Intel X299 Platform Called a "VRM Disaster" by Overclocker der8auer

[Duality92]

LOL...

Wasn't meant to be funny

 

[Hood]

You have clearly said X299 is the best HEDT platform ever though, on multiple occasions iirc, and you define why it should be regarded as such.

DMI3 replaces DMI2 (much faster bus to chipset). X299 has 24 PCIe 3.0 lanes, X99 only has 8 PCIe 2.0 lanes. Lithography 22 nm vs 32 nm. Default memory speed is higher (2666 vs 2400). Same number of USB ports, loses 2 SATA ports, but gains at least 2 M.2 ports. Finally has the same specs as mainstream chipset, unlike all previous HEDT chipsets., which were always a generation behind. X299 is a decent upgrade from X99.

 

[Breit]

Read the comments on his youtube video:

You know part of the CPU heatsink's job is to move air over the VRM heatsink right? When you use a water block you dont have air moving around the socket and thus you get overheated VRMs. I guess der8auer just expects board manufacturers to start using VRM heatsinks with active fans. I dont think this is necessary, atleast not on the low end boards hes talking about ie. gigabyte gaming 3 or asus prime.

As for the 8 pin CPU power connector, its rated for 336 watts but his power supply only uses 6 wires for that 8 pin cable so I'm not surprised that its overheating.

Intel itself is recommending watercooling / an AIO for Skylake-X. Heck they even sell an AIO themselves for Skylake-X.

 

[Breit]

DMI3 replaces DMI2 (much faster bus to chipset). X299 has 24 PCIe 3.0 lanes, X99 only has 8 PCIe 2.0 lanes. Lithography 22 nm vs 32 nm. Default memory speed is higher (2666 vs 2400). Same number of USB ports, loses 2 SATA ports, but gains at least 2 M.2 ports. Finally has the same specs as mainstream chipset, unlike all previous HEDT chipsets., which were always a generation behind. X299 is a decent upgrade from X99.

What about that Intel VROC shit? Great innovation, right?

 

[noti5see]

X299 has been a trainwreck from the start. Worse IPC, worse design. Damn.... Poor intel so eager to deliver.

Guess Intel had delivered a stillborn product.

 

[Frick]

DMI3 replaces DMI2 (much faster bus to chipset). X299 has 24 PCIe 3.0 lanes, X99 only has 8 PCIe 2.0 lanes. Lithography 22 nm vs 32 nm. Default memory speed is higher (2666 vs 2400). Same number of USB ports, loses 2 SATA ports, but gains at least 2 M.2 ports. Finally has the same specs as mainstream chipset, unlike all previous HEDT chipsets., which were always a generation behind. X299 is a decent upgrade from X99.

"Decent upgrade from X99" is a more modest statement than "best HEDT platform ever made", and one easy to accept, as it's technically correct.

 

[Aenra]

I beg to differ.. this is at best slandering.
Only AMD has disasters. Intel has tiny "teething" issues that are perfectly acceptable, never amount to any danger or woes and are on a par with what every quality-oriented customer should come to expect from a company such as Intel.

Only AMD has disasters. Everything's fine here, move along, lol

 

[nem..]

 

[Dimi]

I wonder what would happen if you OC a Ryzen 7 1800X to 5Ghz...

 

[efikkan]

For Intel's part, he blames them for the short product launch which was pulled in from August to June, giving the motherboard manufacturers in der8auer's words "almost zero time for developing proper products."

Then der8auer is an idiot for making such a ridiculous claim. Intel targeting a mid-summer release has been known since last fall, and confirmed in January.

He also claims in the video that the heatsinks are really the only problem, not the VRMs themselves. Nobody needed to invent new heatsinks, and since engineering samples has been available since last fall, no sane person can blame Intel for this.

If anyone remember the Ryzen launch just a few months ago, it had quite a few issues at launch. If there are some bad X299 boards out there, just wait for proper reviews and stop making a fuss about it.

X299 has been a trainwreck from the start. Worse IPC, worse design. Damn.... Poor intel so eager to deliver.

Stop spreading lies. Skylake-X has the highest IPC of any x86 CPU so far.
And "worse design", the claimed "VRM disaster" has nothing to do with Intel.

Threadripper. Tho it won't be able to match the best performance examples of Skylake-X it will bring much lower prices, more cores for less price, proper soldered IHS and feature parity for all models and 20 more PCI-E lanes compared to Skylake-X.

Specs per price doesn't matter, real performance per price does.
PCIe lanes is a fair argument if you actually need them, which will probably only be people running intensive compute tasks on four GPUs.

They need to make functional heatsinks again, like the ones used on the ASUS X99M WS

I usually build machines with workstation boards, which has always turned out to be a smart choice.
You might think that motherboards in 2017 are a no-brainer, and you can just grab any board and it will be equally good. But in my experience motherboards are the main cause of stability problems. It's not like any of them are perfect, but at least for workstation boards the money is spent on stuff that matters, not $100 of crap just to put more features on the box.

 

[Prince Valiant]

Problems with Intel? Never!

Intelhotep...

Not that I disagree with people saying that we should let proper reviews roll around .

 

[GC_PaNzerFIN]

I have always bought the HEDT platform when there is a new generation motherboard chipset, and skip the CPU upgrade cycle.

Guess what, not this time.

 

[Tangente]

What about that Intel VROC shit? Great innovation, right?

As far as I understand the VROC will work with 3rd party NVMe drives - you will need Intel drives only for bootable RAID. And for RAID 0 (which is most common type for enthusiast users) you won't need any HW key. Beside that you are still alowed to create SW RAID, i.e. nobody will force you to use VROC if you do not want to. It's just a choice. And in a light of possible future Optane drives I think it is very good choice to have. It is no shit in my eyes.

 

[Tangente]

Btw I am always surprised how CPU (and GPU) topics can fire up so much emotions in a supposedly rational and technically thinking guys. I was looking forward to X299 platform and I do not think it's so much flawed but still I decided to wait couple of months to give motherboard manufactures a time to tune their products. I am also happy for AMD's competitiveness! Their Ryzen CPUs are great; sadly the corresponding chipset it's not (for my use). It has very few PCIe lanes and generally all X370 boards are very low on features (i.e. more LAN or more M.2, Thunderbolt 3 etc) then their Z270/X99/X299 counerparts. E.g for my work I need at least 4 LAN RJ-45 connectors, idealy one of them 5 or 10 Gbit - this is something no AMD motherboard can give me. Threadripper looks very promising as a CPU but I have a feeling that motherboards for this CPU will have even harder time then X299 boards now. But we will see!

 

[Frick]

Btw I am always surprised how CPU (and GPU) topics can fire up so much emotions in a supposedly rational and technically thinking guys. I was looking forward to X299 platform and I do not think it's so much flawed but still I decided to wait couple of months to give motherboard manufactures a time to tune their products. I am also happy for AMD's competitiveness! Their Ryzen CPUs are great; sadly the corresponding chipset it's not (for my use). It has very few PCIe lanes and generally all X370 boards are very low on features (i.e. more LAN or more M.2, Thunderbolt 3 etc) then their Z270/X99/X299 counerparts. E.g for my work I need at least 4 LAN RJ-45 connectors, idealy one of them 5 or 10 Gbit - this is something no AMD motherboard can give me. Threadripper looks very promising as a CPU but I have a feeling that motherboards for this CPU will have even harder time then X299 boards now. But we will see!

To be fair, neither can Z270/X99/X299. I don't know of any motherboard capable of that NIC config. 4xGbE is doable (by Asus and Supermicro afaict) but I have just assumed it's because Zen is still very new compared to Intels deeply entreched ecosystem. Asus and Asrock should get out some interesting things in time.

(btw, looking for these boards made me find the Asrock Z270 Supercarrier, which now is my favourite motherboard ever)

 

[Tangente]

To be fair, neither can Z270/X99/X299. I don't know of any motherboard capable of that NIC config. 4xGbE is doable (by Asus and Supermicro afaict) but I have just assumed it's because Zen is still very new compared to Intels deeply entreched ecosystem. Asus and Asrock should get out some interesting things in time.

(btw, looking for these boards made me find the Asrock Z270 Supercarrier, which now is my favourite motherboard ever)

Exactly. And the Supercarrier is awesome! ASRock is the only manufacturer which have few (I guess exactly three) boards with 2 LANs + 5 or 10Gbit plus PCIe 3.0 x4 for another dual-port adapter. If they made something like X299 Supercarrier I am all in.

 

[MrGenius]

Starting with last week I started testing CPUs for Caseking internally. So we can..uh..find what kind of clocks we can offer for pre-tested CPUs. And also what kind of mainboards we would use for our systems. And during the testing I figured out that...uh..basically I cannot use any mainboard. Because all those mainboards are not properly designed.

"Basically" you cannot use any mainboard to pre-test CPUs? Then how did you know the chip you were using was good for 5GHz? If you "basically" cannot use any mainboard to test it at 5GHz.

And what I..what I did was I used the 5GHz CPU I showed in one of my previous videos. Because I knew what kind of voltages and clocks I can reach with that CPU.

Oh, so there's a video which will explain how and why you knew the chip you were using was good for 5GHz with a certain amount of volts. And presumably show which mainboard you used for that. Even though you "cannot use any mainboard" for that purpose. "Because all those mainboards are not properly designed". Then how...

I see. So you already knew that even with a higher end mainboard(than those you were testing shown in this video), and even without an AVX load in Prime95, that you needed to remove the heatsink and air-cool the VRM to achieve that much OC(as can be seen in the video above at around 2:05). And what you actually "figured out" was something you pretty much already knew. Got it.

My question then is...why can you not use the Rampage VI Apex as the mainboard to pre-test CPUs? Since you already know it worked for that purpose before(granted without an AVX load). Do you want to wait until ASUS does something to "fix" the "VRM disaster" first? Or is it that you just don't feel like using it? Maybe because you found out even it can't handle a Prime95 AVX load without throttling, and/or you feel like that's required to pre-test a CPU for highest clocks? Or you'd rather use something lower end for CPU pre-testing?

@der8auer I'm genuinely curious.

 

[natr0n]

der8auer's secret weapon

 

[jaggerwild]

You mean der8auer is a guy no one has ever heard of? Talk about suprising statements. Granted not everyone knows him but he's still fairly known and respected by people who keep tabs on overcloking or just general hardware news. He know's what he's talking about. I mean the guy works for (or with) ASUS for god's sake. http://hwbot.org/news/12661_overclocker_focus_roman_hartung_der8auer_interview

He works for Gigabyte.......................I stand corrected it is DINO22 that works for gigabyte.

 

[Hossein Almet]

Well, If a so-called motherboard says it is an OC motherboard and you can't use it to OC due to heat in the VRM, then it does not fit its purpose. In Australia, if a product does not fit its purpose you can return it to the vendor and ask for a refund as prescribed by Consumer Law.

 

[Tangente]

My question then is...why can you not use the Rampage VI Apex as the mainboard to pre-test CPUs? Since you already know it worked for that purpose before(granted without an AVX load). Do you want to wait until ASUS does something to "fix" the "VRM disaster" first? Or is it that you just don't feel like using it? Maybe because you found out even it can't handle a Prime95 AVX load without throttling, and/or you feel like that's required to pre-test a CPU for highest clocks? Or you'd rather use something lower end for CPU pre-testing?

Yeah, I also observe this inconsistence in his statements. But as you can see in the video, he did use Apex with all so-called "heatsinks" removed and with a large fan directly beside VRMs. And in second video he said that VRMs are mostly OK but heatsinks do not work. Also Apex has two 8-pin connectors. And in first video he did use diferent PSU. And he wrote this on youtube regarding the PSU issue:

Just saw that as well on techpowerup. Will test with a Seasonic PSU and post an update Video at the weekend

 

[Breit]

As far as I understand the VROC will work with 3rd party NVMe drives - you will need Intel drives only for bootable RAID. And for RAID 0 (which is most common type for enthusiast users) you won't need any HW key. Beside that you are still alowed to create SW RAID, i.e. nobody will force you to use VROC if you do not want to. It's just a choice. And in a light of possible future Optane drives I think it is very good choice to have. It is no shit in my eyes.

You're missing the point here. Not the tech per se is the problem. The problem is:

1. Only Intel drives! - This smells like rip-off and has no apparent reason besides being a rip-off!
2. Different hardware keys to enable already implemented features! - I get that they sell these keys to their enterprise sheeps who are happy to buy whatever Intel sells them and they are now stuck in a corner where they could only sell these keys to consumers as well or make them free for all (which they certainly won't do). But again, why implementing something like that in the first place?
3. It should cost another $299 for a RAID-5 key. This is just beyond ridiculous for a consumer product, when all you get for your money is a lumpy license to use an already implemented feature. I mean if you get a pluggable hardware RAID processor, then maybe I'm OK with it, but no: It still is a shitty software RAID after all.

 

[Tangente]

You're missing the point here. Not the tech per se is the problem. The problem is:

1. Only Intel drives! - This smells like rip-off and has no apparent reason besides being a rip-off!
2. Different hardware keys to enable already implemented features! - I get that they sell these keys to their enterprise sheeps who are happy to buy whatever Intel sells them and they are now stuck in a corner where they could only sell these keys to consumers as well or make them free for all (which they certainly won't do). But again, why implementing something like that in the first place?
3. It should cost another $299 for a RAID-5 key. This is just beyond ridiculous for a consumer product, when all you get for your money is a lumpy license to use an already implemented feature. I mean if you get a pluggable hardware RAID processor, then maybe I'm OK with it, but no: It still is a shitty software RAID after all.

I understand it but I can't agree. First of all, would you feel riped-off when there is no VROC at all on new motherboards? I think not. This problem is more psychological than technical - people feel much more riped-off when they have something with limitation than they do not have it at all.

The second issue is assumption that people should pay only for - let's say - material objects, i.e. hardware. But todays hardware is accompanied by lots of software as well (firmwares, microcodes, bioses, etc.). Creating this software takes a huge time and lots of human resources and developer companies need to pay it somehow. Imposing software or "artifical" limitations is viable way because it's just not bussineswise to give everything you have to everybody for free (or for same cost). I work in SW development company and I am seeing this from inside.

The third issues I would like to address is HW vs SW raids. So called "HW raid" was a thing back in time, when CPU were relatively weak and they do not have a time and resources to handle all those storage operations. So you bought an extra card, with dedicated processor, dedicated memory and dedicated firmware. But today everything is different. CPUs are very powerful, RAMs are plenty and opensource raid solutions are very mature. Linux SW raid can be faster then anything you do via some extra HW controller. Modern SW raid is not shitty solution at all.

And last thing. Let's assume you want or need NVMe RAID. What is your options? You could buy just any board with sufficient amount of M.2/U.2 or PCIe slots to accomodate your NVMe drives and create either purely SW raid via your OS or - if all those NVMe drivers are connected to Intel PCH - you could you RSTe. Both options are for free. Your second option is buy extra HW - something like LSI MegaRAID 9440-8i. But those cards cost a lot of hundreds $. Third option today is VROC. You have some functionality for free and something extra is paid. You are limited to Intel platform and Intel drives but technically it is good option. Take it or leave it.

If there is some easy, generic, free-of-charge and technicaly equally good solution why AMD or anybody else don't have it? Well, maybe they will have. I have high hopes for them. But now there is no such think. And between us - RAID is in fact appealing for very minor group of home users.

 

[Breit]

You mean that you don't have problems buying a product with advertised features X, Y and Z, but for all of them you just need to pay various amounts extra? I do have a problem with that if it's executed like Intel does. This has nothing to do with software you may choose to run later on your hardware.
The next step is a new CPU with fancy features, but you can't use it at all unless you buy a license for the UEFI code to run it on your mainboard. Then your mainboard manufacturer charges an extra for every SATA port you might use on your new mainboard... You see where this is heading.

But as said elsewhere: As of right now, an RAID array with only Intel 600p SSDs is pointless nonetheless when instead you can use a proper fast SSD in the first place. Maybe that changes when Intel releases the real Optane drives later and these are compatible with VROC as well.

 

[Tangente]

Well, if they advertise RAID 5 and I buy it and THEN I recognize I need to pay something extra I would be super angry! But they advertise exactly what they are selling. RAID 0 for free, extras are paid. And I have option to buy it or buy another platform. Thats all. And the stuff with disabled SATA etc. is already happening. It's just not via SW licence but by not putting the SATA headers on motherboard. The chipsets have all SATA ports and other stuff implemented in itselves - mobo manufactures just dont put everything on their mobos. You can even see the empty spaces on circuit! But I think this way it's more "digestible" by customer (as you see it on yourself) then selling one full-featured mobo and unlocking parts of it with some licence.

By the way modern Cisco network switches are working exactly like that: you buy switch with 48 physical ports but functional are only e.g. first 24. For all you must pay extra. And it is wise in fact because if Cisco have only low-cost 24 port version and high-cost 48 port version and you buy 24 port (because your current budget) and want to upgarde it later then you would need to throw old switch and buy a new one. It is not economical nor logical. And for Cisco it is not profitable to sell only low-cost 24 port or high-cost 48 port. They need to differentiate for different customers with different budgets. In my eyes licensing makes lots of sense. But I agree it looks awful in the eyes of non-enterprise end user.