The ASRock X399 Professional Gaming Motherboard Review: 10G For All
by E. Fylladitakis on July 5, 2018 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- AMD
- Gigabyte
- ASRock
- Asus
- 10GBase-T
- ThreadRipper
- X399
ASRock X399 Professional Gaming Software
ASRock's DVD comes with a very basic automated installer software. The installer has five tabs, the first of which contains all of the drivers and software for this motherboard's subsystems, plus Google’s Chrome Browser and Toolbar (even though the fifth tab is also dedicated to them). The second tab, the "utilities" tab, includes the software that are not necessary for the proper operation of the motherboard, which are the ASRock RGB LED software and the Sound Blaster Cinema 3 utility. Manuals and guides can be found under the Information tab and, finally, the company’s contact information is all that can be seen under the Contact tab.
The ASRock RGB LED software is simple but very clean and easy to use. All of the options are gathered into a single page, where the user can simply choose a color and a visual effect and apply it to any of the motherboard's three LED zones. LED lighting can also be disabled from here. Unfortunately, there are no options to tie different lighting mode profiles to applications/games.
ASRock’s F-Stream utility is a software package that allows almost full control of the motherboard’s BIOS options via the OS. In its “OC Tweaker” tab we found most of the settings that are accessible via the BIOS screen, allowing for casual overclockers to experiment with minimal risk, as the settings reset when the system restarts. It is also handy for people who do not want a permanent overclock forced via the BIOS but prefer to boot with stock settings and force an overclock whenever they want or after the OS has booted. The F-Stream software contains the "FAN-Tastic" utility as well, which allows for the graphical programming of fan cooling profiles.
Finally, the Sound Blaster Cinema 3 application offers very limited extra audio control for audiophiles and HTPC enthusiasts. Technically, it can only control the SBX Surround technology setting that enhances the audio surround. It has four preprogrammed profiles, music, film, game, and voice, plus a custom profile that allows the user to program SBX surround as he/she sees fit. Regardless of it including virtually only one tweakable option, the SBX Surround is rather effective, especially in the case of limiting 2.0 and 2.1 speaker configurations. Basic speaker and headphone configuration options are also present, with pre-programmed profiles for Sound BlasterX H3/H5/H7 headphones.
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29a - Thursday, July 5, 2018 - link
The logical assumption for the Killer NIC love affair would be money.PeachNCream - Friday, July 6, 2018 - link
I'm not sure its about money. Anandtech has historically acted to avoid financial conflicts of interest and there's Purch oversight these days as well. It seems more of an interpersonal or friendship thing.It's in the comments of this article where AT's people met Rivet's people that seems like the starting point: https://www.anandtech.com/show/10679/rivet-network...
From there, it's pretty much been site-wide drum beating in every single review where a Killer NIC ends up in a product without data that backs it up, but we're badgered into thinking that because we're gamers we should have an ethernet boner over some OEM shoveling one of Rivet's rebranded NICs and pointless AOL floppy diskette style bloatware on us. I'm guessing it's just that friendships were formed and people kicked off a bromance during the office tour that's since influenced the tone at Anandtech. The part that really irks me is that we've been told before that we wouldn't understand how a Killer NIC works because the matter is too complex to explain...that's been in comments from editors too in the past when we've tried to extract some reason for the bias. I know it's possible to explain this to technically-savvy AT readers because there are articles that have tackled more complicated for that same audience. Comments from editors like those are a cop-out for never finding a way to actually show there's a measurable real world benefit that justifies why Rivet Networks even exists today beyond it providing the industry with a supposed premium ethernet and wireless brand since there's an fairly pointless up-market version of every other component. It's just a shame this happened because lots of us otherwise still believe that Anandtech is an otherwise good site with useful, in-depth articles. I just wish they'd either publish proof or turn the dial back a few notches on Killer NIC commentary.
PeachNCream - Thursday, July 5, 2018 - link
"The design of the X399 Professional Gaming is not in any way extravagant, as one would expect from a top-tier motherboard that is almost exclusively targeting gamers. On the contrary, the aesthetic design is subtle, yet elegant, focused on simple geometric shapes."I think it leans a lot closer to the obnoxious end of the spectrum than you do. Maybe when compared to a RGB-and-dragon/deformed bird-festooned gaming board that MSI or Gigabyte vomited up at a recent computer show it might look toned-down, but for an adult buyer, it this thing still has the stink of gamer man-child. It's only a notch or two away from the top of the volume dial thanks to someone at ASRock sticking "professional" on the box next to a has-been old guy's screen name in the hopes of catching a few workstation buyers.
Arbie - Thursday, July 5, 2018 - link
This IS understated compared to practically any other enthusiast board. In fact only the extra-pointy heatsink cover could even be called flash. "The stink of gamer man-child"?? You must go insane over the truly glitzy stuff.PeachNCream - Friday, July 6, 2018 - link
Since you missed it, here's where that was already noted: " Maybe when compared to a RGB-and-dragon/deformed bird-festooned gaming board that MSI or Gigabyte vomited up at a recent computer show it might look toned-down..."vailr - Thursday, July 5, 2018 - link
What's the status of Thunderbolt appearing on AMD motherboards?Since Intel released the Thunderbolt patents to anyone interested in using it, one would have thought it would be appearing on AMD motherboards by now. Maybe even on an AMD-based "modular Mac Pro 2019", according to some rumors on certain Mac-related web sites.
GreenReaper - Sunday, July 8, 2018 - link
I'm not sure if "released" means "licensed along with a covenant not to sue". Sometimes "free" isn't exactly free.kgardas - Thursday, July 5, 2018 - link
And does it support ECC UDIMMS or not? That is the question. W/o ECC it's really just yet another gaming board. With ECC supports one may see if it's possible to get rid of those silly LEDs and then give it a run...Fujikoma - Friday, July 6, 2018 - link
What is meant by 'comprehensive manual'? My ASRock mobo had an atrocious manual (minimalist at best). No downloadable/printable 'comprehensive manual'. There were even QR-codes that linked to nothing, meaning they still haven't written up what those options are and what they do per each firmware revision. I've ended up relying on support board postings to find out all the various nooks and crannies of the BIOS.Strunf - Friday, July 6, 2018 - link
"Gamers would most likely welcome the replacement of all three NICs with just one with proven gaming performance."Unlikely... a single NIC would make this board look cheap and not professional at all, it's professional gaming motherboard after all. 2 NICs are a minimum on this kind of price tag.
I would be interested to know where your "proven gaming performance" comes from cause from what I see there's virtually no difference in gaming performance between any NIC and one only comes ahead in very specific cases scenarios like Internet bandwidth limited and torrenting/streaming while playing.