ASRock X79 Extreme9 Motherboard Review

Intel X79 SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Performance

Intel X79 Motherboard SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Controller Chips:

• ASRock X79 Extreme9 – Texas Instruments TUSB7340 SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Controller
• ECS X79R-AX Black Extreme – Texas Instruments TUSB7340 SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Controller
• ASUS Rampage IV Extreme – ASMedia ASM1042 SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Controller
• GIGABYTE GA-X79-UD7 – Fresco FL1009 SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Controller

CrystalDiskMark is a small benchmark utility for drives and enables rapid measurement of sequential and random read/write speeds. Note that CDM only supports Native Command Queuing (NCQ) with a queue depth of 32 (as noted) for the last listed benchmark score. This can skew some results in favor of controllers that also do not support NCQ.

The SuperSpeed USB 3.0 performance testing was done using a Corsair Force GT 240GB SSD.

Benchmark Results: The ASRock X79 Extreme9 uses the same Texas Instruments TuSB7340 SuperSpeed USB 3.0 controller that we saw on the ECS X79R-AX motherboard. We weren’t impressed by the performance then, and that remains true with the ASRock X79 Extreme9. The sequential read speed of the ASRock X79 Extreme9 was only 188.8MB/s; that’s 33.9MB/s slower than the ASUS Rampage IV Extreme. Ultimately that’s a margin of 18%, a little too much for our liking. The sequential write speed was an even larger difference. The ASRock X79 Extreme9 was able to pull out a performance of only 132.5MB/s, that’s 106.2MB/s slower than the ASUS R4E!

HD Tune Pro 4.01 is an extended version of HD Tune which includes
many new features such as write benchmark, secure erasing, AAM setting,
folder usage view, disk monitor, command line parameters and file
benchmark.

ASRock X79 Extreme9 Intel X79 HD Tune Pro 4.61 Write Benchmark Results

ASRock X79 Extreme9 Intel X79 HD Tune Pro 4.61 Read Benchmark Results

Benchmark Results: The average read speed of the ASRock X79 Extreme9 didn’t impress us in HD Tune, either. The ASRock X79 Extreme9 was able to hit only 194.7MB/s; that’s the slowest performance we have seen to date. The average write speed of the ASRock X79 Extreme9 is what really took a beating. With a performance of only 124.6MB/s average write it was 119.6MB/s behind the top spot!