The ASRock Fatal1ty X299 Professional Gaming i9 Motherboard Review
by Joe Shields on September 26, 2017 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Gaming
- Intel
- ASRock
- SLI
- Fatal1ty
- CrossFire
- X299
- Skylake-X
- Kaby Lake-X
The ASRock X299 Professional Gaming i9 Conclusion
The ASRock X299 Professional Gaming i9 set out to be a motherboard that comes with a lot of features and, for the most part, hit that nail on the head. For example, the Gaming i9 uses an integrated Aquantia 10 gigabit Ethernet controller as well as two Intel gigabit Ethernet ports and 2T2R Intel WiFi. So while not many boards come with a 10 GbE built in, fewer come bundled with dual Intel NICs plus WiFi, which is a bit overkill perhaps. This is also a departure for ASRock, given that this is a gaming motherboard but doesn't have a Killer NIC present.
With the platform allowing support for multiple PCIe x4 based devices, X299 will see many boards with multiple M.2 support. ASRock includes three M.2 slots for PCIe or SATA based storage devices here, alongside a total of 10 SATA ports. It is worth noting that due to the varying CPU features that can be supported, users will need to keep an eye on what will be disabled when using certain CPUs. For example, on the Gaming i9, the first M.2 slot is driven by the CPU and always keeps its bandwidth, but the other two M.2 slots revert to SATA-only support when a 16-lane Kaby Lake-X CPU is used. On the storage front, the only thing missing here is a U.2 connector - I would have thought being at least a quasi-workstation/professional board, it should have this option.
For gaming, the X299 Professional Gaming i9 has physical slot protection for the reinforced PCIe slots in case heavy GPUs are used. ASRock also uses the latest Realtek ALC1220 codec, with included software for sound shaping and the set of 'enhanced features' for gaming audio: PCB separation, filter caps, and high-impedence headphone jack detection. Surprisingly, the Realtek IC does not have a separate EMI cover, a feature I would expect to see at this level of motherboard. For multi-GPU users, ASRock has setup its two primary PCIe slots with triple slot spacing for enough airflow on regular cards or for pushing it with two double or triple slot cards. The gaming crowd, and plenty others, seem to like RGB LEDs. So while the Gaming i9 doesn't have RGB LEDs all over, those under the PCH do a good job of conveying whatever colored light theme users may want to go with. This is probably a restriction based on the 'Professional' half of the naming of this board.
Little was left out for the overclocker too. The Dr. MOS based VRM should handle what can be thrown at it under air and water. The board includes uses a base clock 'Engine' (Hyper BCLK Engine III) which allows for overclocking the PCIe lanes as well as a broader range of BCLK frequency manipulation. For users going sub-ambient there may be better choices from ASRock, such as the upcoming X299 OC Formula. Both the BIOS and F-Stream software have all the controls and functions an overclock would need to push the CPU to its limits.
One standout difference between most of its competition is ASRock including the Aquantia 10 GbE vs others which do not have one. We are seeing the inclusion, either intgrated or with an add-in card, coming to more boards, but slowly. Separate PCIe 10 GbE cards can approach the $100 mark, so integrating direct on the board can making it a great value-add and money saver as well.
Overall performance was good across our benchmarks with a win in some, lose in some type of trade off. There was nothing anomolous which would raise concern. Pricing on the ASRock X299 Professional Gaming i9 comes in at an MSRP of $399. Currently, it can be found on Newegg for $390, and Amazon has it listed for $1400 from 3rd party sellers. Ignoring Amazon for a second, the pricepoint puts it squarely between the GIGABYTE X299 AORUS Gaming 7 and the MSI X299 Gaming M7 ACK, both of which are aiming at a similar level of customers
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ddriver - Tuesday, September 26, 2017 - link
Does it support intel's latest and greatest dual core i3 HEDT cpu? If not - no buy.duploxxx - Tuesday, September 26, 2017 - link
why test on a stupid 7900X cpu?duploxxx - Tuesday, September 26, 2017 - link
bring the 16-18 core and show how the dual memory controller is handling the games, after all this is a gaming board ....ddriver - Tuesday, September 26, 2017 - link
Yeah, and don't forget the games that scale up to 16-18 cores.JeffFlanagan - Tuesday, September 26, 2017 - link
For some reason, people feel the need to stream their games on the Internet, so that only leaves 15-17 cores for the game to use.It seems like an i5 is still a much better value for a gaming machine since most games use very few cores.
duploxxx - Wednesday, September 27, 2017 - link
the reason i ask is because threadripper reviews all over the net were hammered with the poor gaming benchies en the reason for specifc settings. guess what, no gaming benchies on the HCC designs from Intel that have the same memory disadvantage.OhWhateverOnceMore - Tuesday, September 26, 2017 - link
"i9" ...ok..."Professional" ... uh uh...
"Gaming" ... /r/hmmm
TEAMSWITCHER - Tuesday, September 26, 2017 - link
Is there an Intel co-marketing kick-back for having a "Gaming" branding? You see it everywhere...oRAirwolf - Tuesday, September 26, 2017 - link
"Curiously, for a motherboard which has "gaming" in the title and having three network ports, we were surprised not to see a Killer Network based NIC which finds its way on to several other gaming motherboards. Network traffic shaping is still possible through software, although Rivet Networks would likely claim they offer an optimized solution if their chip had been used. Perhaps a combination of an Intel GbE, Rivet Networks Killer E2500 GbE, and an Aquantia 10GbE which would have encompassed more of its tarket market."Wutness? Why on Earth would you want to see Killer on a gaming board? ASUS has shown through their own testing that Killer NIC's are trash:
https://rog.asus.com/articles/product-news/tried-a...
That aforementioned paragraph seriously makes me question the legitimacy of reviews on this site now. It is common knowledge that Killer is absolute and utter trash.
BrokenCrayons - Tuesday, September 26, 2017 - link
Oh you beat me to the point here. This is one of very rare times when I'd agree that there appears to be a certain amount of institutional bias at Anandtech in favor of Killer NICs. If you do a search for the string "Rivet Networks" in AT's search box you can find this article from September 2016:https://www.anandtech.com/show/10679/rivet-network...
It looks like that was sort of ground zero for that opinion and it's stuck since. In the comments of that article (disclosure - I was a participant with cynical views of Killer NICs even back then for reasons I make clear in those comments) there was discussion about reviewing and analyzing the E2500. Anandtech has never presented such a review or supplied readers with any data supporting the idea that Killer NICs are somehow superior or worthy of being sought out by consumers. Despite lacking reliable test data, there's still unexplained support in the form of hint-dropped lines like the one you've quoted that imply a certain subset of readers should be seeking out Killer NIC-equipped products or that its somehow unusual that a premium motherboard omits them.
I find the whole thing does hurt Anandtech's credibility. If there's data that supports a Killer NIC being a better option, gather it and publish it. Don't assert and insinuate without any substantially supportive information to a group of people (gamers in this case) without being able to back up those claims. Killer NICs can be acquired for testing. Maybe Rivet's people would supply a product for testing. If Rivet doesn't or does and Anandtech doesn't test it, then what else do we have to go on? Consumers in the target audience are already broadly suspicious of the benefits Rivet claims Killer NICs offer to the point where it seems almost delusional to boost them in a motherboard review.