The ASRock X399 Phantom Gaming 6 Motherboard Review: $250 Sixteen Core Stunner
by Gavin Bonshor on March 12, 2019 10:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- AMD
- ASRock
- ATX
- ThreadRipper
- X399
- TR4
- 2950X
- 2.5G
- Phantom Gaming 6
CPU Performance, Short Form
For our motherboard reviews, we use our short form testing method. These tests usually focus on if a motherboard is using MultiCore Turbo (the feature used to have maximum turbo on at all times, giving a frequency advantage), or if there are slight gains to be had from tweaking the firmware. We put the memory settings at the CPU manufacturers suggested frequency, making it very easy to see which motherboards have MCT enabled by default.
For 2019, we are running an updated version of our test suite, including OS and CPU cooler. This has some effect on our results.
For this review, we had to test with a 2950X as the 1950X we normally use with X399 had to be returned. This has some effect on benchmark data, however it is still rated to the same 180W TDP as the 1950X.
3D Movement Algorithm Test v2.1: link
3DPM is a self-penned benchmark, taking basic 3D movement algorithms used in Brownian Motion simulations and testing them for speed. High floating point performance, MHz and IPC wins in the single thread version, whereas the multithread version has to handle the threads and loves more cores. For a brief explanation of the platform agnostic coding behind this benchmark, see my forum post here. We are using the latest version of 3DPM, which has a significant number of tweaks over the original version to avoid issues with cache management and speeding up some of the algorithms.
Rendering - LuxMark v3.1: link
As a synthetic, LuxMark might come across as somewhat arbitrary as a renderer, given that it's mainly used to test GPUs, but it does offer both an OpenCL and a standard C++ mode. In this instance, aside from seeing the comparison in each coding mode for cores and IPC, we also get to see the difference in performance moving from a C++ based code-stack to an OpenCL one with a CPU as the main host.
.
Rendering - Blender 2.78: link
For a render that has been around for what seems like ages, Blender is still a highly popular tool. We managed to wrap up a standard workload into the February 5 nightly build of Blender and measure the time it takes to render the first frame of the scene. Being one of the bigger open source tools out there, it means both AMD and Intel work actively to help improve the codebase, for better or for worse on their own/each other's microarchitecture.
Rendering – POV-Ray 3.7.1b4: link
The Persistence of Vision Ray Tracer, or POV-Ray, is a freeware package for as the name suggests, ray tracing. It is a pure renderer, rather than modeling software, but the latest beta version contains a handy benchmark for stressing all processing threads on a platform. We have been using this test in motherboard reviews to test memory stability at various CPU speeds to good effect – if it passes the test, the IMC in the CPU is stable for a given CPU speed. As a CPU test, it runs for approximately 2-3 minutes on high end platforms. 7-Zip 9.2: link
Synthetic – 7-Zip 9.2: link
As an open source compression tool, 7-Zip is a popular tool for making sets of files easier to handle and transfer. The software offers up its own benchmark, to which we report the result.
.
Neuron Simulation - DigiCortex v1.20: link
The newest benchmark in our suite is DigiCortex, a simulation of biologically plausible neural network circuits, and simulates activity of neurons and synapses. DigiCortex relies heavily on a mix of DRAM speed and computational throughput, indicating that systems which apply memory profiles properly should benefit and those that play fast and loose with overclocking settings might get some extra speed up. Results are taken during the steady state period in a 32k neuron simulation, and represented as a function of the ability to simulate in real time (1.000x equals real-time).
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
22 Comments
View All Comments
drajitshnew - Tuesday, March 12, 2019 - link
Thanks for this review, this mobo has some very good design choices. Is there some way the post latency can be improved in THIS board.EliteRetard - Tuesday, March 12, 2019 - link
On a similar note, why is it listed as "Non-UEFI POST Time"? Are you actually disabling UEFI and going with a legacy BIOS for post time? Why, and how does that affect post time? I imagine anybody using this board will want to use UEFI.I am glad that POST time is being measured though, it's an important metric for me and many people I build computers for. Some people might think it unimportant, but when POST vary so drastically the differences are very tangible. Most of the people I build computers for also directly correlate bootup times to the performance of the machine (no matter how many times I try to explain it). I know I still would never accept a MOBO with a 30sec POST time.
GreenReaper - Tuesday, March 12, 2019 - link
They may mean "non-Graphical", but still using UEFI under the hood. It's unlikely to have display acceleration, so it takes extra CPU time to draw fancy pictures (as I found when using graphical console modes on my Linux microserver - 8-bit and 16-bit were proportionately faster than 24-bit).gavbon - Wednesday, March 13, 2019 - link
You can't disable UEFI as UEFI and BIOS are both types of firmware and in themselves, they aren't the same. With the UEFI firmware and CSM, it can emulate or pretend to POST like a non-UEFI BIOS. This is a more consistent way of doing things to show performance across a range of boards etcclose - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
But it would help to tell us what the boot time is with "optimized defaults" so to speak. I mean it's great if you can "show performance across a range of boards" but why mention only how long it take is non-UEFI mode for comparison? Why not also in UEFI mode? Is that comparison not useful? Or is the board always in non-UEFI mode?kobblestown - Wednesday, March 13, 2019 - link
Yes, this MB has some good design choices. For the price. I would have preferred to have either a 10G Ethernet adapter or a PCIe2.0x4 slot, e.g. where the heatsinked M.2 slot is (and the battery should be moved somewhere else. In my opinion 10G is taking off (I already have a direct 10G link between my X399 and my server) and will soon be within reach for most consumers. Having to occupy a x16 slot for a 10G adapter sends shivers down my spine. Plus, you could also wish to use a 4x4 bifurcation adapter board to install more nvme SSDs (3 is sometimes not enough) and then you'll be left with a single slot for a GPU.As for the POST times, I hope they can get them down to the other X399 boards. I see no reason why it should be twice longer. I have the Asrock X399 Professional Gaming and POST is already excruciatingly slow. Probably the panoply of PCIe devices is to blame (lspci shows more than 60 devices apart from the user-installed ones!)
Kevin G - Tuesday, March 12, 2019 - link
I think this needs to be edited a bit for clarity on page 1:"The audio PCB is separate from the rest of the PCB"
There is no separate audio PCB from the pictures I see as implied by that statement. I think the intent was to read 'the audio circuitry is separate from the rest of the PCB'.
Kevin G - Tuesday, March 12, 2019 - link
Two more on page 4:"For the start of our Z390 reviews" I think should read "Since the start of our Z390 reviews"
Also...
"Many due to..." I thank you missed a word there. ;)
Ryan Smith - Wednesday, March 13, 2019 - link
Thanks!lmcd - Tuesday, March 12, 2019 - link
*separate PCB layerwhich is in fact true (or at least their marketing claims as much)