Memory Bandwidth
AIDA64
This program has many tools for determining memory bandwidth as well as various latency values.
Memory Read
In this test, we see a result of 47,777MB/s from the ROG MAXIMUS XII EXTREME. This is slightly lower than the X570 test systems but a little faster than the other Intel systems we tested. When overclocked, there was a solid improvement with the results reaching 51,214MB/s.
Memory Write
The memory write test results are quite similar to those of the read test. The ROG MAXIMUS XII EXTREME achieves a score of 46,650MB/s at stock speeds. Weirdly, the MSI MPG Z490 does much better here despite being worse on the read test. X570 still has about the same distance on it that we saw in the earlier test. When overclocked, the Maximus XII Extreme achieves a result of 51.484MB/s.
Memory Copy
The results are considerably worse for the ROG MAXIMUS XII EXTREME at DDR4 3200MHz speeds with a result of 41,730MB/s. This is the second-worst result in the lineup. MSI’s MPG Z490 does much better here. Of course, when the Maximus XII Extreme is overclocked, it achieves a result of 46,865MB/s which is below that of X570 test systems at DDR4 3200MHz. For whatever reason, the AMD Ryzen systems are much faster on the copy test.
Sandra Memory Bandwidth
In this test, we see a pretty substantial difference between the ROG MAXIMUS XII EXTREME and the MSI MPG Z490. Overclocked, the Maximus XII Extreme only managed to achieve the same result as the MSI MPG Z490 did at DDR4 3200MHz.
Application Benchmarks
We are going to start with application and system benchmarks for comparisons, these are the kind of benchmarks that provide an overall performance score to compare with. These are also benchmarks that may either test the system as a whole, including many different real-world workloads, or stress the CPU in ways real-world everyday workloads are performed to produce a performance result.
Geekbench 5
Geekbench 5.1.1 was used for this test. It is a multi-platform test that is comparable across different CPU architectures.
Single Core
In this test, The ASUS ROG MAXIMUS XII EXTREME manages to pull ahead of all the X570 and Z390 systems. The difference between the MSI Z490 and the ASUS is within a margin of error and are functionally the same. Unsurprisingly, the Maximus XII Extreme was slower overclocked. This being a single thread test favors higher clock speeds and a 5.1GHz all-core overclock limits the single-core clocks by up to 200MHz. Therefore, we lost performance in this test as a result.
Multi-Core
Across the board, our results are quite similar. However, the ASUS ROG MAXIMUS XII EXTREME falls behind the MSI MPG Z490 once again. That said, the overclock does increase the score here as it should.
AIDA64 CPU Queen
Once again we see a rather small gap between our Intel test systems. This test seems to favor the newer Intel test boxes somewhat as well. Here we see a score of 132,710 compared to the MSI MPG Z490’s 133,714. That’s only 1,000 points or so and not even a 1% difference. When overclocked, the ROG MAXIMUS XII EXTREME achieves a result of 138,550.
SiSoft Sandra
We used SiSoftware Sandra version 2020.5.30.41 for all Sandra testing. The processor arithmetic Dhrystone and Whetstone performance results are represented in GFLOPS.
Dhrystone
In this test, we see a result of 562.46GFLOPS from the ROG MAXIMUS XII EXTREME. We also see an increase in 581.47GFLOPS when we overclock the Core i9-10900K to 5.1GHz. Though the MSI MPG Z490 is slightly faster at stock speeds.
Whetstone
In this instance, the ROG MAXIMUS XII EXTREME manages to beat the MSI MPG Z490. We see a result of 299GFLOPS for the stock system and 309.49GFLOPS when overclocked.
wPrime
Here we see very much improved results over the MSI MPG Z490. The stock result was 65.23 seconds and 63.08 seconds when overclocked.
Rendering Benchmarks
Here, we are looking at each CPU’s ability to perform rendering and encoding tasks.
Cinebench R20 Multithread
This is obviously AMD’s domain. That said, the results from the ROG MAXIMUS XII EXTREME are solid here. 6565 points overclocked and 6397 at stock speeds.
Cinebench R20 Single Thread
Give the clock speed advantages, Intel does very well here taking all top three spots in our comparison. The ROG MAXIMUS XII EXTREME comes in at 545 at stock speeds and slows down with a score of 528. This is due to the all core overclock being under the boost clock of the CPU at stock speeds. 5.3GHz vs. 5.1GHz.
Blender Open Data Benchmark
This is the Blender Open Beta Benchmark version 2.04. This Blender Benchmark allows you to download multiple demos for rendering and render up to six of them in sequence. This can take an extremely long time to run all of them. You also have the option of testing different versions of Blender from the same launcher. We chose two of the tests out of the six, which seemed to have a longer run time than the others.
Blender pavilion_barcelona
In our first Blender test, we see good results from the ROG MAXIMUS XII EXTREME when compared to the older Maximus XI APEX and the MSI MPG Z490 Gaming.
Blender Victor
Once again, we see very competitive results in this specific Blender test. There is a massive improvement over the old 9900K based system. The ROG MAXIMUS XII EXTREME completed the test in 11.53 minutes at stock speeds and 11.25 minutes when overclocked.
V-Ray Benchmark
V-Ray 4.10.07 was used for this test.
In this test, we saw a result of 17,880 K samples at stock speeds and 18,631 K samples when we overclocked our Core i9-10900K.
Handbrake
This is an encoding using the 1080P fast 30 preset. The only changes made to the application were disabling of GPU acceleration. The video was a 4K video at 4 minutes and 42 seconds in length.
We saw a result of 2.81 minutes overclocked and 2.92 minutes at stock speeds. This was only slightly faster than the 2.93 minutes we saw on the MSI MPG Z490.
POV-Ray 3.7
In this test, the ROG MAXIMUS XII EXTREME was actually slower when overclocked. Being a multi-thread test, this isn’t surprising. The MSI MPG Z490 and Maximus XII Extreme are super close here.
Gaming Benchmarks
3DMark 10
Generally, Intel has an advantage here, but we don’t see a lead in 3DMark 10 from the ROG MAXIMUS XII EXTREME without overclocking.
Destiny 2
Interestingly, the ROG MAXIMUS XII EXTREME test systems dominates the minimum and average frame rates but falters a bit at stock speeds when it comes to maximum frame rates. This changes when overclocked, as the ROG MAXIMUS XII EXTREME system nearly takes the top spot.
At 4K, we see virtually the same behavior. The ROG MAXIMUS XII EXTREME does very well in the minimum and average ranges, but the maximums are rather low.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider
Once again, we see an outstanding performance from the ROG MAXIMUS XII EXTREME. However, in this case, it does very well when it comes to maximum frame rates and not just minimums and averages.
Hitman 2
The trend continues here. Overclocked, we see an oddity as it dominates in minimums and averages, but falls way short when overclocked in terms of maximum FPS. However, at stock speeds the ROG MAXIMUS XII EXTREME achieves the highest result.
While the graphs make it look like the ROG MAXIMUS XII EXTREME falters a bit on some of these scores, the spread of frame rates across the range is rather small. They are often so close that the difference is within a margin of error.
Ghost Recon Breakpoint
Again, we see very consistent frame rates from all the test systems in this game.
Once again, we see almost identical results across the board from all of our test systems. This is because the test is very GPU limited.