[PConline Horizontal Review] At the end of last year, we chose the largest popular B150 motherboard and Z170 motherboard for horizontal review. According to the usual routine, we should be reviewing B250 and Z270 by the end of this year. However, this year, Intel has slowed down

[PConline horizontal review] At the end of last year, we chose the largest popular B150 motherboard and Z170 motherboard for horizontal review. According to the usual routine, we should review B250 and Z270 by the end of this year. However, this year Intel has slowed down its update pace, and the 200 series motherboards will not be launched at the beginning of next year. In order to welcome the arrival of the i7-6950X and add various latest high-speed I/O interfaces this year, the X99 motherboards have been updated and replaced, and they can also be regarded as the second-generation X99. Therefore, today we will compare the X99 motherboards that the manufacturers are most proud of to see which one can train the best of this top flagship chip motherboard.

● big X99 motherboard overview:

Asus ROG Rampage V Edition 10 X99 Commemorative Edition Reference Price: ￥5599 Pictures [6] Commentary Quotation Parameter Overview

The famous Asus ROG 10th Anniversary Commemorative Motherboard has set a number of overclocking world records, and its price and quality are above the current top of the X99 motherboard. The overall motherboard is gray-black when it is not working, which is different from the red-black combinations of this generation R5 and M8 series. However, after the motherboard is powered on, multiple RGB LED lighting effects will light up, and the MOD is very playable, worthy of the four words "Player Country".

Gigabyte X99-Designare EX reference price: ￥5999 Pictures [3] Review Quotation Parameter Overview

Gigabyte X99-Designare EX is also the most advanced product in the Gigabyte designer D series. It is priced at 5,399 yuan. The super expansion function and high-speed transmission interface are enough to meet every designer's needs for high-end motherboards. The black background is blue and white color, which is also the usual color system of this series, and gradually forms its own style.

ASRock X99 Taichi Reference Price: ￥2699 Pictures [7] Review Quotation Parameter Overview

ASRock X99Taichi (Tai Chi), the appearance design of this motherboard of ASRock is very breakthrough, with a black background and white round gears and incorporates the feeling of Tai Chi Bagua. It is quite surprising when you see it at first. But of course, although the appearance is very pleasing, there will be no mysterious bonus on performance~ but it may attract many foreign players who like Chinese culture.

MSI X99A GAMING 9 ACK Reference price: ￥4599 Pictures [1] Review quotation parameters overview

MSI X99A GAMING 9 ACK, MSI's main X99 motherboard, the design and materials of the board are very compact, and the appearance uses the black background red color commonly used for high-end motherboards, which is also the color matching that can withstand the market's test. Even the I/O interface is painted red.

After reading the appearance and brief introduction of the four motherboards, there will definitely be many players who have the idea of ​​"X is mentally retarded, but XX buys such an expensive motherboard", but you should know that this level of motherboard can be said to represent the strongest workmanship and design capabilities of the four major Taiwanese motherboard manufacturers. Maybe you won't buy it, but through this horizontal review, you can still see the top technologies of each company.

2 power supply part & expansion slot comparison

● power supply part comparison:

Since the power supply inductor of some motherboards is hidden deep under the heat sink, it will be disassembled and taken again. The motherboard that is hidden less deeply is even the heat sink to take photos together.

ASUS ROG RAMPAGE V EDITION 10 CPU power supply part adopts 8-phase fully digital power supply, Extreme Engine Digi ultimate power supply design, combined with powdered super alloy inductors and NexFET transistors, ensuring the stable operation of the host while laying the foundation for extreme overclocking, and making the materials more sincere. Moreover, the heat dissipation heat pipe is a very heavy thermal conductivity alloy, which takes into account both heat dissipation and ornamentality.

Gigabyte X99-Designare EX motherboard also provides 8-phase digital power supply to the CPU, and the MOSFET is also covered with a large area of ​​heat sink. It is supplemented by long-life blackened solid-state capacitors, lightning customized inductors and low-resistance transistors. The power supply materials are also very luxurious, but the heat sink is slightly inferior.

ASRock X99 Taichi's CPU power supply part adopts 12-phase IR fully digital power supply, and adopts a dual-layer MOSFET (DSM) design, equipped with 60A high-efficiency inductor and Nigikon 12K white gold capacitor, which helps overclocking be more powerful.The heat sink is mainly frosted black and supplemented by the silver X99 words, which looks very tall and elegant. The power supply part is full of materials, and the contact degree of the heat sink is slightly worse. The CPU power supply part of MSI X99A GAMING 9 ACK adopts SFC 8-phase fully digital power supply design, supplemented by titanium inductors, DrMOS, tantalum capacitors and blackened capacitors to ensure that the computer still operates stably in a strict computing environment.

Four X99 motherboard power supply modules compared with
			Power supply module		Heat dissipation module	Score index
ASUS ROG RAMPAGE V EDITION 10	8	nickel-plated heat pipe thick alloy fins	★★★
	Gigabyte X99-Designare EX	8	ultra-durable thermal fins	★★
ASRock X99 Taichi	12	alloy heat dissipation fins	★★☆
MSI X99A GAMING 9 ACK	8	alloy heat dissipation fins	★★

●Comparison of 4 motherboard expansion slots:

ASUS ROG RAMPAGE V EDITION 10 motherboard provides 4 PCIe 3.0 x16 slots and PCIe One each x1 and one PCIe×4. When paired with the i7-6950X, it can support four-way graphics cards to meet the needs of all kinds of rich people. Moreover, Asus has finally added an alloy reinforcement design to the PCIe slot, which is worthy of praise.

Gigabyte X99-Designare EX is equipped with three PCIe 3.0 x16 slots, two PCIe 3.0×8, and one PCIe 3.0 x1 slot, which can meet the designer's needs for multiple professional cards CF/SLI. It also has an alloy curing design to ensure that it can still be stable when under the pressure of high-weight graphics cards for a long time.

AsRock part seems a little sparse. Perhaps in order to highlight the pattern of Tai Chi gears, there is a lot of empty space in the PCIe slot area. The motherboard provides 3 PCIe x16 slots and 2 PCIex1 slots, which support three-way graphics cards, and also has an alloy reinforcement design.

MSI X99A GAMING 9 ACK provides three PCIe x16 graphics card slots, two PCIe 3.0×8 slots, and there is also a MINI PCIe slot under the STREAMING ENGINA heatsink, which is quite abundant.

four major X99 motherboard expansion slots comparison
		extension slot		Recommended index
ASUS ROG RAMPAGE V EDITION 10	4 PCIe 3.0×16 supports four-way CF/SLI alloy reinforcement	★★★
Gibetes X99-Designare EX	three PCIe 3.0×16 two PCIe 3.0×8 supports up to three-way CF/SLI alloy reinforcement	★★☆
ASRock X99 Taichi	three PCIe 3.0×16 two PCIe 3.0×11 supports three-way CF/SLI alloy reinforcement	★★
MSI X99A GAMING 9 ACK	three PCIe 3.0×16 two PCIe 3.0×8 MINI PCIe supports three-way CF/SLI	★★☆

X99 chipsets are the inherent advantage of the ultra-wide DMI bus number, and the support for four-way graphics cards is not something that ordinary motherboards can provide. Therefore, the Asus R5E 10 is obviously the strongest, while ASRock's configuration is a bit thin, and MSI and Gigabyte are both very good.

3 storage interface & I/O interface comparison

●Comparison of storage parts for 4 motherboards:

Asus ROG RAMPAGE V EDITION 10 disk interface has completely abandoned the useless SATA-E interface. It has a U.2 SSD interface that supports NVMe, an M.2 SSD interface and 10 SATA 3.0 interfaces, which can meet the needs of enthusiast players for high-speed storage devices.

Gigabyte X99-Designare EX has a richer interface. The dual U.2 SSD interface has established its super luxurious position. There is also an M.2 SSD interface and 10 SATA 3.0 interfaces, two of which share channels with the SATA-E interface, which is the most luxurious among the four boards.

ASRock X99 Taichi provides more abundant support for M.2 SSD, providing dual M.2 SSD interfaces and 10 SATA 3.0 interfaces, two of which share channels with SATA-E interfaces.

MSI X99A GAMING 9 ACK just lacks two U.2 SSD interfaces than Gigabyte's, so the support for the new high-end interface is only one M.2 interface, which is relatively inferior.

four major X99 motherboard storage interface comparison
		Storage interface		Recommended index
ASUS ROG RAMPAGE V EDITION 10	1×M.2, 1×U.210×SATA 3.0	★★☆
Gibetes X99-Designare EX	1×M.2, 2×U.210×SATA 3.01×SATA-E	★★★
ASRock X99 Taichi	2×M.210×SATA 3.01×SATA-E	★★
MSI X99A GAMING 9 ACK	1×M.210×SATA 3.01×SATA-E	★☆

is arranged in order, and the richness of storage interfaces is Gigabyte Asus ASRock MSI. On this level of motherboard, the new U.2 and M.2 interfaces will be more important.

● motherboard I/O part comparison:

motherboard backboard I/O interface part, ASUS ROG RAMPAGE V EDITION 10 motherboard provides 4xUSB3.0 and 2xUSB2.0, two sets of USB 3.1 Type-A & Type-C interfaces, dual RJ-45 network cable interface, 5 audio input and output interfaces , in addition, there is an optical fiber audio output port, a PS/2 keyboard and mouse universal interface and BIOS toggle button & clear button, and Wi-Fi 802.11 for three terminals The a/b/g/n/ac interface is very rich.

Gigabyte X99-Designare EX is equipped with a DP-in interface, 4xUSB3.0 and 2xUSB3.1 interface (the red interface in the figure is USB3.1 Type-A, and the small interface on the left is USB3.1 Type-C interface). The white interface supports the Thunderbolt 3 function, which can provide charging + video output + data transmission functions. It may not be used for the time being, but it will become more and more popular in the future. There are also dual RJ-45 network cable interfaces, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac dual terminal wireless interfaces, 5 audio input and output interfaces, an optical fiber audio output port, and a PS/2 keyboard and mouse universal interface.

ASRock X99 Taichi provides 1 PS/2 interface, 1 BIOS clear button, 3 USB 2.0 interfaces, two USB 3.1 interfaces (one Type-A and one Type-C) and 3 USB 3.0 interfaces, two RJ-45 network cable interfaces, one wireless network card terminal, 5 audio input and output interfaces, and there is also an optical fiber audio output port.

MSI X99A GAMING 9 ACK provides 1 PS/2 key and mouse e-sports interface, 2 USB2.0, 6 USB2.0, 1 RJ-45 network cable interface, a BIOS clear button, and 7.1 channel high-definition audio output. Two USB 3.1 ports (below the network interface). There should be a detachable wireless network card interface between the sound interface and the network card interface, but the original owner of the borrowed motherboard forgot to put the small accessories in the box.

Four X99 motherboard I/O interface comparison (too many, not one by one, otherwise the table will be ugly)
		Storage interface		Recommended index
Asus ROG RAMPAGE V EDITION 10	The richest	★★★
Gigabyte X99-Designare EX	is very rich	★★☆
ASRock X99 Taichi	enough	★★
MSIX99A GAMING 9 ACK	is enough for	★★

4 audio, function keys, accessories comparison

● motherboard audio part comparison:

Asus ROG RAMPAGE V EDITION 10 audio module adopts Asus' signature SupremeFX 2016 faith sound effects, it is ESS Hyperstream DAC professional audio chip, 2VRMS Headphone Output professional head amplifier, NEC De-pop The product of the combination of Relay explosion-proof sound circuit and Dedicated Clock independent audio clock. It can easily push the 600 ohm impedance headset, and paired with Sonic studio II intelligent sound effect management software, it can better call supremeFX's powerful performance, comprehensively improve recording quality and clarity, and provide a better audio-visual experience.

Gigabyte X99-Designare EX is equipped with the Magic Sound System of the AMP-UP AUDIO innovative 3D sound chip, providing powerful motherboard sound output and cool LED audio division lines. Through the Gigabyte Magic Sound Effect System, gamers can hear various subtle sounds in the scene, thereby enjoying the game experience that they have experienced. And you can experience clearer and more shocking sound effects when listening to music or watching movies. The crystal-like transparent sound effect with sweet treble, accurate midrange and steady bass is the tireless pursuit of Gigabyte Magic Sound System.

ASRock X99 Taichi uses high-fidelity 3 generation audio technology, Realtek ALC1150 audio decoding chip and supports 7.1 channel HD audio, Nichicon Fine Gold series gold audio and 115dB signal-to-noise ratio digital-to-analog converter, supports differential amplifier capacitors, and supports up to 600 ohm impedance headphones; the new generation of pure power input and other technologies can ensure the clearest sound effect.

MSI X99A GAMING 9 ACKAUDIO BOOST The audio part is placed separately in a PCB area through a split line, and the audio chip is also shrouded by a metal shield. Equipped with Nami Audio technology, Realtek ALC1150 audio decoding chip, Japanese audio capacitors, and dual amplifier chips, it strives to provide players with the highest level of sound quality presentation, as if they are experiencing the experience.

four major X99 motherboard audio modules compared with
		Audio module		Recommended index
Asus ROG RAMPAGE V EDITION 10	SupremeFX sound system Sonic Studio II	★★★
Gibetes X99-Designare EX	AMP-UP AUDIO Magic Sound System	★★☆
ASRock X99 Taichi	Pury Sound 3	★★☆
MSI X99A GAMING 9 ACK	AUDIO BOOST 2	★★☆

● motherboard on-board network card comparison:

ASUS ROG RAMPAGE V EDITION 10's on-board network card is a dual gigabit wired network card, and network card chip is Intel I211AT and Intel I218V.

Gigabyte X99-Designare EX is also equipped with dual gigabit network cards, also Intel I211AT and Intel I218V.

ASRock X99 Taichi motherboard's on-board network card is also an Intel dual gigabit wired network card, and the network card chips are Intel I211AT and Intel I218V respectively.

MSI X99A GAMING 9 ACK's on-board network card is Killer's E2205 chip, which has strong network data processing capabilities.

Four X99 motherboard on-board network card chips comparison
		Audio module		Recommended index
Asus ROG RAMPAGE V EDITION 10	Intel I211AT, Intel I218V	★★☆
Gigabyte X99-Designare EX	Intel I211AT, Intel I218V	★★☆
ASRock X99 Taichi	Intel I211AT, Intel I218V	★★☆
MSI X99A GAMING 9 ACK	Killer E2205	★★

Several motherboards show amazing consistency in this regard. Asus, Gigabyte and ASRock all adopt the same dual network card solution, while MSI is slightly inferior, with only a single killer network card E2205.

● motherboard additional functions and accessories comparison:

additional functions refer to onboard buttons, humanized design, etc.; accessories refer to small accessories provided with the motherboard, excluding conventional accessories such as SATA cable, I/O back panel, SLI bridge, etc.

Asus function button

Asus ROG RAMPAGE V EDITION 10's function buttons are very detailed, and can realize restart, boot, switch BIOS, clear BIOS, PCIe slot control, and DEBUG functions. All functions can be found are all

MSI function button

MSI provides one-click overclocking, BIOS switching, restart and boot keys, which are also very comprehensive in the needs of game motherboards.

As for Gigabyte and ASRock, no relevant onboard buttons are provided.

Accessories section:

Asus Accessories

Asus motherboard also provides a rich variety of accessories, which is very playable, including a Eye of the Billion U disk, which is equipped with all the functions of the motherboard drivers and leaves a part of free space; there is also a fan control PCB, front panel audio amplifier, and wireless network card antenna.

Gigabyte Accessories

Gigabyte's designer motherboard provides an RGB lamp power supply extension cord and a WIFI antenna.

ASRock Accessories

ASRock provides dual WIFI antennas that can be directly plugged into the motherboard I/O interface.

MSI Accessories

Above, MSI provides WIFI antenna module and WIFI antenna, but because the borrowed motherboard forgot to stuff the accessories in, I found MSI's official pictures.

Big X99 motherboard function keys & accessories comparison
	function keys		motherboard accessories		Recommended index
Asus ROG RAMPAGE V EDITION 10	PCIe control switch BIOS function keys Power on and restart DEBUG	Player Country Tools U disk FanEXT CARDROG front panel amplifier WIFI antenna	★★★
	Gigabyte X99-Designare EX			No	WIFI antenna RGB light strip power supply cable	★☆
ASRock X99 Taichi	No	WIFI antenna	★☆
MSI X99A GAMING 9 ACK	One-click overclocking BIOS function keys are turned on and restarted DEBUG	Wireless WIFI module WIFI antenna	★★

This performance is very intuitive. Asus ROG RAMPAGE V EDITION 10 is very rich in both on-board buttons and attached accessories, which is popular for players.

5 overclocking performance measurement, temperature heating comparison

●Theoretical performance comparison of 4 motherboards:

test platform list——

hardware platform
CPU	Intel i7-6950X
Motherboard	ASUS ROG RAMPAGE V EDITION 10 Gigabyte X99-Designare EX ASRock X99 TaichiMSI X99A GAMING 9 ACK
memory	Zhiqi TRIDENTZ 8G×4
hard disk	Samsung 960EVO 1TB M.2 SSD Weigang P550 480G SSD
graphics card	NVIDIA GTX1080
heatsink	game hero Blizzard LC240 water-cooled
software platform
operating system	Windows 10 official version
graphics card driver	NVIDIA GeForce 376.09 WHQL
evaluation software	CPU/memory performance test: CineBench R15 x64WinRAR 5.21D/game performance test: New 3DMark (Fire Strike Ultra) disk read and write test: AS SSD Benchmark 1.6 calorific test: Prime95

During the test, the CPU frequency doubling is manually set to 30 times under the default BIOS of the motherboard, and all energy-saving related options are turned off, because the energy-saving options will affect the performance of NVMe M.2 SSD. The CPU uses the most expensive and highest-end i7-6950X, which has 10 cores and 20 threads, and the default frequency is 3.0GHz, which can be TURBO BOOST to 3.5GHz.

The above performance can be seen. Although the performance of the four motherboards is quite close, it can be said that there is almost no performance difference, but a little difference can be found in "Datong", that is, ASUS motherboards are slightly ahead of other parts in many results. From the perspective of multiple results, this is not a coincidence.

●4 motherboard overclocking performance test:

Since it is a top-level X99 motherboard, and players who will buy this chipset are generally real "players" and have a pursuit of overclocking, so overclocking is also a must.

However, since there are many variables for overclocking, you can only control a single variable for testing. Since the test conditions are the same, the test results can also reflect the overclocking performance and stability of the motherboard.

setting method: Turn off all energy-saving options, set CPU frequency doubling to 40 times, turn off TURBO BOOST-related functions, and turn on the computer to run the score. You can see the above two scores of

. When everyone sets the score to 40 times, Asus is still slightly better, but of course, the gap in this score is not big, and it is basically impossible to experience the gap in use.

overclocking stability test:

maintains the above overclocking settings parameters, performs Prime 95 full load run scores on the CPU, with 2 hours as the standard, and 2 hours without crashing without blue screen means that the test passes.

overclocking and full load test can all pass the four motherboards, and the level of the four major brands is still very good.

motherboard power supply part heat generation comparison:

This part test is matched with i7-6950X, and thermal imager uses thermal imager to test the temperature state of the silent frequency Prime95 after 10 minutes of full load, and the temperature state after 10 minutes of full load after overclocking.

ASUS ROG RAMPAGE V EDITION 10

GigabyteX99-Designare EX

ASRock X99 Taichi

MSIX99A GAMING 9 ACK

Summary : Judging from the heat generation of the power supply part of these 4 motherboards, the best performer is the Asus ROG RAMPAGE V EDITION 10. The maximum temperature is only 52℃ under overclocking and full load operation. Thanks to the luxurious power supply materials and excellent heat dissipation heat pipes, as the most luxurious motherboard with the heat dissipation pipes, this result is not surprising. The temperatures of the other three motherboards are still in a very safe range, with MSI and Gigabyte performing similarly.

6PConline evaluation room summary

PConline evaluation room summary:

In fact, the four motherboards are quite high-end, but I don’t know. After comparing it, you can see that the performance is particularly outstanding. Most projects can win the championship is undoubtedly Asus ROG RAMPAGE V EDITION 10, and this is also expected, after all, the price and brand are all here.

Of course, the prices of the four motherboards are actually different. Referring to the price of JD, ASUS - 5599 yuan, Gigabyte - 5399 yuan, MSI - 4599 yuan, and ASRock - 2699 yuan. In fact, they are all top or sub-top products within their own brands. Although the pricing of MSI and ASRock is slightly lower, their performance is also very good. Since the

X99 chipset has a lot of DMI bus, manufacturers have much room for design and performance, especially in the high-price range with sufficient budgets, there will be many functions that low-end motherboards do not have, such as RGB LED lighting effects, more function buttons onboard, more high-speed interfaces that allow you to form multiple disks of RAID, and more PCIe slots to perform SLI/CF. And doing all these aspects is particularly good. Among these four motherboards, it is indeed Asus. Combined with the above "recommended index", "running scores" and "temperature control", they are all worthy of the top title.

●Asus ROG RAMPAGE V EDITION 10

Asus ROG RAMPAGE V EDITION 10

Asus ROG RAMPAGE V EDITION 10 was born on the 10th anniversary of the ROG brand. As the brand's image ambassador, it really demonstrates the strength of ROG. We have also conducted comprehensive evaluations and evaluations of the motherboards before. You can click here to review them again - http://diy.pconline.com.cn/816/8166540.html

. Among the four motherboards, the best RGB LED lighting effect is the Asus R5E 10:

AsRock X99 Taichi

AsRock X99 Taichi

AsRock X99 Taichi, which can still take into account many necessary functions under the price of 2,699 yuan. In addition, there are two winning results in actual running scores, which also reflects a feature of the ASRock brand, which is not expensive and not exaggerated.

, and the shape is also a relatively large innovation on many motherboards, and the Tai Chi pattern is very recognizable. The motherboard is not expensive, but it also provides three PCIe×16 slots and dual M.2 SSD interfaces, which are suitable for players with limited budget but want to enjoy buying X99.