ECS X79R-AX Motherboard

The X79 platform is currently the flagship desktop product line and is a testament to any enthusiasts search for extreme performance from their PC. That said, most enthusiasts tend to overlook some companies in favor of others because of their status in the market. One such company is ECS, which isn’t really well-known for offering high-end components but that’s changing as ECS has been aggressively bolstering their line-up of products from motherboards to graphics cards, slowly introducing newer and better technologies and quality components in their products in hopes to shed their entry-level status in the market.

Today we have ECS’s solution in the high-end Sandy Bridge-E platform: the X79R-AX. Packing a whole array of features and connectivity, ECS hopes that this member of their Black Extreme™ series helps put the company in hot contention in the enthusiast market. Those not familiar with ECS might want to known that the company is one the long-running motherboard manufacturers in the business and offer a wide array of products, most of which aimed at the budget and entry-level segment of the market. This has made ECS a go-to company for budget-minded consumers. As mentioned earlier, they have recently resorted to aggressive marketing to help instill their presence and help increase awareness of their ever-improving quality and internal standards in creating products. Will the X79R-AX make ECS a contender in the SB-E space, let’s check it out and make this showy! [toggle title="Specifications"]

Straight off ECS’s website. [/toggle] ECS has put up a mini-site for the X79R-AX, it’s quite adorable really. Check it out here: http://www.ecs.com.tw/extra/x79rax/index.html

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TEST SETUP and OVERCLOCKING

We would like to thank Kingston, Intel, and ECS for providing the hardware and equipment for this review.

Our test processor is Intel’s top model in the Sandy Bridge E line-up, the i7-3960X. This processor features an unlocked multiplier amongst its other features and is what makes this a very flexible processor. The ECS X79R-AX features a Quick OC feature as well as three overclocking profiles: Light, Medium and Heavy. These profiles basically make changes to the BCLK amongst other things to achieve an overclock but nothing spectacular so we proceed by overclocking manually. Sadly, this is where it gets tough. The ECS X79R-AX’s overclocking options is stubborn and the stock BIOS was certainly lacking a few options. A BIOS update gave us more options. Still, manually setting the voltages is a challenge all on its own. The settings will sometimes revert to automatic and lose any customizations we’ve set. We’ve basically had it with that and just went ahead and ussed the Quick OC option which fortunately gave us a stable 4.5Ghz overclock via Turbo Boost on all cores.

PERFORMANCE

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CONCLUSION

The ECS X79R-AX has shown us it can hang with our other Intel X79 boards, performing within the same range as the others. Compared to Intel’s DX79SI, it was quite close and are negligible. Overclocking our 3960X gave us a better look at how this motherboard performed and it started to trail behind the DX79SI. Speaking of overclocking, this is one the board’s low points. Couple that with some quirks in the UEFI, working with the X79R-AX’s UEFI is, for a lack of a better word, difficult.



Most of our issues came from the overclocking options itself, with the stock BIOS version having lots of issues. A BIOS update fixed that for us and gave us some new options but we still encountered issues most notable the inability to save custom voltage settings. Another issue with the stock BIOS was problems with nVidia cards showing up garbage onscreen. ECS however redeems itself with its one-touch automatic overcloking options which managed to bring us to a stable 4.5GHz. We felt we could’ve gone higher but our Corsair H80 and Intel’s RTS2011LC just couldn’t tame the temperatures to let us go further. A much more refined BIOS would’ve really helped the X79R-AX achieve a lot more. In a more positive light, ECS’s choice of including a rich assortment of connectivity to this motherboard really makes it stand-out. With twelve SATA ports, 2 eSATA ports, 2 Gigabit LAN ports, 6 USB3.0 and 10 USB2.0 ports in addition to built-in Wifi and Bluetooth, this is a really, really solid board with plenty of options for connectivity. We could’ve wished that ECS had went with 8 DIMM slots as well as a larger VRM heatsink. I was also disappointed with the Qooltech IV thermo-reactive styling on the VRM heatsink. The Qooltech strip remained red/orange all throughout usage and with large cooling solution, this will most likely be obscured and out of view. Value-wise, this board retails for around $300 and no word of local availability. The X79R-AX contends in its price range with plenty other X79 motherboards but the majority of which lack the rich connectivity that this board comes with out of the box. Personally, I would pair this board with a 3930K and use it in the office for everyday use.



In closing, the X79R-AX is recommended for people going the X79 path with a 3820 or 3930K and have no intention of doing some major overclocks and aren’t too concerned about a 2-5% performance gap with other solutions. Hopefully ECS will put out a BIOS revision that will help unleash the X79R-AX maximum potential and make it a true Extreme motherboard.