ASRock Penryn1600SLIX3-Wifi Motherboard Review

[Eldonko]

3D & Gaming Benchmarks

3D & Gaming Benchmarks

This section will provide an overview of stock vs. overclocked 3D results in synthetic benchmark and gaming situations. SLI is enabled for all tests and comparisons will be made to show perfromance increases in overclocked situations.

3DMark 06 Benchmark:

Futuremark 3DMark 06 is the worldwide standard in advanced 3D game performance benchmarking. A fundamental tool for PC users and gamers, 3DMark06 uses advanced real-time 3D game workloads to measure PC performance using a suite of DirectX 9 3D graphics tests, CPU tests, and 3D feature tests. 3DMark06 tests include all new HDR/SM3.0 graphics tests, SM2.0 graphics tests, AI and physics driven single and multiple cores or processor CPU tests and a collection of comprehensive feature tests to reliably measure next generation gaming performance today.

Results: As 3DMark performance relies heavily of graphics card performance, only a minimal improvement is noted when going from stock speeds on the Q6600 to overclocked speeds which equalled about a 4% boost in performance.

World in Conflict Benchmark:

The World in Conflict in-game benchmark is a great test to show video card performance in real gaming situations. Under the Graphics menu in options, you can choose a variety of video settings and there is a "Run Benchmark" button. The actual benchmark uses all of the game’s graphic capabilities and is a good indication which settings will be optimal for a user’s system.

Results: The World in Conflict benchmark shows similar results to 3DMark which means there was only a slight improvement when overclocking the CPU. A 7% gain in performance is noted.


Call of Duty 4 Benchmark:

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is an increasingly popular game among gamers and enthusiasts. Unfortunately the game does not include a benchmarking program; however, FRAPs is often used as a substitute for an in-game benchmark as it records FPS over a user-controlled time frame. To create a replicable circumstance for FRAPS to record an apples-to-apples comparison, 5 minute intervals on the same game level were used.

Results: Overclocked test results for Call of Duty 4 remain consistent with those of 3DMark and World in Conflict and minimal gains are achieved with an overclocked CPU. In this case, an average FPS improvement of 10% is noted which is a bit more than we have seen in the other 3D tests. Nonetheless, this is minimal at best.

 

[Eldonko]

SLI Tests & Benchmarks

SLI Tests

This section will provide an overview of single card vs. SLI performance. For SLI testing, two different brands of the 8600GT were used; an eVGA SSC model and a BFG model. The cards have different speeds, the eVGA runs at 685/810/1500 (GPU/Mem/Shader) and the BFG runs at 565/700/1243. Since SLI runs as fast as the slowest card, the BFG was installed in PCIE slot 1 and all tests were completed at 565/700/1243. Additionally, all SLI comparisons will be ran at overclocked settings (3240Mhz/450Mhz).

3DMark 06 Benchmark:

The first 3D benchmark test for SLI is among the most common in the enthusiast world, Futuremark 3DMark 2006. To be comparable to other users’ systems, all settings remain at default, including the resolution which is 1280x1024.

Results: Here the power of dual 16x SLI slots is shown with a nice improvement with the addition of a second card, the 3DMark score almost doubles, a 75% improvement.


World in Conflict Benchmark:

For these tests, resolution is set at 1680x1050, Detail is set to Medium, all other display options remain at default settings.

Results: In a gaming benchmark that simulates gaming situations, the improvement when going to SLI is also apparent. When adding a second 8600GT, FPS improves 69%.


Call of Duty 4 Benchmark (FRAPS):

For these tests, resolution is set at 1680x1050, Water Detail is set to Normal, Mode Detail is set to Normal, and all other display options remain at default settings.

Results: An improvement in FPS is noted for Call of Duty 4 when adding a second graphics card; however the improvement is more modest than the previous two tests at 36%.

 

[Eldonko]

Voltage Regulation / Heat Analysis

Voltage Regulation

To take a look at a board’s voltage regulation, we first need to know a few voltages. More specifically vcore - BIOS set vcore, vcore in windows, and vcore under load. In theory these numbers should all be the same but load line droop (commonly known as Vdroop) is an intentional part of any Intel power delivery design specification.

Droop by definition is the real voltage delta from idle to load on a motherboard. Vdroop is usually larger for quads due to the extra power going through the voltage regulation integrated circuits and some boards have larger vdroop than others, depending partly on the quality of the voltage regulation of the board.

What we will look at on the Penryn1600SLIX3-Wifi is vdroop and how smooth the voltage line on an overclocked system is over a 5 hour period. For these tests OCCT monitoring is used and the readings are confirmed to be VERY close when measured with a digital multimeter.

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Voltage set in the BIOS for the Xeon chip is 1.38v, giving 1.35v idle and 1.30v load. Taking this into perspective it isn’t too bad; ideally we like to see .02-.03v droop from idle to load and the Penryn1600SLIX3-Wifi only gives .05v droop on a 45nm chip. However, the more power used by the processor, the harder the motherboard voltage regulation ICs must work and the more heat is produced. We see this example illustrated with the quad tests.

The Q6600 voltage set in the BIOS is 1.41v, giving 1.33v idle and 1.25v load. Vdroop in this case is .08v and this figure increases as voltage goes up. Also concerning is the amount of actual voltage that is utilized under load compared to what the user may expect from a BIOS setting. Considering this board has a maximum of 1.6v available in the BIOS, users shouldn’t expect much over 1.4v load with a 65nm quad. ASRock likely restricted vcore to 1.6v so users would not use more voltage than the voltage regulation transistors and ICs can handle safely.

Looking at CPU power consumption, almost a 30W increase in power usage is noted, about a 35% increase. These figures are recorded under load conditions and were measured using the Sandra Processor Arithmetic Benchmark.

Heat Analysis

The Northbridge on the ASRock Penryn1600SLIX3-Wifi is runs exceptionally hot, even with heatpipe cooling. When a heatsink is so hot to the touch it almost burns at stock speed and voltage, that is an unusual occurrence. Measuring the Northbridge heatsink with a digital thermometer temperatures hover around 57-58C, which means the actual chipset is even a few degrees hotter than that. Changing Northbridge voltage to high and applying the overclock tested in the overclocking section, the temperature rises to almost 80C! For comparison, most boards don’t see much over 50C even at high Northbridge voltages. These unusually high temperatures could mean there is insufficient NB cooling for the amount of heat produced and this could also be a contributing factor to below average FSB clocking.

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[Eldonko]

Long-Term Impressions / Conclusion

Long-Term Impressions

Long-term impressions of the ASRock Penryn1600SLIX3-Wifi are mixed. On one hand, the solid capacitors and overall build quality are quite strong, while on the other hand the chipset runs exceptionally hot. High Northbridge voltages are required to get a decent amount of FSB out of the board on the CPUs tested in this review, which leads to excessive heat coming from the heatpipe cooling design, over 80C in some cases. Although the 680i chipset is specified to run at high temperatures, the amount of heat put into a closed case will be high and one must wonder the durability of parts run at those temperatures over an extended period.

The BIOS has had one update since the release which fixed some bugs and enabled settings that should be enabled by default. Hopefully in the next BIOS update ASRock will tweak the BIOS so it allows for higher FSB and change the NB, SB, VTT, GTL voltage to actual voltages instead of settings like “high” which really leave too much guessing room for many users comfort.


Conclusion

Feature-wise this board is a clear winner. ASRock provides its customers with dual 16x SLI slots and a third 8x slot, 7.1 HD audio, WiFi capabilities, overclocking and monitoring software, and many other perks. All the features we tested in this review worked as promised and setup was quite straightforward. As was seen in the tests, the improvements when running SLI and an overclocked system were rather dramatic and really did well to show what we find is a huge selling point for this board. Although the board didn’t clock quite to the point of some others on the market, dual 16x SLI makes up for that quickly in 3D and gaming applications.

The stock BIOS was rather immature, having key options like USB support, audio, and LAN disabled by default and only basic overclocking settings. A novice user that is not very comfortable changing BIOS settings could mistake this for a defective board and this could lead to unnecessary RMAs. ASRock did enable these features in the BIOS update which came out in April though so it shows they are willing to address issues. Some extra RAM secondary timings such as trfc would be nice as well, considering some newer 4GB DDR2 kits require trfc above 52.

For overclocking, the board was really limited by FSB on newer processors. Maxing out at 360 FSB where the same chip clocks over 500 on a P35 board is quite a difference and is something that must be taken into account by enthusiasts looking for a board that will not limit their desired overclocking level. On the other hand, many users would be more than happy running their 2400Mhz quad at 3240Mhz.

The build quality of the board is much improved over older ASRock designs, with all solid capacitors and heatpipe cooling. The 24 pin ATX power connector is still located next to the CPU though, and may be an obstacle for users with bottom mounted power supplies or larger CPU heatsincs. It would also have been nice to have a few extra fan headers and the heatpipe cooling is not really sufficient for the amount of heat produced by the very hot 680i chipset.

ASRock also gets points for innovation being the first to implement tri-SLI on a 680i chipset with a sub-$200 price tag. The only other options for this are very expensive and since the Penryn1600SLIX3-Wifi comes at such an attractive price, it should grab the attention of users that want to run SLI or tri-SLI at a reasonable price. On the flip side however, the 680i is an older chipset that was never very popular in the first place. Many users have gone to Intel-based chipsets for the overclocking ability alone.

So to sum all this up we have to say that this board is quite decent for users who want a solid upgrade for their aging systems. It offers some great features at an attractive price point but things like vdroop, limited overclocking options and an extremely hot northbridge sour the experience somewhat. That being said, if you are not trying to achieve high overclocks and want a motherboard that gives you everything but the kitchen sink for an extremely good price then the Penryn1600SLIX3-Wifi may be the board for you. Thus, we give this product our Dam Good Value Award.


Pros:

- Tri-SLI support with two 16x PCIE slots
- Wifi capabilities
- HD 7.1 audio
- Quality design, with solid capacitors
- 45nm and FSB1600/1333 CPU support with stock BIOS
- Overall stable motherboard


Cons:

- Very hot Northbridge
- Limited FSB overclocking
- Limited BIOS and key options disabled by default in stock BIOS
- New board, dated chipset
- Very limited availability at this time

Thanks to ASRock for sending us this motherboard

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...nryn1600slix3-wifi-review-comment-thread.html​