Who's buying Skylake-X? (You may now change your vote)

[Arachnotronic]

I'm subscribed to that thread as well. There is a lot of conflicting information right now. OC3d did a video on YouTube and his temps were normal so maybe there are bad batches?

Getting a 7740k is a complete waste of money since alot of the motherboard features are gimped. Might as well just stick to the z270 platform.

7740 gives you a nice upgrade path. Z270 is a dead end.

 

[coercitiv]

7740 gives you a nice upgrade path. Z270 is a dead end.

The upgrade is already here, it's called 7800X. The only other sensible alternative is to wait for Coffee Lake.

 

[Arachnotronic]

The upgrade is already here, it's called 7800X. The only other sensible alternative is to wait for Coffee Lake.

True, the 7800X overclocked should be a very nice processor. +2 cores compared to the 7740X and more PCIe lanes.

At stock, that 7740X is kind of a monster though, with 4.5GHz all-core turbo...

 

[Nebor]

I bent 2 pins (for the first time in my life) on my evga x99 ftw k board while trying to figure out my suddenly high temps (turns out it was a bubble in my corsair h110i line) on Friday, so I ordered the newegg supersaver bundle with the 7900x, asus x299 deluxe, and gskill trident 3200mhz 16gb kit. I ordered an extra memory kit since I seem to remember that having all the channels full helped performance (not sure if that applies to skylake.) It should all be here Thursday. Pairing it with 2x1080 FTWs in SLI, a Samsung 960 1tb, and an hgst 8tb. Hopefully my power supply can handle it, I don't remember the brand or wattage.

 

[dlerious]

I'm subscribed to that thread as well. There is a lot of conflicting information right now. OC3d did a video on YouTube and his temps were normal so maybe there are bad batches?

Didn't Der8auer say Asus recalled one of their boards over the issue? I see Tom used an Asus board that had a 4-pin as well as the 8-pin and had his in a case with fans blowing on the VRM - Der8auer also said temps were OK when he put a fan over the VRM.

 

[Timmah!]

Go with the MSI X299 Carbon AC. I built two systems with it the other day and I'm having no issues.

Just make sure to update the BIOS on the MSI ASAP, the one it ships with is pretty bad (so I did have issues at the beginning, obviously).

So, MSI you say? Hmmm, thats tempting, its the one board actually on stock over here (others expected to be 14.7. or still unknown date), so if i ordered today, i can have it both and CPU on Wednesday, Thursday...

Safe to say though, funnily, MSI was one brand i did not even consider for whatever reason, my preference was Gigabyte and then perhaps Asus as alternative... but if you say its quality, i am starting to thinking over it. Already watched some utube video

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Anyone using the Aorus Gaming 9 or Gaming 7? If so, thoughts? I wasn't initially happy with my Aorus X370 Gaming K5, but this last BIOS update seems to have at least resolved the memory issue so maybe I'll give Gigabyte a look. Not sure I'd pay the Gaming 9 price if the Rampage is in the same price range though.

 

[Arachnotronic]

So, MSI you say? Hmmm, thats tempting, its the one board actually on stock over here (others expected to be 14.7. or still unknown date), so if i ordered today, i can have it both and CPU on Wednesday, Thursday...

Safe to say though, funnily, MSI was one brand i did not even consider for whatever reason, my preference was Gigabyte and then perhaps Asus as alternative... but if you say its quality, i am starting to thinking over it. Already watched some utube video

Yeah, MSI is not usually my go to brand (either ASUS for high end or ASRock for cheap), but the MSI was appealing to me mainly because it had Intel Wi-Fi and was actually in stock (unlike my first choice, Gigabyte AORUS Gaming 9, which I wanted for the really nice audio solution...).

Happy with the board overall, and I have no reservations recommending it.

 

[jmelgaard]

Didn't Der8auer say Asus recalled one of their boards over the issue? I see Tom used an Asus board that had a 4-pin as well as the 8-pin and had his in a case with fans blowing on the VRM - Der8auer also said temps were OK when he put a fan over the VRM.

You should probably watch the video (I am not going to sum it up here), otherwise your comment just risks coming out as "uninformed", as I would say its far from what he states and far from that simple...

But for now it just leaves us with more questions IMO... I really hope that Tom will dive more into this as he said he might want to, and also the get a response from Der8auer and even more people getting into this things so we can get things cleared up, was it just some bad initial boards that caused this or is there potentially a combined issue?...

 

[wildhorse2k]

My motherboard maker preferences are in general in this order:

1. Asus - they made a lot of X99 boards, many workstation boards, their top X370 board is the best. It seems for X299 they are ok. Using DIMM slot for M.2 seems to be a very good idea as they should be easy to cool there.
   
2. ASRock - cheaper option to Asus, X99 Taichi was the best non workstation board. X370 Taichi is also good. But with X299 they bungled things up. Their X299 boards are designed badly, bad PCIe slot placement, insufficient power delivery (only one 8 pin connector for CPU!), competition has solved M.2 better (better cooling), no 4 evenly spaced PCIe board with 8 memory slots. Avoid ASRock on X299.
   
3. Gigabyte - for some reason they continue to include the hated Killer LAN. But other than this they seem ok on X299. Good VRM, good power delivery (two 8 pin connectors).
4. MSI - they used to cheap out on VRM, don't rush to release AGESA BIOSes for X370. On X299 offer ok power delivery (8pin + 4pin connector) and VRM, but only 2 M.2 slots.

I would probably go with Asus or Gigabyte if I was buying now.

 

[Arachnotronic]

My motherboard maker preferences are in general in this order:

1. Asus - they made a lot of X99 boards, many workstation boards, their top X370 board is the best. It seems for X299 they are ok. Using DIMM slot for M.2 seems to be a very good idea as they should be easy to cool there.
   
2. ASRock - cheaper option to Asus, X99 Taichi was the best non workstation board. X370 Taichi is also good. But with X299 they bungled things up. Their X299 boards are designed badly, bad PCIe slot placement, insufficient power delivery (only one 8 pin connector for CPU!), competition has solved M.2 better (better cooling), no 4 evenly spaced PCIe board with 8 memory slots. Avoid ASRock on X299.
   
3. Gigabyte - for some reason they continue to include the hated Killer LAN. But other than this they seem ok on X299. Good VRM, good power delivery (two 8 pin connectors).
4. MSI - they used to cheap out on VRM, don't rush to release AGESA BIOSes for X370. On X299 offer ok power delivery (8pin + 4pin connector) and VRM, but only 2 M.2 slots.

I would probably go with Asus or Gigabyte if I was buying now.

KILLER LAN is apparently really bad, both wireless and wired.

I don't know why Gigabyte uses them, or why MSI uses them on the higher-end X299 offering (M7 ACK).

 

[ManyThreads]

KILLER LAN is apparently really bad, both wireless and wired.

I don't know why Gigabyte uses them, or why MSI uses them on the higher-end X299 offering (M7 ACK).

Why is Killer LAN so bad? Can you elaborate? I was thinking of changing my TUF 1 order to the Aorus 7 but maybe not if it has crappy LAN... I have a 180 Mbps connection, can I assume it wouldn't even be able to handle that sustained maximum?

 

[TahoeDust]

Figured out the deal with the Voltage I was having. For some reason every time I was setting the manual voltage it was changing the adaptive voltage control to "Auto" which apparently means "Enabled". By manually setting it to "Disabled", it is holding the set voltage. Only downside is that now it is not lowering voltage when idling. If I enable Adaptive voltage, it will run a higher voltage than being commanded.


I already ordered a Asus Prime Deluxe, so I am still switching to that later this week. I just much prefer the Asus bios.

Right now I am finally back to doing so stability/temp testing at 1.225v.

 

[Arachnotronic]

Why is Killer LAN so bad? Can you elaborate? I was thinking of changing my TUF 1 order to the Aorus 7 but maybe not if it has crappy LAN... I have a 180 Mbps connection, can I assume it wouldn't even be able to handle that sustained maximum?

http://www.pcgamer.com/motherboards-with-killer-network-adapters-arent-worth-your-money/

Also read the comments. This KILLER stuff is just problematic. I suppose if you use the plain Qualcomm/Atheros drivers you'll be fine, but don't pay extra just for KILLER NIC.

 

[crashtech]

I always spec Intel NICs. They just work, and with just about any OS, even those with minimal driver libraries.

 

[Arachnotronic]

I always spec Intel NICs. They just work, and with just about any OS, even those with minimal driver libraries.

Intel Ethernet and Intel Wi-Fi work great.

I've had mixed results with other vendors, so I try to stick with Intel. Not the flashiest solutions, but they are dependable. And that's all I really want.

 

[JoeRambo]

New I always spec Intel NICs. They just work, and with just about any OS, even those with minimal driver libraries.

If Intel's NIC is an option for personal PC or server stuff i always go with them. Esp on Linux their support is golden.

 

[TahoeDust]

Alright. I can call my 7820x completely stable at 4.7GHz on 1.225v. Cooling is a H115i with push/pull Noiseblocker 140mm fans. RAM is Corsair 3200MHz running stock 16-18-18-36 timing. Mesh was set to 3200MHz.

Here are the real world numbers...

In Realbench for 15 minute test the hottest core was #3. It hit 78c.

In Prime with AVX in a 20 minute test the hottest core was #2. It hit 88c. AVX offset was -500MHz) Personally I consider Prime with AVX a very unrealistic usage scenarios for me, so I am OK with this.

In Cinebench it scored 2035cb in Multi thread and 204cb Single Core

AIDA Cache and Memory looks like this...

Just for shits and gigs here are some 3D benches with a 1080ti FTW3...

http://www.3dmark.com/fs/13034422

http://www.3dmark.com/spy/2015990

 

[RichUK]

Try geekbench - http://geekbench.com/

 

[TahoeDust]

Try geekbench - http://geekbench.com/

 

[RichUK]

Nice Multi-Core score. Here's mine for comparison, though only 4C/8T:

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Nice TahoeDust - those temps are very acceptable.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Got any VRM temp info for us?

 

[TahoeDust]

Got any VRM temp info for us?

After 20 minutes of Prime95 with AVX it hit a terrifying 63*...about in line with what OC3D saw in their testing.

 

[Archer27]

I think this whole VRM thing is overblown. Results are showing that most boards are doing just fine, including my own TUF Mark 1.
As long as there is 8+4 power on the board for CPU power, there is no reason to avoid this platform. After I return from my vacation I will run some benches and stress tests myself.