Test System

Initial Setup

Initial setup and testing with the ASRock X79 Extreme11 took place without fault. I noticed that the Turbo profile used was a bit more aggressive than what I've seen with some other products, but it was far more in-line with what I expect out of my 3960X chips. Our G.skill memory booted with 11-11-11-28 timings without an issue, and I completed all testing without much fan-fare. I will mention, however, that my initial testing was with an early BIOS. Our standard routine here is to update to the most recent publically available full release BIOS and when I did, the system underwent a change. The new v1.20 BIOS unleashes the full potential of the ASRock X79 Extreme11 and I strongly recommend that all users update to this BIOS as soon as possible. It's very rare that things change as much performance-wise as they do with this BIOS updates. I have to commend ASRock for optimizing the BIOS performance-wise without, at the same time, sacrificing stability at any point. Again, ASrock truly impressed me, so kudos to you, ASRock!

PWM Power Consumption

We measure CPU power consumption since one of our first tasks is to truly verify system stability. We isolate the power coming through the 8-pin ATX connector using an in-line meter that provides voltage and current readings, as well as total wattage passed through it. While this may not prove to isolate the CPU power draw in all instances, it does serve as a good indicator of board efficiency and effective VRM design.


The ASRock X79 Extreme11 did fairly well when it comes to power consumption. Idle was a little bit high, at 8 Watts total drawn by the VRM, while load was reported on my meter as 137 Watts, right in the middle of all of my Intel X79 results. That was, of course, without any extra power-saving features enabled. When I enabled the power-saving feature for the VRM in AXTU, I noticed power draw drop by 12 Watts, leading to 125 Watts drawn at load. Not too shabby, not too shabby at all!