-panel USB 3.0 headers. The board also comes up two SATA ports shy of the X79 Extreme4, and its super-valuable USB BIOS Flashback feature is so infrequently needed that it alone can’t justify its significantly-higher $260 price.

Nobody needs a win right now more than MSI, and the firm does beat its competitors with impressive efficiency. Like the TPower X79, MSI’s X79A-GD45 also has the problem of an unfortunately-placed front-panel USB 3.0 header. Anyone who knows for certain that they’ll never place a conflicting card in the bottom PCI Express slot should consider its superb efficiency as a reason to buy, though we find it hard to justify a $45 mark-up (compared to the similarly-featured X79 Extreme4) for its second set of memory slots.

ECS’ X79R-AX Deluxe faces several challenges compared to the competition, beginning with the fact that it was the only board to require a firmware update simply to support our new CPU. Anyone who orders a new processor with this board could potentially suffer the same fate. This is one of those instances where a feature similar to Asus’ USB BIOS Flashback could truly be useful, but ECS doesn’t have it. That could explain why the X79R-AX Deluxe is out-of-stock everywhere we looked.

This leads us back to a race between ASRock’s X79 Extreme4’s added features and the extra memory slots provided by Intel’s DX79TO. We could try to use the DX79TO’s higher efficiency to offset its lack of front-panel USB 3.0 support, but we prefer to have both. We were also disappointed that Intel chose to use only 32 of the CPU's 40 PCIe lanes by leaving off the third graphics slot. Add superior CPU overclocking to its superior feature set, and ASRock’s X79 Extreme4 takes the value crown.

LGA 2011 Motherboards, Just A Little Cheaper

When Intel launched its Sandy Bridge-E-based processors and platform, the company sampled its $1000 processor exclusively. Certainly the top-end Core i7-3960X is a worthy successor to the Gulftown-based Core i7-990X that it replaces.

As we all know, though, paying a premium to get that flagship part isn't the direction most enthusiasts go. Instead, it's more common to buy down the stack and overclock, extracting real value from less-expensive parts. Last generation, it was common to see power users buying pricey motherboards and affordable Core i7-900-series chips, turning them into 4+ GHz speed demons.

Intel's new high-end platform is no different. The Core i7-3930K is a much more attractive high-performance prospect than the -3960X. And now that we've seen what a -3930K can do, we're ready to have a look at some of the less expensive LGA 2011-based motherboards more appropriate for the second-fastest CPU's more attainable price tag.

As we wait for Intel to push its least-expensive Core i7-3000 CPU into retail, today's round-up sees seven mid-priced motherboards put to the test.