Editorial On Elmor's Open Letter, or The State of the Industry

[owen10578]

The only reason I have an nvidia card right now is because AMD yet again is a year late and a dollar short. Both companies limit their products. Nvidia even limited is currently selling a better performing product. Buy a top end card and both companies offer XOC bios's. There is already a BIOS for my Ti with a 1.24vgpu and no TDP limit, that is as easy as a flash away.

This unlike your card wont blow the VRM's up when I use that BIOS, nor does it ship with a warning against using furmark. It also performs better than a pair of 480's in all games at all things, short of heat production. I know this because it replaced a pair of RX480's, which replaced an R9 290, which replaced a pair of 7950's (flashed to R9 280 and heavily overclocked). I also have a stack of Fury's I play with on occasion.

Might want to look into the history of some of the members here before assuming they swing one way or the other. I could care less what color the card is. I have a 4k monitor and want to play games maxed out without sounding like a jet taking off or have every other game not work because it doesn't have a profile.

Ok so we're talking about performance now? When did that happen I was talking about enthusiast features. That 1.24v BIOS only works on a HANDFUL of cards and again I'm never talking about performance nor efficiency here my 480s were never beating any Nvidia card and I never said so.

My statement still stands and other XOC guys also agree that Nvidia is blocking any kinds of enthusiast overclocking on their cards so what are you trying to prove? You sound like an Nvidia fanboy hence what I said I couldn't care less what your previous cards were.

 

[cdawall]

Ok so we're talking about performance now? When did that happen I was talking about enthusiast features. That 1.24v BIOS only works on a HANDFUL of cards and again I'm never talking about performance nor efficiency here my 480s were never beating any Nvidia card and I never said so.

My statement still stands and other XOC guys also agree that Nvidia is blocking any kinds of enthusiast overclocking on their cards so what are you trying to prove? You sound like an Nvidia fanboy hence what I said I couldn't care less what your previous cards were.

They are the same guys who said the same thing about AMD cards...I am saying they both do it stop picking sides. Here just in case you missed it. As far as enthusiast features go I sure hope one of them is a card that works under LN2. That is a toss up for AMD right now.

AMD on their graphics side is a bit worse. They have really strict limits on frequency and TDP ranges when building VGA BIOSes. Additionally the maximum memory frequency is artificially limited by driver & BIOS, I can't understand why.

 

[Caring1]

Why are you defending a company blocking you from modifying your property? That's just absurd.

That happens all the time in the real world, welcome to the illusion of freedom.

 

[Fluffmeister]

My home is grade two listed, I have countless people telling me what I can or can't do with it.

I need Owen to start a crusade against my local council.

 

[owen10578]

Some TPU members are just cancer...have a set mindset and don't want to change or accept or even consider even with facts smacked onto their faces

 

[cdawall]

Some TPU members are just cancer...have a set mindset and don't want to change or accept or even consider even with facts smacked onto their faces

Facts are you may not even be able to post with an amd card frozen. This kinda sucks for the whole extreme oc world.

Remember you are also arguing with someone who consistently swaps what brand is at use and quite honestly hates them both. Both companies have huge flaws, but I'll take boost 3.0 nonsense over black screens.

 

[owen10578]

Facts are you may not even be able to post with an amd card frozen. This kinda sucks for the whole extreme oc world.

Remember you are also arguing with someone who consistently swaps what brand is at use and quite honestly hates them both. Both companies have huge flaws, but I'll take boost 3.0 nonsense over black screens.

Yea now insult because I have an AMD card here we go. You CLEARLY did not read what buildzoid said up there.

You think I don't switch brands as well? Oh I was an Nvidia user before this bullcrap. I never said AMD has no flaws, merely pointing out Nvidia's GPU "boost" is flawed and extremely prohibitive to overclocking.

 

[cdawall]

Yea now insult because I have an AMD card here we go. You CLEARLY did not read what buildzoid said up there.

You think I don't switch brands as well? Oh I was an Nvidia user before this bullcrap. I never said AMD has no flaws, merely pointing out Nvidia's GPU "boost" is flawed and extremely prohibitive to overclocking.

Not really you loose the top boost bin, set your voltage and clocks for the next one down using the curve in after burner and move on. It's actually pretty simple.

And I did read what buildzoid wrote. One of his cards black screens the other doesn't. So 50/50 shot, or set a boost bin lower. I mean we aren't really comparing apples and oranges here.

And I'm on mobile I have no idea what your specs are nor do I care. Why would I? I have an ATI logo for my freaking user profile. Quite honestly I have learned red pretty openly on this forum for over 10 years. Right now? AMD can't seem to get their collective heads out of their collective asses to release a product on time.

 

[owen10578]

Not really you loose the top boost bin, set your voltage and clocks for the next one down using the curve in after burner and move on. It's actually pretty simple.

And I did read what buildzoid wrote. One of his cards black screens the other doesn't. So 50/50 shot, or set a boost bin lower. I mean we aren't really comparing apples and oranges here.

And I'm on mobile I have no idea what your specs are nor do I care. Why would I? I have an ATI logo for my freaking user profile. Quite honestly I have learned red pretty openly on this forum for over 10 years. Right now? AMD can't seem to get their collective heads out of their collective asses to release a product on time.

Still won't give you a higher voltage than what Nvidia sets is what I'm going on about.

Again im going by how you reacted to my posts.

 

[cdawall]

Still won't give you a higher voltage than what Nvidia sets is what I'm going on about.

Again im going by how you reacted to my posts.

Um I can go to 1.5v on my card with no TDP limit with a simple BIOS flash. Maybe you should do a bit more research into this and get back with us. It is actually using the BIOS dropped by @eelmor to be specific. I am not quite using it in the way he intended, but whatever.

 

[EarthDog]

@eelmor

Let me say the dimm2 slot is innovative... but to what end? What does it really give us? Wow, you moved the location of m.2 slots. Hey look... an "x" shaped board...another aesthetic feature.

The reality is, ALL AIBs, this includes asus, have gone down the path of cloning boards off each other. Got realtek alc, check. Got onboard leds/headers and software to control it, check. Have a robust enough (doesnt take much, you know this) vrm to handle ambient overclocking, check. Got an intel or killer nic, check. Have a bios with entirely too many options for the average overclocker, check.

What are reviewers supposed to review?? Most of them cover 95% of what 99% of enthusiasts need to know. So yes, it is hard to fail a board when everything works just like the other 100 options from AIBs...

So what do you want to see you believe is missing from the majority of reviews? What should we 'ding' boards for which may spur TRUE innovation?

 

[owen10578]

Um I can go to 1.5v on my card with no TDP limit with a simple BIOS flash. Maybe you should do a bit more research into this and get back with us. It is actually using the BIOS dropped by @eelmor to be specific. I am not quite using it in the way he intended, but whatever.

Still not getting my point. But ok. Whatever you say you're always right in your head anyways and I'm tired of replying.

 

[cdawall]

Still not getting my point. But ok. Whatever you say you're always right in your head anyways and I'm tired of replying.

What's incorrect about my statement. I have fully unlocked voltage, no tdp limit and the ability to simply overclock my card. These are things I look into every time I buy a card. You have to really shop for it now. Both brands limit this heavily, both brands require at minimum a bios flash to get past it. AMD actually limits more in their bios than nvidia.

Am I missing something?

 

[Fabiano]

Just to share my opinion about the ASUS CROSSHAIR VI HERO board vs X370 Taichi.

While I agree with elmor on it's views about the industry I think his board, the CROSSHAIR VI hero, is a piece o garbage.
Why ? I have lived with this board for a few months now, have tried every bios build, every bios "feature" and setting combination. I can testify that this board is bellow the X370 Taichi on every single regard but LEDs:

Platform feel unstable, there is definitly something wrong with it.

REF CLK adjustments are really unstable with the asus.

SMT could not be properly disabled till closed bios 1401 eg: you could not get to higher clocks with SMT off and even at low clock speeds the system was really unstable - the X370 taichi always worked like a champ in that regard.

Memory support- you can get to high clocks, being stable at higher clocks is another history and again, the X370 Taichi feels much better using the same CPU and memory.

SUPREME FX is pretty much the only feature that could put this board on the same league as with the X370 Taichi. The C6H supreme FX panel comes with a DTS tab under it's software, has a optical out. Now, all of sudden, ASUS stated that it does not support DTS or DD anymore. I call SCAM on this one.

So, you want a led full and trouble full motherboard for your new ryzen build ? Get yourself the ASUS CROSSHAIR VI HERO

https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthre...063-332-How-When&p=658818&posted=1#post658818

 

[cdawall]

Just to share my opinion about the ASUS CROSSHAIR VI HERO board vs X370 Taichi.

While I agree with elmor on it's views about the industry I think his board, the CROSSHAIR VI hero, is a piece o garbage.
Why ? I have lived with this board for a few months now, have tried every bios build, every bios "feature" and setting combination. I can testify that this board is bellow the X370 Taichi on every single regard but LEDs:

Platform feel unstable, there is definitly something wrong with it.

REF CLK adjustments are really unstable with the asus.

SMT could not be properly disabled till closed bios 1401 eg: you could not get to higher clocks with SMT off and even at low clock speeds the system was really unstable - the X370 taichi always worked like a champ in that regard.

Memory support- you can get to high clocks, being stable at higher clocks is another history and again, the X370 Taichi feels much better using the same CPU and memory.

SUPREME FX is pretty much the only feature that could put this board on the same league as with the X370 Taichi. The C6H supreme FX panel comes with a DTS tab under it's software, has a optical out. Now, all of sudden, ASUS stated that it does not support DTS or DD anymore. I call SCAM on this one.

So, you want a led full and trouble full motherboard for your new ryzen build ? Get yourself the ASUS CROSSHAIR VI HERO

https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthre...063-332-How-When&p=658818&posted=1#post658818

I had no issues with ref clock stability on that board tested all the way up to 150mhz. Typically the higher reference clock issues lie with your graphics card not supporting the higher frequency. Also had complete stability with 3600mhz ram without issue.

 

[Fabiano]

I had no issues with ref clock stability on that board tested all the way up to 150mhz. Typically the higher reference clock issues lie with your graphics card not supporting the higher frequency. Also had complete stability with 3600mhz ram without issue.

Yeah, I was comparing apples to apples, the X370 Taichi versus the C6H with the exact same GPU, memory and CPU.

Have you compared your C6H to anything else ? Like, you comparing it ?

 

[EarthDog]

@eelmor

Let me say the dimm2 slot is innovative... but to what end? What does it really give us? Wow, you moved the location of m.2 slots. Hey look... an "x" shaped board...another aesthetic feature.

The reality is, ALL AIBs, this includes asus, have gone down the path of cloning boards off each other. Got realtek alc, check. Got onboard leds/headers and software to control it, check. Have a robust enough (doesnt take much, you know this) vrm to handle ambient overclocking, check. Got an intel or killer nic, check. Have a bios with entirely too many options for the average overclocker, check.

What are reviewers supposed to review?? Most of them cover 95% of what 99% of enthusiasts need to know. So yes, it is hard to fail a board when everything works just like the other 100 options from AIBs...

So what do you want to see you believe is missing from the majority of reviews? What should we 'ding' boards for which may spur TRUE innovation?

And........ no response after a month........

 

[cdawall]

Yeah, I was comparing apples to apples, the X370 Taichi versus the C6H with the exact same memory and CPU.

I have played with both as well I wasn't particularly impressed with either.

 

[eelmor]

And........ no response after a month........

Been busy with Computex, and I don't normally hang around TPU.

Just to share my opinion about the ASUS CROSSHAIR VI HERO board vs X370 Taichi.

While I agree with elmor on it's views about the industry I think his board, the CROSSHAIR VI hero, is a piece o garbage.
Why ? I have lived with this board for a few months now, have tried every bios build, every bios "feature" and setting combination. I can testify that this board is bellow the X370 Taichi on every single regard but LEDs:

Platform feel unstable, there is definitly something wrong with it.

REF CLK adjustments are really unstable with the asus.

SMT could not be properly disabled till closed bios 1401 eg: you could not get to higher clocks with SMT off and even at low clock speeds the system was really unstable - the X370 taichi always worked like a champ in that regard.

Memory support- you can get to high clocks, being stable at higher clocks is another history and again, the X370 Taichi feels much better using the same CPU and memory.

SUPREME FX is pretty much the only feature that could put this board on the same league as with the X370 Taichi. The C6H supreme FX panel comes with a DTS tab under it's software, has a optical out. Now, all of sudden, ASUS stated that it does not support DTS or DD anymore. I call SCAM on this one.

So, you want a led full and trouble full motherboard for your new ryzen build ? Get yourself the ASUS CROSSHAIR VI HERO

https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthre...063-332-How-When&p=658818&posted=1#post658818

We certainly have issues with the C6H, at least things are continuously being fixed. What's unstable regarding the refclk? What was the problem exactly with SMT? Looking into the DTS Connect issue.

 

[EarthDog]

Welcome back...

So what would you like to see??

 

[eelmor]

@eelmor

Let me say the dimm2 slot is innovative... but to what end? What does it really give us? Wow, you moved the location of m.2 slots. Hey look... an "x" shaped board...another aesthetic feature.

The reality is, ALL AIBs, this includes asus, have gone down the path of cloning boards off each other. Got realtek alc, check. Got onboard leds/headers and software to control it, check. Have a robust enough (doesnt take much, you know this) vrm to handle ambient overclocking, check. Got an intel or killer nic, check. Have a bios with entirely too many options for the average overclocker, check.

What are reviewers supposed to review?? Most of them cover 95% of what 99% of enthusiasts need to know. So yes, it is hard to fail a board when everything works just like the other 100 options from AIBs...

So what do you want to see you believe is missing from the majority of reviews? What should we 'ding' boards for which may spur TRUE innovation?

It's a solution to M.2 thermal throttling and allows to put 2 additional drives on the board. Aesthetics sell, I agree it's a problem when it's chosen over performance or usability but otherwise why not?

Software is really the biggest Achilles heel right now, and just because everyone has software doesn't mean that it's actually working well. Did you see the latest call outs on the X299 VRMs? Why did no reviews find or mention this? I saw at least some writing that the state of the boards is quite bad due to the performance/power consumption issue but that's just because it affected what they usually do. As I'm working in the motherboard R&D, I know that if you look deeper you're going to find several issues with a lot of them. Of course every board works out of the box, but if you look through the forums you'll see how many different issues customers have with the boards from any brand. They fly through reviews getting multiple awards, and then the customers have to find all the problems. Asus and other vendors are able to launch products which still would need several months of development work because the only one who's going to complain is the end user bitching about it on forums. The reviews are important to the manufacturers which means the reviewers have a lot of power. It's sadly a sellout fest in that area.

 

[cadaveca]

It's sadly a sellout fest in that area.

People need to eat and have heat, so what do you expect? I think we've discussed this subject before, like a decade ago, and little has changed. Except now I'm one of those reviewers instead of someone complaining, but I can't be bought, because reviews don't pay my bills. Be that as it may, I can still see how things are for these other reviewers at these other sites. I got into doing reviews because I wanted things to change, and some things have directly due to that feedback; I can literally say that "I asked for this, and they did it", but tell me, how come you aren't paying me more for that? I mean that figuratively, of course, but if we reviewers have a large impact on product design because of marketing, then how come we aren't getting a direct cut?


I mean, let me make a TPU board, and it will sell. You will have a hard time meeting my needs, and what I want isn't exactly what you get from those other reviewers, because I don't give a flying fuck about money; I want my hobby, the thing I enjoy, to be something I can continue to enjoy for years to come. That's why my opinion might differ sometimes compared to those others. I wanna have fun, not pay my bills.

Like you asked me, why give the Taichi a 10/10? The fact you even have to ask, to me, says how out of touch you my be with your true customer base. That may sound harsh, but dude, I want things to be better, too.

 

[eelmor]

People need to eat and have heat, so what do you expect? I think we've discussed this subject before, like a decade ago, and little has changed. Except now I'm one of those reviewers instead of someone complaining, but I can't be bought, because reviews don't pay my bills. Be that as it may, I can still see how things are for these other reviewers at these other sites. I got into doing reviews because I wanted things to change, and some things have directly due to that feedback; I can literally say that "I asked for this, and they did it", but tell me, how come you aren't paying me more for that? I mean that figuratively, of course, but if we reviewers have a large impact on product design because of marketing, then how come we aren't getting a direct cut?


I mean, let me make a TPU board, and it will sell. You will have a hard time meeting my needs, and what I want isn't exactly what you get from those other reviewers, because I don't give a flying fuck about money; I want my hobby, the thing I enjoy, to be something I can continue to enjoy for years to come. That's why my opinion might differ sometimes compared to those others. I wanna have fun, not pay my bills.

Like you asked me, why give the Taichi a 10/10? The fact you even have to ask, to me, says how out of touch you my be with your true customer base. That may sound harsh, but dude, I want things to be better, too.

I appreciate that you're in this because you're trying to change things. I'm not asking you on feedback how to build motherboards, just to call out when things are bad. Otherwise there's no need to change the boards since reviews are good and they still sell (partly because of those reviews), it's a race to the bottom.

Then there are examples like this news post, where TPU mentions the Gigabyte and MSI boards failing, but nothing about Asus where are all clearly called out in the video? Goes well next to the Asus banner to the right. https://www.techpowerup.com/234744/intel-x299-platform-called-a-vrm-disaster-by-overclocker-der8auer

Why do you think I'm out of touch with customers? The Taichi might be a good board considering the alternatives, but 10/10?

 

[EarthDog]

It's a solution to M.2 thermal throttling and allows to put 2 additional drives on the board. Aesthetics sell, I agree it's a problem when it's chosen over performance or usability but otherwise why not?

Software is really the biggest Achilles heel right now, and just because everyone has software doesn't mean that it's actually working well. Did you see the latest call outs on the X299 VRMs? Why did no reviews find or mention this? I saw at least some writing that the state of the boards is quite bad due to the performance/power consumption issue but that's just because it affected what they usually do. As I'm working in the motherboard R&D, I know that if you look deeper you're going to find several issues with a lot of them. Of course every board works out of the box, but if you look through the forums you'll see how many different issues customers have with the boards from any brand. They fly through reviews getting multiple awards, and then the customers have to find all the problems. Asus and other vendors are able to launch products which still would need several months of development work because the only one who's going to complain is the end user bitching about it on forums. The reviews are important to the manufacturers which means the reviewers have a lot of power. It's sadly a sellout fest in that area.

Intel got me the chips saturday afternoon...NDA was up monday. I didnt even have them for 48 hours. In this case, it was hard to find anything in that amount of time. Not sure about other reviewers, but that was my case.

That said, i didnt see any throttling in my testing on the z299 Prime dx when using p95 with avx (4ghz all c/t). Vrm heatsink was warm for sure. Now, 4.5ghz aida64 test, same thing.. vrm was very warm, but i didnt catch any throttling. Do recall though, i posted a month ago to you, so x299 wasnt in the picture. NOW youll want a more robust board for pushing x299...otherwise these boards are really still all about the same for 90% of people.

 

[R-T-B]

That happens all the time in the real world, welcome to the illusion of freedom.

Doesn't make it defensible though.

Then there are examples like this news post, where TPU mentions the Gigabyte and MSI boards failing, but nothing about Asus where are all clearly called out in the video? Goes well next to the Asus banner to the right.

Yeah, I'm not exactly a fan of ASUS, so that's a pretty daft claim of bias to levy.

I simply listed the first two boards presented in the video. I didn't want to list them all, because according to the video, EVERY brand fell flat and it would have been a long list. I did point out no launch boards passed in the article, however.

I can't be bought either. If ASUS came to me with a bag of money asking for a 10/10, the first thing I'd do is write an article about industry ethics.