discussion ASUS X99-Deluxe II Motherboard Review

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Test Setups & Methodology

Test Setups & Methodology

For this review, we are going to be testing the performance of the X99-Deluxe II in four configurations: default settings @ DDR4-2133, XMP @ DDR4-3200, automatic overclock settings, and manual overclock settings. The components and software are the same across all four configurations, and aside from manually selecting the frequencies, timings, and voltages in the manual overclock configuration, every option in the BIOS was at its default setting.

Intel Core i7 LGA2011-v3 DDR4 Test Setup​

For all of the benchmarks, appropriate lengths are taken to ensure an equal comparison through methodical setup, installation, and testing. The following outlines our testing methodology:

A) Windows is installed using a full format.

B) Chipset drivers and accessory hardware drivers (audio, network, GPU) are installed.

C)To ensure consistent results, a few tweaks are applied to Windows 7 and the NVIDIA control panel:

• UAC – Disabled
• Indexing – Disabled
• Superfetch – Disabled
• System Protection/Restore – Disabled
• Problem & Error Reporting – Disabled
• Remote Desktop/Assistance - Disabled
• Windows Security Center Alerts – Disabled
• Windows Defender – Disabled
• Screensaver – Disabled
• Power Plan – High Performance
• V-Sync – Off

D) All available Windows updates are then installed.

E) All programs are installed and then updated, followed by a defragment.

F) Benchmarks are each run three to eight times, and unless otherwise stated, the results are then averaged.


Here is a full list of the applications that we utilized in our benchmarking suite:

• 3DMark Vantage Professional Edition v1.1.3
• 3DMark11 Professional Edition v1.0.132.0
• 3DMark 2013 Professional Edition v2.0.2530
• AIDA64 Extreme Edition v5.75.3900
• Cinebench R15 64-bit
• FAHBench 1.2.0
• Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward Benchmark
• Grand Theft Auto V
• HEVC Decode Benchmark (Cobra) v1.61
• LuxMark v3.0
• Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor
• PCMark 8
• SuperPi Mod v1.9 WP
• Sisoft Sandra 2015.SP3 20.28
• Valve Particle Simulation Benchmark v1.0.0.0
• WinRAR x64 5.30 beta 6
• wPRIME version v2.10
• X3: Terran Conflict Demo v1.0

That is about all you need to know methodology wise, so let's get to the good stuff!

 

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Feature Testing: AURA RGB Lighting

Feature Testing: AURA RGB Lighting

While many motherboards over the last couple of years have had static unicolour LEDs lighting up the audio isolation line, the ASUS B150 PRO GAMING/AURA that we reviewed earlier was the first motherboard on the market that featured fully adjustable RGB LEDs in various aesthetically-pleasing locations. That unique feature has now made its way to the X99-Deluxe II.

On this model, the RGB LEDs are integrated into the chipset cooler, PCI-E slot clips, audio subsystem, and there is even an header on which you can plug an LED lighting strip. These RGB LEDs can be controlled in the UEFI or using the feature-filled Lighting Control utility.

The utility allows users to control all four lighting areas independently, which means that all four zones can display a different colour. Since they are of the RGB varienty, the LEDs can be set to essentially any colour and customized to create cool lighting effects. There are presets that cause the LEDs to change shades to indicate CPU temperature, pulsate with the beat of your music, cycle through all the colours, show a bunch of different colours at ounce, fade in and out, flash on and off, statically display one colour, and more as you can see in our video below. There are now nine effects presets, which is a nice increase over the six choices that were originally offered with the B150 PRO GAMING/AURA.

We mentioned the RGB header above, and what's really cool about that addition is the fact that it replaces the need for a separate controller or power source for the LED lighting strip. You simply attach the standard 5050 RGB LED strip to the included RGB header cable, and attach that cable to the header. This approach saves you money, and reduces clutter inside your system. ASUS recommend that the strip have a maximum power rating of 12V/2A, and advises to keep length to within two meters for best brightness.

Click on image to enlarge​

As you can see above, the addition of LEDs directly into the PCI-E slot clips looks pretty darn cool. We selected a unique cyan colour scheme for our motherboard and the overall effect looks fantastic to us, even without any effects enabled and only using a single colour throughout.

Once you do make use of the huge amount of customizability, you can create some very striking visuals that will add a ton of flair to your build. Check it out below:

<iframe width="700" height="394" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jF7qhrbSUtQ?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>​

 

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Feature Testing: Onboard Audio

Feature Testing: Onboard Audio

Since fewer and fewer consumers seem to be buying discrete sound cards, the quality of a motherboard's onboard audio is now more important than ever. We figured that it was worthwhile to take a closer look at just how good the analog signal quality is coming out of the latest Crystal Sound audio subsystem that is implemented on the X99-Deluxe II.

Since isolated results don't really mean much, but we have also included some numbers from the GIGABYTE X99-SOC Champion, ASUS X99-A, ASUS X99-PRO, ASUS Rampage V Extreme, GIGABYTE X99-Gaming G1 WIFI, MSI X99S Gaming 7, EVGA X99 Classified, and ASUS X99 Deluxe motherboards that we have previously reviewed. All but two of these models are built around the Realtek ALC1150 codec, but feature different op-amps, headphone amplifiers, filtering capacitors, secondary components and layouts. The two exceptions are the GIGABYTE X99-Gaming G1 WIFI and EVGA X99 Classified, which are based on the same Creative Core3D CA0132 quad-core audio processor, but feature vastly different hardware implementations.

We are going to do this using both quantitative and qualitative analysis, since sound quality isn't really something that can be adequately explained with only numbers. To do this we have turned to the RightMark Audio Analyzer, basically the standard application for this type of testing.

Since all the three motherboards support very high quality 24-bit, 192kHz audio playback we selected that as the sample mode option. Basically, what this test does is pipe the audio signal from the front-channel output to the line-in input via a 3.5mm male to 3.5mm male mini-plug cable, and then RightMark Audio Analyzer (RMAA) does the audio analysis. Obviously we disabled all software enhancements since they interfere with the pure technical performance that we are trying to benchmark.

Click on image to enlarge and reveal additional motherboards​

As you can see, from a technical standpoint this model puts up essentially identical numbers to its predecessor the X99-Deluxe. We had an inkling that this would be the case, since their onboard audio designs are very similar, but we are glad to see the numbers back that up.

Based on our listening period with a mix of Grado SR225i and Koss PortaPro headphones, Westone UM1 IEMs, and Logitech Z-5500 5.1 speakers, we are again pleased to report that the sound quality was without fault to our ears. As we tend to repeat, we aren't experts in this area, but we suspect that your average user will likewise be perfectly satisfied with this motherboard's onboard audio capabilities.

As we tend to repeat, we aren't experts in this area, but we suspect that most Deluxe II owners will likewise be very happy with this motherboard's onboard audio capabilities.

 

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Feature Testing: M.2 PCI-E 3.0 x4

Feature Testing: M.2 PCI-E 3.0 x4

While most first generation X99 LGA2011-v3 motherboards had M.2 connectors, many were speed limited or had a caveats list a mile long. Thankfully, the subsequent mainstream Z170 motherboards brought forth proper full speed M.2 interfaces to the masses, which requires a PCI-E 3.0 x4 link to either the chipset or the processor. Now that we are reviewing second generation X99 models, we are definitely interested in testing out these latest M.2 implementations, all of which claim full speed status. While there are no M.2 SSDs on the market that make full use of this interface's theoretical maximum bandwidth of 32Gbps (4GB/s), we went searching for one that could at least break the 2000MB/s barrier and quickly settled on the Samsung SSD 950 PRO 256GB.

​

This next-generation NVMe PCI-E SSD combines Samsung's newest UBX controller with its industry-leading 3D V-NAND and is capable sequential read speeds of up to 2,200MB/second and write speeds of up to 900MB/sec.

One of the ways that we will be evaluating the performance of a motherboard's M.2 interface is by verifying that is capable of matching or exceeding these listed transfer rates. The other is by checking to see whether it performs as well as when we install the SSD 950 PRO onto the included ASUS Hyper M.2 x4 Mini expansion card plugged directly into a PCI-E 3.0 x16 slot. If the M.2 connector is getting its PCI-E lanes from the X99 PCH - instead of directly from the processor - we want to see if that implementation is causing any performance issues when compared to a direct link.

M.2 vs PCI-E​

As can see, the performance of the M.2 connector on the X99 Deluxe II is excellent. It was within 1% of the performance of the PCI-E slot, which is well within the margin of error. In both cases, the SSD 950 PRO easily outperformed its listed specifications.

While transfer rates are obviously an important metric, we figured that it was also worthwhile to take a peak at instructions per second (IOPS) to ensure that there wasn't any variance there either:

M.2 vs PCI-E​

Once again, the differences are essentially non-existent and well within the margin of error for this benchmark. As a result, we think that it is fair to say that the M.2 interface on the X99 Deluxe II has been very well implemented and should ensure that you get optimal performance from any current or future M.2 solid state drives.

 

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Auto & Manual Overclocking Results

Auto & Manual Overclocking Results

It wouldn't be an HWC review if we didn't include some overclocking results, so we thoroughly tested out this motherboard's capabilities, especially its auto-overclocking functionality. Though it is a new release, the X99-Deluxe II is still just an LGA2011-v3 motherboard, and as a result there is nothing new to report on how to overclock on this model. Having said that, obviously the Broadwell-E processors are new and there is slight learning curve there. Every chip will have different core, cache/uncore, and memory clocking capabilities, but our personal pointers are to increase vCore up to around 1.35V - if you're cooling can handle it - while keeping the cache voltage under 1.375V and the System Agent under 1.275V. On a well tuned motherboard like this one you probably won't even need to touch those two last voltages unless you're trying to push the cache/uncore past 3.2Ghz or trying to achieve the highest possible DDR4 memory speeds. By the way, if you have an unlocked processor - which all Broadwell-E's are - there's no reason to go crazy increasing the BCLK since you can achieve similar results by just tweaking the various multipliers instead.

Auto Overclocking​

The X99 Deluxe II features two types of automatic overclocking. There is the TPU option that you can find in the UEFI BIOS and the 5-Way Optimization feature that is located in the Ai Suite III utility. The BIOS-based option relies on presets and it is quite simple since it only offers two choices, TPU I or TPU II. TPU I applies an overclocking preset that is designed for those with air cooling, while TPU II is a more aggressive option for those with liquid cooling. In practice, TPU I set a 1.24Vcore and overclocked our Core i7-6900K to 3.9Ghz, while locking one core to 4.1Ghz. Selecting TPU II didn't cause as much of an improvement as we had hoped, with a voltage bump up to 1.27V and seven cores clocked at 4.0Ghz and one at 4.1Ghz. Both settings left the cache/uncore at 2800Mhz - the Intel default - while the memory speed was bumped to a respectable DDR4-2666. We were using a G.Skill DDR4-3200 kit so clearly the XMP preset was not applied. Although this BIOS-based automatic overclocking option is very fast - just the time it takes to save & exit the BIOS - it is based on presets and as such it produces slightly less impressive results than an intelligent software-based approach. Having said all of that, as you can see below, the results are still pretty strong.

As mentioned above, within the Ai Suite III utility there is the 5-Way Optimization automatic overclocking feature. While this feature also makes use of the TPU - which stands for TurboV Processing Unit - it is regarded as an intelligent approach to automatic overclocking because it does not rely on presets. Instead, it slowly increases your processor's clock speed and voltage, tests for stability, monitors fan speeds and temperatures, and repeats until it has found the sweet spot. Nowadays, you can even specify a clock speed to start from and even what maximum temperature you feel comfortable with.

With all of that said, let's see what 5-Way Optimization is capable of:

Since we are always aggressive when it comes to overclocking, we selected the TPU II and Extreme Tuning options applied to all cores. As you can see above, we couldn't be happier with the results.

A core clock of 4.4Ghz at 1.35V is an excellent overclock for a Core i7-6900K, and it's even more impressive when you consider that this result is within a mere 30MHz of our manual overclocking effort. We also appreciate the moderate memory overclock from DDR4-2133 to DDR4-2666, although we wish that it had actually applied our memory kit's full XMP profile instead of merely its timings.

Manual Overclocking​

As we have come to expect from ASUS, our manual overclocking efforts were successful, easy, and uneventful. In the end, our new Core i7-6900K overclocks much the same as our Core i7-5960X did, which is to say that it can do a little bit over 4.4GHz at 1.35V. It doesn't have a lot of headroom above that, at least not when all cores are loaded and not without a serious vCore increase that causes the temperatures to skyrocket.

When it came time to overclock the cache/uncore and memory, we simply set the cache voltage to 1.35V, the system agent to 1.25V, and increased the cache/uncore frequency from the stock 2800Mhz to 3300Mhz. Broadwell-E processors don't have the same crazy Uncore overclocking headroom as Haswell-E processors had. Despite this, their overall memory performance is still much improved. ASUS have validated this model for memory speeds up to DDR4-3300, and as you can see, we were able to hit that without issue using our 32GB G.Skill Trident Z DDR4-3200 14-14-4-34 memory kit. There's no reason to suspect that this motherboard can't handle even higher speeds, but we would need a smaller/faster quad-channel memory kit to test that out.
Overall, as we have come to expect from ASUS - especially with this enthusiast-oriented LGA2011-v3 platform - overclocking on this motherboard was a problem-free experience and we never once felt that the motherboard was the component holding us back. They have simply done an unparalleled job at optimizing the BIOS. The automatic overclocking results speak for themselves, we would be very surprised to see that result be surpasses by any other motherboard...mostly because our processor really doesn't have much headroom left.

 

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System Benchmarks

System Benchmarks

In the System and Gaming Benchmarks sections, we reveal the results from a number of benchmarks run with the Core i7-6900K and ASUS X99-Deluxe II at default clocks, with our memory kit's XMP profile enabled, with the most aggressive automatic overclock, and using own our manual overclock. This will illustrate how much performance can be achieved with this motherboard in stock and overclocked form. For a thorough comparison of the Core i7-6900K versus a number of different CPUs have a look at our "Intel Broadwell-E i7-6950X & i7-6900K Review" article.

SuperPi Mod v1.9 WP

When running the SuperPI 32MB benchmark, we are calculating Pi to 32 million digits and timing the process. Obviously more CPU power helps in this intense calculation, but the memory sub-system also plays an important role, as does the operating system. We are running one instance of SuperPi Mod v1.9 WP. This is therefore a single-thread workload.

wPRIME 2.10

wPrime is a leading multithreaded benchmark for x86 processors that tests your processor performance by calculating square roots with a recursive call of Newton's method for estimating functions, with f(x)=x2-k, where k is the number we're sqrting, until Sgn(f(x)/f'(x)) does not equal that of the previous iteration, starting with an estimation of k/2. It then uses an iterative calling of the estimation method a set amount of times to increase the accuracy of the results. It then confirms that n(k)2=k to ensure the calculation was correct. It repeats this for all numbers from 1 to the requested maximum. This is a highly multi-threaded workload.

Cinebench R15

Cinebench R15 64-bit
Test1: CPU Image Render
Comparison: Generated Score

The latest benchmark from MAXON, Cinebench R15 makes use of all your system's processing power to render a photorealistic 3D scene using various different algorithms to stress all available processor cores. The test scene contains approximately 2,000 objects containing more than 300,000 total polygons and uses sharp and blurred reflections, area lights and shadows, procedural shaders, antialiasing, and much more. This particular benchmarking can measure systems with up to 64 processor threads. The result is given in points (pts). The higher the number, the faster your processor.

WinRAR x64

WinRAR x64 5.30 beta 6
Test: Built-in benchmark, processing 1000MB of data.
Comparison: Time to Finish

One of the most popular file archival and compression utilities, WinRAR's built-in benchmark is a great way of measuring a processor's compression and decompression performance. Since it is a memory bandwidth intensive workload it is also useful in evaluating the efficiency of a system's memory subsystem.

FAHBench

FAHBench 1.2.0
Test: OpenCL on CPU
Comparison: Generated Score

FAHBench is the official Folding@home benchmark that measures the compute performance of CPUs and GPUs. It can test both OpenCL and CUDA code, using either single or double precision, and implicit or explicit modeling. The single precision implicit model most closely relates to current folding performance.

HEVC Decode Benchmark v1.61

HEVC Decode Benchmark (Cobra) v1.61
Test: Frame rates at various resolution, focusing on the top quality 25Mbps bitrate results.
Comparison: FPS (Frames per Second)

The HEVC Decode Benchmark measures a system's HEVC video decoding performance at various bitrates and resolutions. HEVC, also known as H.265, is the successor to the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC (Advanced Video Coding) standard and it is very computationally intensive if not hardware accelerated. This decode test is done entirely on the CPU.

LuxMark v3.0

Test: OpenCL CPU Mode benchmark of the LuxBall HDR scene.
Comparison: Generated Score

LuxMark is a OpenCL benchmarking tool that utilizes the LuxRender 3D rendering engine. Since it OpenCL based, this benchmark can be used to test OpenCL rendering performance on both CPUs and GPUs, and it can put a significant load on the system due to its highly parallelized code.

PCMark 8

PCMark 8 is the latest iteration of Futuremark’s system benchmark franchise. It generates an overall score based upon system performance with all components being stressed in one way or another. The result is posted as a generalized score. In this case, we tested with both the standard Conventional benchmark and the Accelerated benchmark, which automatically chooses the optimal device on which to perform OpenCL acceleration.

AIDA64 Memory Benchmark

AIDA64 Extreme Edition is a diagnostic and benchmarking software suite for home users that provides a wide range of features to assist in overclocking, hardware error diagnosis, stress testing, and sensor monitoring. It has unique capabilities to assess the performance of the processor, system memory, and disk drives.

The benchmarks used in this review are the memory bandwidth and latency benchmarks. Memory bandwidth benchmarks (Memory Read, Memory Write, Memory Copy) measure the maximum achievable memory data transfer bandwidth. The code behind these benchmark methods are written in Assembly and they are extremely optimized for every popular AMD, Intel and VIA processor core variants by utilizing the appropriate x86/x64, x87, MMX, MMX+, 3DNow!, SSE, SSE2, SSE4.1, AVX, and AVX2 instruction set extension.
The Memory Latency benchmark measures the typical delay when the CPU reads data from system memory. Memory latency time means the penalty measured from the issuing of the read command until the data arrives to the integer registers of the CPU.

 

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Gaming Benchmarks

Gaming Benchmarks

Futuremark 3DMark (2013)

3DMark v1.1.0
Graphic Settings: Fire Strike Preset
Rendered Resolution: 1920x1080
Test: Specific Physics Score and Full Run 3DMarks
Comparison: Generated Score


3DMark is the brand new cross-platform benchmark from the gurus over at Futuremark. Designed to test a full range of hardware from smartphones to high-end PCs, it includes three tests for DirectX 9, DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 hardware, and allows users to compare 3DMark scores with other Windows, Android and iOS devices. Most important to us is the new Fire Strike preset, a DirectX 11 showcase that tests tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading. Like every new 3DMark version, this test is extremely GPU-bound, but it does contain a heavy physics test that can show off the potential of modern multi-core processors.

Futuremark 3DMark 11

3DMark 11 v1.0.5
Graphic Settings: Extreme Preset
Resolution: 1920x1080
Test: Specific Physics Score and Full Run 3DMarks
Comparison: Generated Score


3DMark 11 is Futuremark's very latest benchmark, designed to tests all of the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading. At the moment, it is lot more GPU-bound than past versions are now, but it does contain a terrific physics test which really taxes modern multi-core processors.

Futuremark 3DMark Vantage

3DMark Vantage v1.1.2
Graphic Settings: Performance Preset
Resolution: 1280x1024

Test: Specific CPU Score and Full Run 3DMarks
Comparison: Generated Score

3DMark Vantage is the follow-up to the highly successful 3DMark06. It uses DirectX 10 exclusively so if you are running Windows XP, you can forget about this benchmark. Along with being a very capable graphics card testing application, it also has very heavily multi-threaded CPU tests, such Physics Simulation and Artificial Intelligence (AI), which makes it a good all-around gaming benchmark.

Valve Particle Simulation Benchmark

Valve Particle Simulation Benchmark
Resolution: 1920x1080
Anti-Aliasing: 4X
Anisotropic Filtering: 8X
Graphic Settings: High

Comparison: Particle Performance Metric

Originally intended to demonstrate new processing effects added to Half Life 2: Episode 2 and future projects, the particle benchmark condenses what can be found throughout HL2:EP2 and combines it all into one small but deadly package. This test does not symbolize the performance scale for just Episode Two exclusively, but also for many other games and applications that utilize multi-core processing and particle effects. As you will see the benchmark does not score in FPS but rather in its own "Particle Performance Metric", which is useful for direct CPU comparisons.

X3: Terran Conflict

X3: Terran Conflict 1.2.0.0
Resolution: 1920x1080
Texture & Shader Quality: High
Antialiasing 4X
Anisotropic Mode: 8X
Glow Enabled

Game Benchmark
Comparison: FPS (Frames per Second)

X3: Terran Conflict (X3TC) is the culmination of the X-series of space trading and combat simulator computer games from German developer Egosoft. With its vast space worlds, intricately detailed ships, and excellent multi-threaded game engine, it remains a great test of modern CPU performance.

Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward Benchmark

Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward
Resolution: 1920x1080
Texture & Shader Quality: Maximum IQ
DirectX 11
Fullscreen

Game Benchmark
Comparison: Generated Score

Square Enix released this benchmarking tool to rate how your system will perform in Heavensward, the expansion to Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. This official benchmark software uses actual maps and playable characters to benchmark gaming performance and assign a score to your PC.

Grand Theft Auto V

DirectX Version: DirectX 11
Resolution: 1920x1080
FXAA: On
MSAA: X4
NVIDIA TXAA: Off
Anisotropic Filtering: X16
All advanced graphics settings off.

In GTA V, we utilize the handy in-game benchmarking tool. We do three full runs of the benchmark and average the results of pass 3 since they are the least erratic.

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

Resolution: 1920x1080
Graphical Quality: Custom
Mesh/Shadow/Texture Filtering/Vegetation Range: Ultra
Lighting/Texture Quality/Ambient Occlusion: High
Depth of Field/Order Independent Transparency/Tesselation: Enabled

With its high resolution textures and several other visual tweaks, Shadow of Mordor’s open world is also one of the most detailed around. This means it puts massive load on graphics cards and should help point towards which GPUs will excel at next generation titles. We do three full runs of the benchmark and average the results.

 

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Voltage Regulation / Power Consumption

Voltage Regulation

Usually we have a pretty extensive voltage regulation section, but this time we were a little wary of poking and prodding the live VRM section of a motherboard powering a new $1100 processor that we need for a bunch of other reviews. We usually throw caution to the wind, but this time there's just too much on the table to risk a worse case scenario type event. Therefore, in this abbreviated outlook, we can tell you that - based on the Ai Suite's voltage readings - this motherboard appears to have excellent regulation output. What you set in the bios seems to be exactly what the board put outs, without fault. This is likely due to the fact that it appears that there is some type of Load-Line Calibration (LLC) enabled by default once you set the Ai Overclock Tuner to Manual. We ran the AIDA64 System Stability Test for 90 minutes, while monitoring its vCore line graph. This testing was done with our Core i7-6900K overclocked to 4.4Ghz at 1.35V (in the BIOS).

This only illustrates a portion of the 90 minute run, but we watched attentively throughout and there were never any spikes. The vCore line was straight as an arrow for the test and it never deviated from 1.349V. You can't really ask for better than that.


Power Consumption

For this section, every energy saving feature was enabled in the BIOS and the Windows power plan was changed from High Performance to Balanced. For our idle test, we let the system idle for 15 minutes and measured the peak wattage through our UPM EM100 power meter. For our CPU load test, we ran Prime 95 In-place large FFTs on all available threads, measuring the peak wattage via the UPM EM100 power meter. For our overall system load test, we ran Prime 95 on all available threads while simultaneously loading the GPU with 3DMark Vantage - Test 6 Perlin Noise.

Nothing unexpected here, the stock numbers are very much inline we what would expect from a fully featured motherboard such as this one. We aren't using any of the numerous power saving software options that ASUS offers, so there's definitely room for improvement if that's of interest to you. Once you start pumping extra voltage into that octo-core processor the power consumption starts shooting up pretty quickly, but this motherboard proved more than capable of handling the additional load. The only weird result is the high idle numbers for the XMP and Auto OC configurations, which we will have to look into further.

 

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Conclusion

Conclusion

Although the ASUS X99-Deluxe II is the first of the second generation LGA2011-v3 motherboards that this reviewer has tested, I can confidently state that this model has set a high bar. From the eye-catching and infinitely customizable aesthetics, to the bevy of connectivity options, and impressive accessories bundle, the Deluxe II definitely lives up to its name and does justice to its predecessor.

In case you skipped straight to the conclusion, let's recap some of the hard specs: five physical PCI-E x16 slots, 3-way CrossFire and 3-way SLI capabilities, one PCI-E x1 slot, one M.2 x4 connector, two U.2 connectors, one SATA Express ports, eight SATA 6Gb/s ports (plus the two on the SATAe port), three USB 3.1 Type-A ports and one USB 3.1 Type-C port, four USB 3.0 ports, four USB 2.0/3.0 headers, two Intel-powered Gigabit LAN ports, Thunderbolt 3.0 header, a dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi module with Bluetooth v4.0, Realtek's latest ten-channel HD audio controller, diagnostic LEDs, thermal sensors all over, a high amperage fan header, a water pump header, and a bunch of onboard buttons and switches, and…well, you get the idea. And that is not even counting the included accessories bundles, which consists of a ThunderboltEX 3 expansion card, Hyper M.2 x4 Mini adapter, and a fan extension card with an included thermal probe. ASUS have also managed to pack all of these slots and ports onto a standard ATX form factor and they have done it all while avoiding any show stopping clearance/installation issues.

The way the AURA RGB lighting was implemented on this motherboard is an improvement over previous implementations. All lightning areas have now been outfitted with RGB LEDs and they now all fully controllable. The addition of the LEDs into the PCI-E slot clips is pretty darn cool too. The RGB header is a cool addition as well, allowing an expansion of the lighting effects to other parts of your case. Overall, the lights are bright, the colour selection is effectively unlimited, and the lighting effects are cooler and more numerous than before, and it's all very easy handled in the Lighting Control utility. Speaking of software, ASUS continue to improve their software suite with small incremental changes that make them amongst the best in the business.

When it came time to overclock, we were once again left impressed by the work ASUS has put into perfecting their automatic overclocking features. While the UEFI-based options weren't particularly aggressive, pushing our Core i7-6900K to between 4.0 to 4.1GHz depending on the workload, the software-based 5-Way Optimization feature pushed our chip up to 4.4GHz at 1.35V, which was within a hair of our own manual overclock. So either we've lost our touch or ASUS' auto-overclocking technology has gotten exceedingly good. We also appreciated the mild but effortless memory overclock, from the stock DDR4-2133 to DDR4-2666.

When we took over the overclocking reigns, we were able to push our i7-6900K a tiny bit higher to 4.43GHz at the same 1.35V. This is a voltage/heat wall, since any higher requires an ample boost in voltage that results in higher output and eventual throttling under load. Focusing on other parts of the processor, we managed to overclock the uncore from its stock 2800Mhz up to 3300Mhz, which is a decent 18% increase. Likewise, we were able to test this motherboard's claimed DDR4-3300 memory frequency validation by hitting exactly DDR4-3300. The large 32GB G.Skill Trident Z memory kit that we used probably had a bit of additional headroom, but it was the highest we could achieve while also maximizing the CPU core clocks and maintaining a respectable uncore frequency as well. During our hours of hands-on overclocking, we never witnessed any odd behaviour, and never felt that the motherboard was the limiting factor in any of the efforts. You can't ask for much more than that.

As we mentioned in the introduction, given how exemplary the X99-Deluxe was, we had high hopes for its successor. Thankfully, we are now happy to report that the X99-Deluxe II does everything the original did - and does it equally well - and adds a bunch of new functionality. The $420USD/$540CAD price tag is high in general terms, but this is not an overpriced motherboard by any means especially given the accessories bundle. We wouldn't hesitate to build a personal system around it, which as high a praise as you can get.