ASRock X99 Extreme6 (LGA 2011-3) Motherboard Review

SATA, M.2 and USB Performance

To test the storage performance in our motherboard reviews we use AIDA’s Disk Benchmark utility built into their AIDA64 Engineer Edition software package and run read and write tests. We run each of the benchmark tests on a SATA III, USB 3.0 and M.2 device. For SATA III testing we use a Sandisk Extreme Pro 240GB SATA III SSD, for USB 3.0 testing we use the Patriot Supersonic Magnum USB 3.0 flash drive and for M.2 testing we use Plextor’s 256GB M.2 M6e SSD. The drives are always formatted before use.

Linear Read

Linear Write

The benefit of the Ultra M.2 port, along with other PCIe Gen3 X4 based (32 Gbps) M.2 ports, seems to be an extra 60MB/s read throughput on our Plextor M6E M.2 SSD. In the grand scheme of things that’s peanuts but as M.2 SSDs get cheaper, faster and are offered in higher densities the gap between boards running 10Gbps M.2 ports and 32 Gbps ones will widen.