ASUS ROG Zenith Extreme Alpha review

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Final Words & Conclusion

Final words & conclusion

Glorious is the word that comes to mind while testing the new Zenith Extreme Alpha. It is worthy of the 'extreme' in that name, and I do say that with emphasis, as previously ASUS motherboards looked better and had more features on the Intel platform. The Zenith Extreme Alpha changes that, it's a fantastic looking product that can match whatever the X299 equivalent is offering. And that makes the Zenith Extreme Alpha really unique. ASUS did an impressive job with the ROG Zenith Extreme Alpha. We had little to no issues with the board whatsoever. Our 48 threaded Threadripper performance was spot on and the tweaking experience as expected. Gaming then, well the WX series just isn't made for hyper high framerates. But overall it'll do just fine, it's the one remark I can make really. 


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How can this not bring a smile to your face? (1)

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How can this not bring a smile to your face? (2)


ASUS simply delivers, they make as good use as they can from the many available PCIe 3.0 and 2.0 lanes and made sure that every hip and trendy feature is available. This includes 10 Gbps USB 3.1, Ethernet, even blood-thirsty, feisty, fast 10 Gbps Ethernet with the extra board. Then there is an abundance of storage options ranging from SATA3 to triple M.2. Add to that the many x16 PCIe slots and WIFI in the form of AC. Then they included a small OLED status screen and a really nice RGB lighting system. It is all subtle and sweet to look at, yet extreme. 


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Dough

We need to talk about money. The cost of ownership of this bad boy is a daunting 649 USD / Euros. The good thing is that you save money by buying a Threadripper processor compared to team blue processors. So yeah, I am inclined to say that the money is ridiculous, but you gain from the better value of a Threadripper processor. You can tell where the money went though, nothing on this board seems, looks or even feels cheap. The add-in DIMM2 cards for extra properly cooled full-speed M.2 SSDs, and the advanced 10 GigE Ethernet jack would easily cost you 100~150 bucks each in retail alone. Then there's the intricate design, component selection, strong VRM, proper VRM cooling, quality audio and things like Dual-Band AC WIFI.   

Performance 

You have seen the results. Funny story: tests and benchmarks that normally take 5 minutes to finish do that in half, or even less than half the time it usually takes. Many threaded applications will fly in terms of relative performance. And make no mistake, single threaded performance is also really good as most Threadrippers can boost towards 4.0~4.2 GHz with an extra 200 MHZ XFR allowance as well. You can clock and thus tweak all cores on this proc to 4.0 to 4.2 GHz as well. Albeit, you do need to wonder if that is fair in terms of extra heat levels and power consumption. But sure, if you want to, you could as the motherboard will not be any hindrance and actually facilitate you to do so.


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Tweaking

Anything in the current Ryzen architecture based series does clock to roughly a max of, give or take, 4.2 GHz, but will also end there with an all core tweak. Apply a 41x multiplier. Use a voltage offset that gets you close or just set at 1.40 volts and you should be able to rock and roll. Be advised though, tweaking creates more heat and thus make sure you have enough cooling. We surely recommend some form of liquid cooling. On the cooling-block / processor surface area coverage we've said enough, it's not an issue. None whatsoever. Obviously, tweaking also will increase your power consumption (when the PC is stressed), please do keep that in mind. One note here though, tweaking does remain to be a bit of a conundrum. Intel goes higher in their clocks and can often reach 4.5 to 5 GHz. That's where some residual games perf is found in CPU bound situations. It also would have been nice to see a per core or even per CCX (per 4 cores) tweak. Say, four cores at 4200 MHz, four at 4000 MHz and the rest at 3700 MHz. That way you can balance heat and energy consumption better while getting more perf in your main and prioritized threads. The fact that you can clock 24 cores at ~4.1 GHz stable at fairly low voltage, however, is pretty amazing stuff. And that's where we land in terms of performance.


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The bottom line

You have the performance, the threads and let's not forget the connectivity with the many PCIe Gen 3.0 lanes available. Then 10 Gig Ethernet, AC WIFi, quad X16 slots, an OLED screen, nice DIMMs, good BIOS, RGB and just a sheer fantastic looking and designed motherboard. ASUS went crazy and put everything they could on the PCB. Tweaking wise, the processor is the limit :) The board can go way higher and will facilitate anything the Threadripper processors can do with up-to DDR4 3600 MHz clocked on that quad-channel memory as well. We like the small OLED status LCD and we really like that subtle RGB implementation (AURA SYNC) and on and on and on. I have a hard time justifying the amount of money you need to put down for this board, of course. So I'll just leave the final judgment on that to you guys as you are the ones that decide whether or not you are willing to drop that much cash on a motherboard. And sure, there will be plenty of X399 motherboards to choose from in all kinds of ranges and lines. This simply happens to be the most extreme SKU in the most enthusiast segment. You've seen the options, the aesthetics and you have seen what it can do. The X399 Zenith Extreme Alpha is made and designed with a notch of love from its engineers, you can tell. It sits in the absolute highest rankings of X399 motherboards and, if you deem it worth it, it should be on your short-list. I will give it our hard to earn Top Pick award, not based on price though. No, purely based on the hardware, looks, tweaking experience and tremendous amount of refined high-end features as this is hardware pr0n.

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