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ASRock X79 Extreme9 Review

When you pay more for a product, you expect a better level of everything - performance, features, support.  In a motherboard, I'd want all the upgrades - top line audio, overclockability, superior software, better USB 3.0 / SATA 6 Gbps controllers, and so on.  The ASRock X79 Extreme9's party piece is the bundled 'Game Blaster' - a PCIe x1 card with Creative Sound Core3D Audio powered by a quad core audio processor and an additional Broadcom Gigabit LAN port.  All in at $360 MSRP, today we review the Extreme9 to see if it fits into the enthusiast of enthusiast price segments.

Overview

It's hard to place the X79 Extreme9.  I have reviewed the Extreme4 and Extreme4-M, both of which were good X79 budget boards for consumers or enthusiasts who wanted to jump into Sandy Bridge-E as cheaply as possible.  The X79 Extreme9 comes in around +50% more than those boards ($360 vs. ~$240), meaning I would expect 50% more when it came to the Extreme9. 

ASRock X79 Series
	X79 Extreme4	X79 Extreme9
Price	$235	$360
Size	ATX	ATX
Power Phase	6+2	16+2
Memory	4 x DDR3	8 x DDR3
PCIe	x16/x16/x8	x8/x8/x8/x8/x8 x16/-/x16/-/x8
CrossfireX	2x, 3x, 4x (Dual GPUs only)	2x, 3x, 4x (Dual GPUs only)
SLI	2x, 3x, 4x (Dual GPUs only)	2x, 3x, 4x (Dual GPUs only)
Audio	ALC 898	Creative Sound Core3D
LAN	Single	Dual
SATA 6 Gbps	5	8
USB 3.0	4	8
USB 2.0	12	12
XFast Software	Yes	Yes
Digital PWM	Yes	Yes
Dr. Debug	Yes	Yes

Dell XPS 15 L502x: Tweaking the Formula

Late last year, we finally got a laptop with very few compromises that we could look to as the king of the mainstream market. That laptop was Dell’s XPS 15 L501x; it took a balanced approach to performance, battery life, and portability, with a great display upgrade as a bonus offering. Perhaps more important was you could get all of the important features and still pay less than $1000. It was only natural—nay, inevitable—that Dell would update the XPS line with Sandy Bridge processors, and that’s what we have for review today with the XPS 15 L502x. The graphics have also received a minor update to NVIDIA’s 500M line, though the 400M and 500M are basically fraternal twins.

We won’t spend a lot of time discussing the nuances of the build, as very little has changed relative to the original XPS 15. If you want more information on build quality, the keyboard, etc. we refer you back to our earlier write up. The short summary is that the build quality is still good, but it’s not at the level of something like a Dell Latitude. Dell uses a magnesium alloy frame in the XPS, but the top and bottom are still plastic. Perhaps the bigger issue some will have is with the curves; love it or hate it, the curves are here to stay for the time being. We’ll have a bit more to discuss in a minute, but first let’s start with our usual spec table. The following table lists the available options for the XPS 15, with our review configuration components bolded where applicable.

Dell XPS 15 L502x Specifications
Processor	Intel Core i5-2410M (dual-core 2.30-2.90GHz, 35W) Intel Core i5-2520M (dual-core 2.50-3.20GHz, 35W) Intel Core i7-2630QM (quad-core 2.00-2.90GHz, 45W) Intel Core i7-2620M (dual-core 2.70-3.40GHz, 35W) Intel Core i7-2720QM (quad-core 2.20-3.30GHz, 45W) Intel Core i7-2820QM (quad-core 2.30-3.40GHz, 45W)
Chipset	Intel HM67
Memory	2x2GB DDR3-1333 1x4GB + 1x2GB DDR3-1333 2x4GB DDR-1333 (CL9)
Graphics	NVIDIA GeForce GT 525M 1GB DDR3 96 SPs, 600/1200/1800MHz Core/Shader/RAM clocks NVIDIA GeForce GT 540M 2GB DDR3 96 SPs, 672/1344/1800MHz Core/Shader/RAM clocks
Display	15.6” WLED Glossy 16:9 768p (1366x768) 15.6" B+GR LED Glossy 16:9 1080p (1920x1080) (AU Optronics B156HW1)
Hard Drive(s)	500GB 7200RPM HDD 640GB 7200RPM HDD 750GB 7200RPM HDD (Western Digital Scorpio Black WD7500BPKT-75PK4T0) 256GB SSD
Optical Drive	8X Tray-Load DVDRW Blu-ray Reader/DVDRW Combo (HL-DT-ST CT30N) Blu-ray Writer/DVDRW
Networking	Gigabit Ethernet(Realtek RTL8168/8111) 802.11n WiFi (Intel Wireless-N 1000) 802.11n WiFi (Intel Advanced-N 6150) 802.11n WiFi + Bluetooth 3.0 (Intel Wireless-N 1030) 802.11n WiFi + Bluetooth 3.0 (Intel Advanced-N 6230)
Audio	2.1 JBL Speakers + Waves Audio (Stereo speakers and subwoofer) Microphone and two headphone jacks Capable of 5.1 digital output (HDMI/SPDIF)
Battery	6-cell, 11.1V, ~5.0Ah, 56Wh 9-cell, 11.1V, ~8.1Ah, 90Wh
Front Side	Memory Card Reader
Left Side	Exhaust vent 1 x USB 3.0
Right Side	Optical Drive 2 x Headphone Jack Microphone Jack 1 x eSATA/USB 2.0 Combo
Back Side	Mini DisplayPort HDMI 1.4 Gigabit Ethernet TV Input (Optional) AC Power Connection 1 x USB 3.0 Kensington Lock
Operating System	Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Dimensions	15.0" x 10.4" x 1.3-1.5" (WxDxH, 6-cell) 15.0" x 10.4" x 1.3-2.2" (WxDxH, 9-cell)
Weight	6.33 lbs (6-cell) 6.68 lbs (9-cell)
Extras	Waves Maxx Audio 3 2MP Skype HD Certified Webcam (H.264) 86-Key backlit keyboard (Upgrade) Flash reader (SD/IO/XC/HC, MS/Pro/XC, MMC, xD)
Warranty	1-year standard warranty (depending on variant) 2-, 3-, and 4-year warranties available
Pricing	Starting Price: $800 Price as configured: $1425

We received a moderately upgraded version of the L502x this time around. The base model starts at $800 and you can still add the nice 1080p LCD for $150, so you’re still able to get a nice display for under $1000, but outside of Quick Sync the Core i5-2410M isn’t a major upgrade from the older i5-460M and the same can be said of the GT 525M vs. GT 420M. Basically, it’s better, and it’s about the same price, but if you already have the L501x there’s no need to upgrade to dual-core Sandy Bridge. Quad-core Sandy Bridge is a different story, as we’ll see in the benchmarks; Dell shipped the cheapest of the quad-core options, the i7-2630QM.

Along with the CPU upgrade, we’ve got the GT 540M, which is a faster clocked version of the 420M/425M/435M/525M/etc. The old XPS 15 came with a GT 420M by default, which clocks in at 500/1000MHz core/shaders and 1600MHz on the RAM, so the GT 540M has 34% more theoretical computational power and 12.5% more memory bandwidth, plus twice the RAM for good measure. The base model L502x comes with the GT 525M, which is clocked at 600/1200MHz core/shaders, so the 540M is only about 12% faster on the core but has the same memory bandwidth. Depending on the bottleneck, then, the new system should be 10-35% faster than the L501x in games, and potentially more than twice as fast in CPU calculations.

Other upgrades on the test system include 8GB RAM, a 9-cell battery (we still have the smaller 6-cell around as well), and this is the first time we’ve seen a 750GB 7200RPM 2.5” hard drive. Western Digital’s Scorpio Black is king of the 2.5” HDD hill, but unfortunately it’s also a far cry from matching even moderate SSDs. What it lacks in raw performance it makes up for with capacity, and with the increase in areal density the 750GB drive should outperform older 500GB 2.5” drives. Finally, besides the backlit keyboard, Dell also included the 1080p LCD, a TV tuner, and Bluetooth 3.0. The final tally for our test configuration is a much heftier $1425 at the time of writing. Is it worth it? As with so many other things in life, the answer is a nebulous “it depends”. Let’s discuss things a bit more before we get to the benchmarks.

AMD’s Radeon HD 6770 & Radeon HD 6750: The Retail Radeon 5700 Rebadge

We haven’t talked about it beyond a passing comment, but AMD still has some Radeon 6000 series cards that are OEM-only. We are of course referring to the Radeon HD 6770 and Radeon HD 6750, AMD’s Juniper-powered 5770 & 5750 rebadges for OEMs. While we’ve only recently seen the rest of the Northern Islands lineup launch in the retail space, in the OEM space the last-generation Juniper GPU has been filling out AMD’s lineup between Turks (6500/6600) and Barts (6800) based video cards.

The rationale for OEM space is rather straightforward: OEMs want/need something new to sell. More RAM, a Sandy Bridge CPU, a SSD – their 2011 computers need to look better than their 2010 computers, as they certainly don’t want to be seen as selling last year’s model for anything less than a steep discount. It was perhaps a foolish hope that these shenanigans would remain in the OEM market, as so far AMD has continued to keep the 5770 and 5750 even after the rest of Northern Islands has launched. But here we are, out with the old and in with the old: the 5770 and 5750 are getting rebadged in retail. Say hello to the Radeon HD 6770 and Radeon HD 6750.

	AMD Radeon HD 6770	AMD Radeon HD 5770	AMD Radeon HD 6750	AMD Radeon HD 5750
Stream Processors	800	800	720	720
Texture Units	40	40	36	36
ROPs	16	16	16	16
Core Clock	850MHz	850MHz	700MHz	700MHz
Memory Clock	1.2GHz (4.8GHz data rate) GDDR5	1.2GHz (4.8GHz data rate) GDDR5	1.15GHz (4.6GHz data rate) GDDR5	1.15GHz (4.6GHz data rate) GDDR5
Memory Bus Width	128-bit	128-bit	128-bit	128-bit
VRAM	1GB	1GB	1GB	1GB
FP64	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Transistor Count	1.04B	1.04B	1.04B	1.04B
Manufacturing Process	TSMC 40nm	TSMC 40nm	TSMC 40nm	TSMC 40nm
Price Point	?	~$110	?	~$110

There’s really no way to sugarcoat it, and even AMD isn’t really trying. It’s the same Juniper GPU on the same boards with the same clocks, the same power requirements, and the same performance. The only thing different between a 5700 series card and its 6700 series counterpart is the sticker on the card, the BIOS, and quite possibly the price.

Image Courtesy Best Buy

However to be fair to AMD, they have at least made some effort to improve on the 6700 series over the 5700 series through the BIOS. As you may recall, one of the big differences for the 6000 series over the 5000 series is that the 6000 series got HDMI 1.4a support, along with a UVD3 video decoder that was capable of decoding the additional resolutions and bitrates Blu-Ray 3D’s MVC(H.264) profiles require. These changes have been backported to Juniper to some extent.

UVD2.2 is fast enough to process MVC, so now the 6700 series can decode Blu-Ray 3D. Without any hardware on hand we can’t specifically test this, but we suspect AMD may have introduced a new PowerPlay state (or edited an existing one) to further ramp up Juniper’s core clocks when playing MVC content, as this would be the most practical way to increase the max bitrate UVD2.2 can handle, if indeed it couldn’t handle MVC bitrates at the usual core clocks. Update: AMD has confirmed our theory. In fact the UVD3 also have a Blu-Ray 3D PowerPlay state, which means UVD2 and UVD3 may be more similiar than we once thought.

Meanwhile HDMI 1.3 and HDMI 1.4a both have the same bandwidth requirements, so now the 6700 series is HDMI 1.4a capable through some BIOS magic – although we haven’t been able to get confirmation that this support extends beyond support for the frame-packed formats required for HDMI 3D, or in other words it may not support 2K x 4K resolutions and other features normally associated with HDMI 1.4a. Update: AMD confirmed that the 6700 series only supports the HDMI 3D portions of the HDMI 1.4a spec. Apparently this is consistent with Northern Islands, whcih doesn't support 2K x 4K resolutions over HDMI either.

The good news here is that we’re not immediately aware of any reason why these features can’t be fully backported to existing 5700 series cards. Although AMD technically refers to UVD2.2 having “firmware”, as far as we know everything is contained in the video card’s BIOS. If this is the case, then for any 5700 series designs being recycled for the 6700 series, it should be easy to use the 6700 series BIOS. Of course this wouldn’t be something AMD supports.

Ultimately AMD considers this rebadging a necessity to some degree. While everyone is free to speculate on whether there are ulterior motives, what is clear is that the 5700 series created a branding problem for AMD: the 5000 series was launched before ATI was rebranded AMD. So the 5770 and 5750 are still technically “ATI” cards, this being nearly 8 months after ATI was fully rebranded to be part of AMD. At the same time this makes AMD’s product stack consistent from top to bottom for both retail and OEMs: every current card from the 6450 to the 6990 is now a 6000 series cards. It’s not a particularly good reason, but it is what it is.

Ultimately our biggest concern at this point is pricing. AMD tells us that 6700 series pricing will be consistent with 5700 series pricing, but we have our doubts. 5770 has actually been really good – it regularly goes on sale for as low as $95, so if you don’t mind a MIR and the choice of only a couple of vendors, you’ve been able to grab a 5770 for under $100. This is cheaper than the 5750 most of the time, never mind what it does to the 6670 and NVIDIA’s lineup. What is NVIDIA’s lineup? The slightly faster GTX 550 Ti at $125+, and the 5750-like GTS 450 at $90+. Compared to everything AMD and NVIDIA, the 5770 is a very good deal; and this is why we’re concerned about the pricing.

Radeon HD 5700 Series Price History
	Launch	Today	Difference
Radeon HD 5770	$160	Approx $110	-$50
Radeon HD 5750	$130	Approx $110	-$20

We hope to be proven wrong here, but at this point in time there’s little reason for AMD and their partners to sell $100 5770s when there’s no competitive pressure to do so. A good bargain is another name for a product bringing in less profit than it should, and in the cut-throat semiconductor industry you usually need to grab what you can when you can. The concern we have is that it’s as good a time as any to realign 5770 prices with the competitive market and AMD’s product stack – it’s time for a price hike. There is no doubt in my mind that the first 6700 cards will cost more than the cheapest 5700 cards. The only question is whether prices will come back down once stores are fully stocked with 6700 cards as they are today with 5700 cards.

At the end of the day this rebadging seems to only benefit AMD and their partners, to the detriment of buyers. In a weird twist it’s a bit better than how they handled the 6800 series – at least the 6700 series isn’t slower than the 5700 series – but that’s not saying much. Besides the backported MVC/HDMI 1.4a features, the 6700 series lacks everything else that made the rest of the 6000 series an improvement over the 5000 series. There’s no DisplayPort 1.2, no MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 ASP decoding, no color correction, no improved tessellator, and no linear space color correction. With the exception of perhaps DP1.2 they’re not headlining features, but they’re glaring inconsistencies.

When NVIDIA played the rebadge game with G92 it didn’t help consumers then, and with AMD doing it today, it doesn’t help consumers now. Actually, G92 ultimately got a die shrink from 65nm to 55nm and various clockspeed bumps, so unless AMD makes a 28nm Juniper core this may end up being a worse deal.

It’s perhaps with a twinge of sadness to see this happening to Juniper. Juniper above all other AMD GPUs has been AMD’s workhorse. It was the GPUs game developers first saw in the summer of 2009 when AMD sampled their first DX11 parts, and we’re now coming up on 2 years later where it’s still selling strong. We’re glad to see it live on – it’s a great card and continues to be so at $99, but the rebadging adds a permanent tarnish to the reputation; an air of taking advantage of uninformed buyers that it will never escape. This would seem to be the fate of any GPU fortunate to live long enough to cross multiple generations: if you aren’t replaced, you’re renamed.

April 2011 Video Card MSRPs
NVIDIA	Price	AMD
GeForce GTX 590	$700	Radeon HD 6990
GeForce GTX 580	$480
GeForce GTX 570	$320	Radeon HD 6970
	$260	Radeon HD 6950 2GB
GeForce GTX 560 Ti	$240	Radeon HD 6950 1GB
	$200	Radeon HD 6870
GeForce GTX 460 1GB	$160	Radeon HD 6850
GeForce GTX 460 768MB	$150	Radeon HD 6790
GeForce GTX 550 Ti	$130
	?	Radeon HD 6770
	$99	Radeon HD 6670
GeForce GTS 450	$95-$110
	$79	Radeon HD 6570
GeForce GT 430	$50-$70	Radeon HD 5570
GeForce GT 220	$55	Radeon HD 6450
GeForce G 210	$30-$50	Radeon HD 5450

Famous Hackers

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, founders of Apple Computers, are both hackers. Some of their early exploits even resemble the questionable activities of some malicious hackers. However, both Jobs and Wozniak outgrew their malicious behavior and began concentrating on creating computer hardware and software. Their efforts helped usher in the age of the personal computer — before Apple, computer systems remained the property of large corporations, too expensive and cumbersome for average consumers.

Linus Torvalds, creator of Linux, is another famous honest hacker. His open source operating system is very popular with other hackers. He has helped promote the concept of open source software, showing that when you open information up to everyone, you can reap amazing benefits.

Richard Stallman, also known as “rms,” founded the GNU Project, a free operating system. He promotes the concept of free software and computer access. He works with organizations like the Free Software Foundation and opposes policies like Digital Rights Management.

On the other end of the spectrum are the black hats of the hacking world. At the age of 16, Jonathan James became the first juvenile hacker to get sent to prison. He committed computer intrusions on some very high-profile victims, including NASA and a Defense Threat Reduction Agency server. Online, Jonathan used the nickname (called a handle) “c0mrade.” Originally sentenced to house arrest, James was sent to prison when he violated parole.

Greg Finley/Getty Images
Hacker Kevin Mitnick, newly released from the Federal Correctional Institution in Lompoc, California.

Kevin Mitnick gained notoriety in the 1980s as a hacker who allegedly broke into the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) when he was 17 years old. Mitnick’s reputation seemed to grow with every retelling of his exploits, eventually leading to the rumor that Mitnick had made the FBI’s Most Wanted list. In reality, Mitnick was arrested several times for hacking into secure systems, usually to gain access to powerful computer software.

Kevin Poulsen, or Dark Dante, specialized in hacking phone systems. He’s famous for hacking the phones of a radio station called KIIS-FM. Poulsen’s hack allowed only calls originating from his house to make it through to the station, allowing him to win in various radio contests. Since then, he has turned over a new leaf, and now he’s famous for being a senior editor at Wired magazine.

Adrian Lamo hacked into computer systems using computers at libraries and Internet cafes. He would explore high-profile systems for security flaws, exploit the flaws to hack into the system, and then send a message to the corresponding company, letting them know about the security flaw. Unfortunately for Lamo, he was doing this on his own time rather than as a paid consultant — his activities were illegal. He also snooped around a lot, reading sensitive information and giving himself access to confidential material. He was caught after breaking into the computer system belonging to the New York Times.

It’s likely that there are thousands of hackers active online today, but an accurate count is impossible. Many hackers don’t really know what they are doing — they’re just using dangerous tools they don’t completely understand. Others know what they’re doing so well that they can slip in and out of systems without anyone ever knowing.

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35 Funny Computer Viruses (OH NOES)

35 Funny Computer Viruses (OH NOES) Not Useful but funny

1. PAUL REVERE VIRUS: This revolutionary virus does not horse around. It warns you of impending hard disk attack -- once if by LAN, twice if by C:.

2. POLITICALLY CORRECT VIRUS: Never calls itself a "virus," but instead refers to itself as an "electronic microorganism."

3. KATE GOSSELIN VIRUS: Keeps changing its appearance and refuses to go away, even after no one cares whether or not it is still present.

4. MARIO CUOMO VIRUS: It would be a great virus, but it refuses to run.

5. OPRAH WINFREY VIRUS: Your 200MB hard drive suddenly shrinks to 80MB, and then slowly expands back to 200MB. Also tries to take over all media on your computer.

6. AT&T VIRUS: Every three minutes it tells you what great service you are getting.

7. THE VERIZON WIRELESS VIRUS: Every three minutes it reminds you that you're paying too much for the AT&T virus.

8. TED TURNER VIRUS: Colorizes your monochrome monitor.

9. ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER VIRUS: Terminates and stays resident. It'll be back.

10. GOVERNMENT ECONOMIST VIRUS: Nothing works, but all your diagnostic software says everything is fine.

11. 2012 VIRUS: Probably harmless, but it makes a lot of people really uncomfortable just thinking about it.

12. FEDERAL BUREAUCRAT VIRUS: Divides your hard disk into hundreds of little units, each of which does practically nothing, but all of which claim to be the most important part of the computer.

13. GALLUP VIRUS: Sixty percent of the PCs infected will lose 38 percent of their data 14 percent of the time (plus or minus a 3.5 percent margin of error).

14. TIGER WOODS VIRUS: Corrupts 121 different files on your hard drive while claiming to be corrupt just one.

15. TEXAS VIRUS: Makes sure that it's bigger than any other file.

16. ADAM AND EVE VIRUS: Takes a couple of bytes out of your Apple.

17. MICHAEL JACKSON VIRUS: Hard to identifiy because it is constantly altering its appearance. This virus won't harm your PC, but your nose may fall off.

18. CONGRESSIONAL VIRUS: The computer locks up, screen splits with a message appearing on each half blaming the other side for the problem.

19. AIRLINE VIRUS: You're in Dallas, but your data is in Singapore.

20. FREUDIAN VIRUS: Your computer becomes obsessed with its own motherboard.

21. PBS VIRUS: Your PC stops every few minutes to ask for money.

22. ELVIS VIRUS: Your computer gets fat, slow, and lazy and then self destructs, only to resurface at shopping malls and service stations across rural America.

23. DR. CONRAD MURRAY VIRUS: Turns your printer into a document shredder.

24. NIKE VIRUS: Just Does It!

25. SEARS VIRUS: Your data won't appear unless you buy new cables, power supply, and a set of shocks.

26. JIMMY HOFFA VIRUS: Nobody can find it.

27. CONGRESSIONAL VIRUS II: Runs every program on the hard drive simultaneously, but doesn't allow the user to accomplish anything.

28. KEVORKIAN VIRUS: Helps your computer shut down whenever it wants to.

29. TILA TEQUILA VIRUS: Is completely irrelevant and no one cares about it. Tries to launch new sites in your browser.

30. STAR TREK VIRUS: Invades your system in places where no virus has gone before.

31. HEALTHCARE VIRUS: Will take your anti-virus software and share it with any other PC's in the neighborhood that lack protection.

32. GEORGE W. BUSH VIRUS: No one knows what this virus does as it is completely unintelligible.

33. CLEVELAND INDIANS VIRUS: Makes your 486/50 machine perform like a 286/AT.

34. LAPD VIRUS: It claims it feels threatened by the other files on your PC and erases them in "self-defense."

35. BALTIMORE ORIOLES VIRUS: Will cause your PC to make frequent mistakes and come in last in the reviews, but you still try to love it anyway.