Layout

At a first glance the ASRock X99E-ITX/AC leaves a very good impression with its good looking design. The manufacturer decided to go for a combination of black and blue, which suites nicely and in the end you get an aesthetic looking product. The layout had to be carefully planned even into the last tiny little details. Since the ITX formfactor really doesn't leave a lot of space, this was actually a necessity. Apart from that ASRock had to do compromises on the features side. For instance there are only two DIMM slots and there is a ILM-type socket. ASRock simply had persue new paths since otherwise it would have been impossible to squeeze an X99 chipset into an ITX formfactor. A quick look at the heatspreaders shows, that they're of high quality and the do add some weight to the board, which always leaves a good impression.



ASRock equipped the X99E-ITX/AC with a digital six phase power design. In this case the manufacturer is using DrMOS chokes, which are capable of dealing with up to 60A current. The fact that every single phase supports 60A is a reasonable choice, especially considering that there is an "OC Socket" on this motherboard. Looking for the controller chip, which is taking care of the entire VRM stage of this little board we find a six-phase controller chip. In order to better use the limited space, some of the VRM component have been moved to the backside of the motherbaord.

Due to limited space, this board only features two DIMM-slots. Officially supported is DDR4 with up to 3200+ MHz. Also supported are Xtreme Memory Profiles (XMP) in version 2.0. If you equip both slots with 8 GB modules, rig with up to 16 GB memory can be assembled.

On the X99E-ITX/AC PCH as well as current converters receive separate cooling. Checking on the two VRM coolers we see there is no heatpipe connecting. Other than that the weight of this board is quite high, which is also partially due to cooling blocks. Subjectively speaking a high weight is a first indicator for a quality motherboard.

Page 1 - Introduction	Page 15 - UC Bench
Page 2 - Specs and Delivery	Page 16 - Super Pi 1M / 32M
Page 3 - Features	Page 17 - wPrime 1024M Multi Core
Page 4 - Layout	Page 18 - Cinebench
Page 5 - Connectors and I/O	Page 19 - Tomb Raider
Page 6 - BIOS	Page 20 - Metro Last Light
Page 7 - Test setup	Page 21 - Thief
Page 8 - Preview / Gallery	Page 22 - Right Mark Audio Analyzer
Page 9 - 3DMark	Page 23 - BCLK Overclocking
Page 10 - 3DMark 11	Page 24 - Power Consumption
Page 11 - 3DMark Vantage	Page 25 - Performance Rating
Page 12 - PC Mark 8	Page 26 - Price Comparison
Page 13 - SiSoft Sandra 1	Page 27 - Conclusion
Page 14 - SiSoft Sandra 2