Results: Benchmarks, Efficiency And Overclocking
Hardware and software settings carried over from our initial round-up allow me to compare the performance of every tested X99 motherboard to the most recent products. Charts include the three most similarly-priced competitors.
ASRock X99 EXTREME6/ AC
ASUS X99-PRO ATX DDR4
MSI X99S Mpower
3DMark And PCMark
We haven’t seen significant attempts to game the review system in recent years, which would be indicated by noticeable increases in basic benchmark performance. That’s good, since those types of events previously triggered lengthy investigations into clock speed manipulation. Everyone can overclock, and overclockers prefer to use their own settings.
3DMark and PCMark show all four boards producing similar performance. No cheating here.
SiSoftware Sandra
Memory performance is one place motherboard manufacturers can still affect performance a little without overtly cheating, since certain advanced timings are based on other memory/motherboard factors and not programmed onto the module. Tighter timings tend to produce higher bandwidth scores, while looser timings lend themselves to additional stability. Supermicro appears to choose stability, as inferred by its slightly lower Sandra Bandwidth and Encoding/Decoding scores.
3D Games
The C7X99-OCE is also found near the middle of a tightly-grouped pack of gaming performance scores.
Encoding, Creativity, Productivity And File Compression
The C7X99-OCE retains mid-pack performance consistency throughout our application suites.
Encoding, Creativity, Productivity And File Compression
The C7X99-OCE consumes about as much power as its competitors, falling between the feature-packed Asus and feature-light MSI boards under full load. Temperatures are a little high, which could account for average power consumption on a board with fewer added-on controllers.
Our efficiency chart averages all nine previously-tested X99 motherboards, including microATX and low-cost models. The C7X99-OCE’s efficiency looks a little worse, even though the lower-cost boards it’s competing against have a similar feature count.
Overclocking
| BIOS Frequency and Voltage settings (for overclocking) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Supermicro C7X99-OCE | MSI X99S MPower | ASRock X99 Extreme6/ac | Asus X99 Pro | |
| BIOS | 1.0a (12/11/2014) | V22.3 (11/25/2014) | 1.40 (11/11/2014) | 1004 (10/16/2014) |
| Base Clock | 43-540MHz (0.01MHz) | 91-300MHz (0.05MHz) | 96-300MHz (0.1MHz) | 80-300MHz (0.1MHz) |
| CPU Multiplier | 12-80x (1x) | 12-80x (1x) | 12-120x (1x) | 12-80x (1x) |
| DRAM Data Rates | 800-4000 | 1333-2666 | 800-2666 | 1200-4000 |
| CPU Vcore | 0-2.00V (1mV) | 0.80-2.10V (1mV) | 0.80-2.00V (1mV) | 0.001-1.92V (1mV) |
| VCCIN | 1.81-2.50V (50mV) | 1.20-3.04V (1mV) | 1.20-2.30V (10mV) | 0.80-2.70V (1mV) |
| PCH Voltage | N/A | 0.70-2.32V (10mV) | 0.90-1.50V (25mV) | 0.70-1.80V (6.25mV) |
| DRAM Voltage | 1.20-1.60V (50mV) | 0.60-2.00V (10mV) | 1.00-1.80V (10mV) | 0.80-1.90V (10mV) |
| CAS Latency | 7-24 Cycles | 4-31 Cycles | 4-31 Cycles | 1-31 Cycles |
| tRCD | 4-32 Cycles | 4-31 Cycles | 5-31 Cycles | 1-31 Cycles |
| tRP | 4-32 Cycles | 4-31 Cycles | 5-31 Cycles | 1-31 Cycles |
| tRAS | 10-40 Cycles | 9-63 Cycles | 10-63 Cycles | 1-63 Cycles |
Supermicro endows the C7X99-OCE with a competitive range of clock settings, and even includes the non-validated memory ratios familiar primarily to owners of Asus motherboards.
My test CPU unfortunately didn’t reach the expected 4 to 4.4GHz, coming up just shy of target at 4376MHz using a 102MHz BCLK setting and 43x multiplier. A slight shortfall in DRAM overclocking occurred when attempts to lower the CPU multiplier were either ineffective or caused a boot failure, though users of slower RAM should experience a greater variety of workarounds. Higher memory multipliers didn’t work either, though manual timing configuration might have eventually solved the issue. After five days of trying various firmware configurations, the 0.025GHz shortfall in frequency and data rate seemed even less important.
Choosing DDR4-2666 rather than the default XMP-3000 setting might be an option, but it barely outperforms DDR4-2133 SPD values on the C7X99-OCE. This chart is primarily a test of how aggressively each board auto-configures secondary and tertiary timings in response to multiplier manipulation, and it appears Supermicro favors overclocking stability over performance superiority.