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The memory department continues to favor this test stand's XMP DDR4-3466 kit with chart-topping bandwidth and latency.
Moving over to 3DMark, we see our next delta in our system, the GPU. This reviwer is rocking the EVGA RTX 2080 Super Hybrid card which provides between 24% and 28% better graphics scores, but our CPU scores are comparable across setups.
PCMark slumps in Essentials and Office for the Asus board but bounces back with Digital Content Creation.
3D Games
The trend continues with Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation, and the notable trend is that the 2080 Super identifies the GPU bottleneck when switching between 1080P and 1440P High. F1 2017 also produces better framerates with the more expensive card and continues to flex its muscles across the resolutions and detail settings.
Mixed Workloads
Time is money and X299 aims to provide that for those that prefer Team Blue. Notable results are the 7-zip performance on the Asus X299-E Gaming II but this board slips with Handbrake's H265 and Cinebench performance.
Power, Heat and Effeciency
And now the RTX 2080 Super pays its price. The Asus-based test bench burns an additional 32 watts at idle which pushes the average power consumption metric to third place.
From a thermal perspective, the CPUs in this comparison are running nearly the same temperature and even under a standard heavy load, the Asus' active VRM fan doesn't get the chance to engage.
All systems today achieve better than average performance in some of the various metrics and the Asus ROG Strix X299-E Gaming II manages to grab three 100% while the others only get two (if we ignore the Gaming metric).
Efficiency is a no brainer here, more power for marginally better performance translates into an easy loss for this test stand.
Final Analysis
Value in the HEDT space is an interesting perspective, as aspiring builders look for the bottom dollar while others can appreciate the extra functionality even with the larger price-tag. From a raw motherboard cost point of view, the Asus manages to be a modest proposal sitting between the bookends of the market's price range. Asus did an excellent job cleaning up this brand with their 10th Gen refresh and the only feature that might have bumped this one over the top would be the inclusion of a 10Gb network card in place of the Wi-Fi 6 card (~$20USD) and 2.5Gb controller (~$25USD).
If we factor in platform cost (CPU + GPU) into the value equation, the picture tightens up quite a bit. There's a couple of ways to look at it is the cost of the RTX 2080 Super worth it for the extra $200 or are their features in the Gigabyte (10Gb) that make it the more attractive offering.
One thing is certain, the Asus ROG Strix X299-E Gaming II improved on its predecessor's deficiencies and delivers a well-performing motherboard. We recommend this board to builders that intend to push this system hard with extreme water-cooling solutions but not for workstation or cost-sensitive platform deliveries.
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