ASRock Z390 Extreme4 Review: 9th Gen “Core” Value?

[Crashman]

Boasting Core i9 support at a mid-market price, could ASRock’s mid-market board be your path to performance value? Not when paired with a Core i9 CPU.


ASRock Z390 Extreme4 Review: 9th Gen “Core” Value? : Read more

 

[Tanyac]

Under the cons column...
"ASRock will not honor the warranty if purchased in Australia and if problems occur outside the typical retailer 30 day DOA"

 

[Crashman]

[quotemsg=21758316,0,1749954]Under the cons column...
"ASRock will not honor the warranty if purchased in Australia and if problems occur outside the typical retailer 30 day DOA"[/quotemsg]I don't know much about Australia problems...

 

[Phaaze88]

That's quite the oversight... or perhaps it was on purpose(not being able to handle 9900k, I mean)?
When I see the 'extreme' moniker, I think high end, or something thereof. This doesn't fit the bill.

 

[g-unit1111]

I'm noticing a pattern between the VRMs on midrange motherboards and the 9900K. This seems to be no exception. Is this developing into an FX-9590 situation where the CPU was too much for the motherboard to handle?

 

[Crashman]

[quotemsg=21758341,0,537231]I'm noticing a pattern between the VRMs on midrange motherboards and the 9900K. This seems to be no exception. Is this developing into an FX-9590 situation where the CPU was too much for the motherboard to handle? [/quotemsg]They're basically splitting the market using the logic that people who buy less than the 9900K would probably like to save money on the board as well. Remember that boards with similar voltage regulators did fairly well with the 8700K, so we're basically looking at a split between "able to overclock 9900K" and "good enough for nearly everything else".

 

[emeralds1000000]

[quotemsg=21758516,0,8708][quotemsg=21758341,0,537231]I'm noticing a pattern between the VRMs on midrange motherboards and the 9900K. This seems to be no exception. Is this developing into an FX-9590 situation where the CPU was too much for the motherboard to handle? [/quotemsg]They're basically splitting the market using the logic that people who buy less than the 9900K would probably like to save money on the board as well. Remember that boards with similar voltage regulators did fairly well with the 8700K, so we're basically looking at a split between "able to overclock 9900K" and "good enough for nearly everything else".

[/quotemsg]

So where is your Best Motherboards for 9900K roundup review ? Best Value ones and best top ones only for i9 9900K?

 

[Crashman]

[quotemsg=21758647,0,2748966]So where is your Best Motherboards for 9900K roundup review ? Best Value ones and best top ones only for i9 9900K?[/quotemsg]
I think the best I can do is get the Z390 awards into the Best Motherboards coverage
So far we have the Gigabyte Z390 Designare and ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming ITX/ac, but those are both in the over-$200 class.

 

[emeralds1000000]

[quotemsg=21758671,0,8708][quotemsg=21758647,0,2748966]So where is your Best Motherboards for 9900K roundup review ? Best Value ones and best top ones only for i9 9900K?[/quotemsg]
I think the best I can do is get the Z390 awards into the Best Motherboards coverage
So far we have the Gigabyte Z390 Designare and ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming ITX/ac, but those are both in the over-$200 class.
[/quotemsg]

Z390 Motherboards

Asus has 21
MSI 11
Gigabyte 13
Asrock 11

I noticed that roundups in the last two years became very scarce and not like the old glory times of Tomshardware and other sites ..

What is the reason ? They dont send you free motherboards for testing anymore ? or is it not profitable as before to review alot of products ?

you can easily ask for Hardware donation for testing from Hardware Sellers in return of Ads for their sites , like newegg or Amazon or what ever.

 

[Crashman]

[quotemsg=21758869,0,2748966][quotemsg=21758671,0,8708][quotemsg=21758647,0,2748966]So where is your Best Motherboards for 9900K roundup review ? Best Value ones and best top ones only for i9 9900K?[/quotemsg]
I think the best I can do is get the Z390 awards into the Best Motherboards coverage
So far we have the Gigabyte Z390 Designare and ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming ITX/ac, but those are both in the over-$200 class.
[/quotemsg]

Z390 Motherboards

Asus has 21
MSI 11
Gigabyte 13
Asrock 11

I noticed that roundups in the last two years became very scarce and not like the old glory times of Tomshardware and other sites ..

What is the reason ? They dont send you free motherboards for testing anymore ? or is it not profitable as before to review alot of products ?

you can easily ask for Hardware donation for testing from Hardware Sellers in return of Ads for their sites , like newegg or Amazon or what ever.[/quotemsg]First of all, we have not awarded 21 Asus boards. And our "best motherboards" is an awards showcase. So it needs to be updated with the two Z390 boards that did get awards.

Poor traffic is the reason we don't do many roundups. Most of our traffic comes from search engines now. More people are searching for reviews by motherboard name than for roundups. And the easiest way to get a search engine to promote a Gigabyte Z390 Designare review, for example, is to write an article called the Gigabyte Z390 Designare review.

So without further adieu, here are motherboard reviews:
https://www.tomshardware.com/t/motherboards/review/

 

[emeralds1000000]

[quotemsg=21758876,0,8708][quotemsg=21758869,0,2748966][quotemsg=21758671,0,8708][quotemsg=21758647,0,2748966]So where is your Best Motherboards for 9900K roundup review ? Best Value ones and best top ones only for i9 9900K?[/quotemsg]
I think the best I can do is get the Z390 awards into the Best Motherboards coverage
So far we have the Gigabyte Z390 Designare and ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming ITX/ac, but those are both in the over-$200 class.
[/quotemsg]

Z390 Motherboards

Asus has 21
MSI 11
Gigabyte 13
Asrock 11

I noticed that roundups in the last two years became very scarce and not like the old glory times of Tomshardware and other sites ..

What is the reason ? They dont send you free motherboards for testing anymore ? or is it not profitable as before to review alot of products ?

you can easily ask for Hardware donation for testing from Hardware Sellers in return of Ads for their sites , like newegg or Amazon or what ever.[/quotemsg]First of all, we have not awarded 21 Asus boards. And our "best motherboards" is an awards showcase. So it needs to be updated with the two Z390 boards that did get awards.

Poor traffic is the reason we don't do many roundups. Most of our traffic comes from search engines now. More people are searching for reviews by motherboard name than for roundups. And the easiest way to get a search engine to promote a Gigabyte Z390 Designare review, for example, is to write an article called the Gigabyte Z390 Designare review.

So without further adieu, here are motherboard reviews:
https://www.tomshardware.com/t/motherboards/review/

[/quotemsg]

I meant to say , why dont you review every motherboard released by known Vendors ?

 

[mdd1963]

So are $500+ 'mainstream' Z390 boards required to properly run the 9900K? What a disaster...

 

[logainofhades]

The 9900k I feel is Intel's FX9590 with regards to needing expensive board, cooling, and high wattage psu, just to handle it. Only difference is the performance is actually there.

 

[Crashman]

[quotemsg=21758971,0,46152]So are $500+ 'mainstream' Z390 boards required to properly run the 9900K? What a disaster...[/quotemsg]Only if you're prone to exaggeration. Everyone else can find a $200+ board to do it.

 

[logainofhades]

[quotemsg=21759433,0,8708][quotemsg=21758971,0,46152]So are $500+ 'mainstream' Z390 boards required to properly run the 9900K? What a disaster...[/quotemsg]Only if you're prone to exaggeration. Everyone else can find a $200+ board to do it.
[/quotemsg]

It does seem like the vast majority of Z390 boards have been labeled as mediocre, with regards to 9900k overclocking. The platform, as a whole, while fast, is simply horrible when it comes to price/performance. The cost to run a 9900k vs a 2700/2700x, could easily mean a better GPU, going with the less expensive product. While I love my 6700k, Intel has priced themselves so far, that if I had to build now, it would be AMD. Intel simply has lost me as a customer with their ridiculous pricing. At one time I could at least argue, from an upgrade perspective, that Intel would make sense, as I could reuse my CL13 2133 ram, and not get a huge performance penalty, staying with Intel. Now the price difference is so vast, I would be spending just as much, to buy an AM4 platform, with new/faster ram. I could then repurpose my 6700k for something else.

 

[Olle P]

[quotemsg=21759455,0,59887]It does seem like the vast majority of Z390 boards have been labeled as mediocre, with regards to 9900k overclocking. The platform, as a whole, while fast, is simply horrible when it comes to price/performance. ...[/quotemsg]Or perhaps it's the 95W Core i9 that's a horrible overclocker, demanding way more than 95W to run at useful speeds?

But the point was that we expected a board that supports the processor to do so continuously at stock frequencies.

The board should easily be able to run the CPU at the stock (base) frequency, with all cores heavily loaded, continously.
It's only if you overclock by going above the base frequency for a longer time that there's a problem. How far can you overclcok it? 3.8GHz, 4.0GHz or 4.2GHz?

 

[Crashman]

[quotemsg=21759483,0,362640][quotemsg=21759455,0,59887]It does seem like the vast majority of Z390 boards have been labeled as mediocre, with regards to 9900k overclocking. The platform, as a whole, while fast, is simply horrible when it comes to price/performance. ...[/quotemsg]Or perhaps it's the 95W Core i9 that's a horrible overclocker, demanding way more than 95W to run at useful speeds?

But the point was that we expected a board that supports the processor to do so continuously at stock frequencies.

The board should easily be able to run the CPU at the stock (base) frequency, with all cores heavily loaded, continously.
It's only if you overclock by going above the base frequency for a longer time that there's a problem. How far can you overclcok it? 3.8GHz, 4.0GHz or 4.2GHz?[/quotemsg]The problem is that Intel's 95W is unrealistic when compared to its stock Turbo Boost ratios. Or its stock Turbo Boost ratios are unrealistic compared to its TDP. Either way, more than half of retail boards are designed to ignore TDP limits and hold up the default Turbo Boost ratios rather than throttling. And that's where the whole problem of sub-$200 boards having not enough power to run Prime95 small-FFTs without throttling to protect the voltage regulator kicks in. There is no consistency in that. Two boards with different heat sinks will have different hold up times, etc. And we're just trying to test these in a consistent manner.

 

[g-unit1111]

[quotemsg=21758516,0,8708][quotemsg=21758341,0,537231]I'm noticing a pattern between the VRMs on midrange motherboards and the 9900K. This seems to be no exception. Is this developing into an FX-9590 situation where the CPU was too much for the motherboard to handle? [/quotemsg]They're basically splitting the market using the logic that people who buy less than the 9900K would probably like to save money on the board as well. Remember that boards with similar voltage regulators did fairly well with the 8700K, so we're basically looking at a split between "able to overclock 9900K" and "good enough for nearly everything else".
[/quotemsg]

Yeah I feel like if you're in the market for a 9900K that you would be spending way more on a motherboard anyways, because I know I wouldn't buy a $500 CPU and pair it with a $140-ish motherboard. I think if motherboard manufacturers were going that route that they'd probably get a lot of confused and very angry customers when they find out that their expensive new PC doesn't work because they decided to go cheap on the motherboard.

 

[Co BIY]

Can you adjust settings to make the 9900K run as a 9700K (same silicon binned or hobbled correct?) or even a 9600K (is this the same silicon hobbled or cut down to a smaller size) to test is a board can run these ?

Some of the power performance problems described sounded like they could effect the lessor processors too.

Drawing excessive power and having difficulty with an Excel bench. ? Are you sure this was not a bad board that needed RMA'd?

Maybe the FLIR could shed some light on the issue.

 

[Olle P]

The problem is that Intel's 95W is unrealistic when compared to its stock Turbo Boost ratios. ...

I don't think so, if you consider TDP to be the go-to power under load and Boost something that allow the CPU to go above TDP temporarily until the temps go up.
For single core loads the CPU can keep running at full boost speed without exceeding TDP, but when all cores are utilized the clock needs to come down (to base speed) in order to prevent overheating.
The 9900K is a 3.6 GHz CPU that has the ability to occasionally run a bit faster.
(The Ryzen 7 2700X is slightly faster, at 3.7 GHz.)

 

[Crashman]

I don't think so, if you consider TDP to be the go-to power under load and Boost something that allow the CPU to go above TDP temporarily until the temps go up.
For single core loads the CPU can keep running at full boost speed without exceeding TDP, but when all cores are utilized the clock needs to come down (to base speed) in order to prevent overheating.
The 9900K is a 3.6 GHz CPU that has the ability to occasionally run a bit faster.
(The Ryzen 7 2700X is slightly faster, at 3.7 GHz.)

That's not how they rate the things on a performance scale.

 

[Olle P]

That's not how they rate the things on a performance scale.

Of course not. That's how Intel rates TDP, which isn't "performance".

... Either way, more than half of retail boards are designed to ignore TDP limits... And that's where the whole problem of sub-$200 boards having not enough power... kicks in.

Don't blaim the affordable boards for the more expensive ones doing it wrong!
If complain should be placed anywhere it's with the boards that ignore the TDP and run the CPUs overclocked by default!

 

[Crashman]

Of course not. That's how Intel rates TDP, which isn't "performance".

Don't blaim the affordable boards for the more expensive ones doing it wrong!
If complain should be placed anywhere it's with the boards that ignore the TDP and run the CPUs overclocked by default!

This is a computing ENTHUSIAST site, so first of all, the cheaper boards are UNABLE to "do it wrong" in the same way that I'm unable to clear a track hurdle: There's a reason that I'm not putting myself into that market.

I'm glad that you're finally agreeing with me, that TDP chokes are at odds with the CPU's rated performance.

 

[Olle P]

I'm glad that you're finally agreeing with me, that TDP chokes are at odds with the CPU's rated performance.

But I'm not!
When adhering to the TDP you get the performance as rated by Intel. So the TDP is not at odds with the rated performance...
(If you can show me some official statement from Intel that their TDP is to be disregarded then I might reconsider.)

 

[Crashman]

But I'm not!
When adhering to the TDP you get the performance as rated by Intel. So the TDP is not at odds with the rated performance...

This argument has become too tangential since it misses your false premise that budget Z-series boards are maintaining the CPU's TDP: That's not even close to what's occuring. Instead, these boards running the CPU wide-open until the voltage regulator hits its thermal thresshold and then crashing down, often to LOWER than baseline frequency, before bouncing back. And that's what you're praising them for doing.

At least if they were following TDP we'd have consistency between boards, no?

And these are marketed towards enthusiasts, who often overclock. Yet for us to get an "overclock rating" on a board that can't support a continuous speed of at least the stock Turbo Boost ratio, we'd have to do something differently. Such as rate these at "100% stability with 50% of the cores disabled". That type of concession would have AMD guys jumping on us like rats on a slice of pizza. And for good reason. It looks like pandering.

On the other hand, understanding that the Core i9-9900k has vastly greater power requirements than the processors used by budget enthusiasts, we MIGHT be able to label these lower-cost models as enthusiast boards for the Core i5. That's far less pandering. Of course, it would require us to buy a Core i5.