Drive and Audio Performance Results

Our drive- and audio testing differs a bit from the rest of our testing for several reasons. First of all, when it comes to drive-performance comparisons, nearly every platform on the market is very close to all the others because most provide external drive controllers, making the numbers offered very platform agnostic. And finally, with audio, we do not list any numbers except for those reported by the product we are testing. This is to provide the most information possible, as each audio CODEC will behave quite differently. Many boards also employ a different CODEC. As such, there is no standard we can use other than the numbers themselves. You can always check our other motherboard reviews to make direct comparisons in audio performance.

We tested each drive interface separately in order to provide you with numbers that are as complete as possible. Employing HDTune Pro for all of the testing, we tested each drive outside of the OS environment through a separate OS on a separate drive. However, we put a fair amount of data on both the Crucial M4 drives(60% full) to simulate performance in real-world situations. Also new is that all USB 3.0 testing is done via the provided front-panel ports rather than the ports on the rear of the board since front-panel ports are more likely to be used. I also no longer test SATA interfaces using a SATA 3 Gb/s drive since SATA 3 Gb/s functionality is now a legacy item.

HDTune Pro (SATA 6Gb/s)

HDTune Pro (USB3.0 Front Panel)

The ASRock X99 OC FORMULA/3.1 performed fairly average when it came to drive speeds. It is not slow by any means, but nor is it the fastest. That said, I still do not have proper M.2 or SATA Express testing hardware, so those interfaces might do better.

RightMark Audio Analyzer

Audio was exactly as the RMAA results show—pretty good. I think it is actually pretty impressive that the audio CODEC behaved as well as it did, yet the Realtek ALC1150 has proven itself as a more than capable CODEC as long as the right circuitry is used, which is most definitely the case on the ASRock X99 OC FORMULA/3.1.