Welcome to Overclockers Forums! Join us to reply in threads, receive reduced ads, and to customize your site experience!
I don't like the sound implementation on the SOC force. They're not using good caps for the audio and it's just using an ALC1150. For that, I'll get the Rampage. I'm not a fan of MSI or EVGA stuff, personally. I think they both make sort of stupid designed motherboards. That's just my personal opinion. I'm only considering ASUS or Gigabyte atm.
As far as the X99 Mpower, it's using solid caps for audio (bleh) and the little flat caps after the mosfets do not, from what I have heard, have the same life expectancy as, say, nice 10K Japanese caps. Also, that SATA Express implementation along the bottom without a right angle connector is bonkers IMO.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-u6KvgkD-r...d4KmWvqs/s1600/normal_MSI-X99S-MPower_010.jpg
I see no point why anyone wish to pay 100% more for motherboard or 50% more for CPU only to get 1-3% in some tests/games on 2 graphics cards.
Yep, I agree 100%. I paid $219 for my Gigabyte X99-UD4 board and it runs beautifully with the updated BIOS. No issues at all with the cheapest Crucial DDR4 2133. I don't see the point of all the angst over the power circuitry and having more PCI-e lanes than anyone could possible ever use.
I stumbled upon this thread, hence I joined this forum. This is my first post
OP: if mostly for gaming usage, Z97 outshines X99 on this criteria. Get an 4790K and Asus Z97 WS board, which is a rock solid board with 4-5 yr life. I use many Asus boards from WS series since 'Supercomputer' days (P55); most are heavy Workstation builds with ZERO gaming.
My case is quite different, say e.g., PCIe lanes is not for gaming (excluding home/personal builds). Heavy GPU rendering and computational performance (single/double precision) demands a lot more out of the boards. Hence, having a good bandwidth grasp helps in determining the right build with best possible performance without sacrificing much on other hardware capabilities. The chosen platform is based on the work loads and network throughput demands. Lot of hardware is there to use (say, RAID cards)
Coming to this thread topic: I don't use ROG boards at work places; only in personal builds or based on hardware availability. This year I chose to build a few Z97 machines using Maximus VII HERO and RANGER (not available in US) boards. One of the main features to choose a ROG board is because of RAMDisk feature.
Hence, I'd like to compare Asus X99-E WS vs. Asrock X99 WS because:
a) ~$200 price difference
b) hardware design, say storage choices (it matters a lot)
c) RAM difference - 64GB vs 128GB (again, it matters a lot)
d) wider case choice (cooling/low-noise) - former is SSI-CEB, latter is EATX
My plan for the upcoming holiday season: To build ten ultra workstations based on five i7-5960X (non-ECC) and five Xeon E5-2680 v3 (ECC) CPUs.
Purpose (R&D): Design, Modeling and Simulation tasks; heavy Computational apps (single/double precision); VMs on each host OS; 27" prof. triple displays for each build; WD Red Pro or Hitachi based NAS Server with 48TB storage (thinking about Synology DiskStation DS2413+ for 12-bay solution).
The planned ten machines will share that storage on the network, hence I'm serious about hardware reliability and quality. I've earmarked quite a high budget towards them - will go as 2015 financial year IT spending.
Now, what is holding me up to freeze the requirements?
#1 Motherboard reliability - since many years, Asus WS boards proved to the best performing to meet heavy requirements. But X99 platform is entirely new: CPUs, motherboards, DDR4, GPUs and Storage choices. It's like too much on the plate; with too many options but lesser known in terms of performance and numbers. For the first time since ages, I'm a bit nervous to become an early platform adopter!
Burning issue(?): why some Asus X99 boards gone kaput? Is WS board safe from OC socket or from any other issue? I don't know yet. Hence, I'm considering to split X99 builds into two groups:
all 5960Xs on Asrock X99 WS boards &
all Xeon-E5 on Asus X99-E X99 WS board
BUT, what about Asrock X99 WS performance and reliability? I'm completely new to Asrock WS series, hence a big question mark. Honestly, I'm stuck here. I'll wait for a few more weeks to see better reviews on both boards. Definitely, no ROG X99 board.
#2 GPUs: no release of Nividia's Maxell based Titan Black II (if there will be one!), Quadro and Tesla cards. All are mandatory for planned requirements. Let me re-iterate again: Zero gaming purpose.
#3 Storage solution: considering SATA Express because of excellent performance benefits; multiple times over the best performing SSD, Samsung 850 Pro series (e.g., Mushkin Scorpion 980GB PCie SSD). I'm taking time because each one costs a lot of money (multiple builds). Considering Intel's NVMe solution too.
#4 CPU cooling: CM Neptons performing excellent when it comes to cooling in Z97 workstations, but their stock fans are annoying at high loads in lab environment. Hence I'm making plans to dump all stock fans in favor of quietest ones shortly. Now, what's the problem with X99? I'm considering a new company for the first time for all ten X99 builds. Swiftech 220-X or 240-X. It seems both offer great cooling and lowest-noise performance, however I need some more time to comprehend performance data on the latter model (new).
Note: As a matter of policy, I don't allow any manual OCing of CPU/GPU/RAM in all workstations at work places. Only 'supported' Turbo or Boost range is used considering from various aspects or pre-OC'ed GPUs are purchased only on few occasions, say EVGA Superclocked Titan Black.
I do a lot of manual OCing on the home builds and mostly don't prefer to use board software (say auto-tuning). Since a few months, I'm enjoying killing G3258 CPUs over 4790Ks It's really a great processor for the money for sure.
I regret if this post gone too long, but it's warranted considering (intricacies and unknowns) the new platform. I shall post in between whenever I find new reviews or updates on X99 hardware.
*Update: I just watched a Newegg video on Asrock X99 (first one) Extreme4 board. Feature-wise it looks good but product quality and supplied accessories look above average. It's not that impressive when compared to Asus X99-A (entry level) for the money paid. Anyway, I don't need this model. I'll look for Asrock X99 WS reviews and videos in the coming days...
Meh.. blocks on mobos. Pretty.. but useless
I stumbled upon this thread, hence I joined this forum. This is my first post
OP: if mostly for gaming usage, Z97 outshines X99 on this criteria. Get an 4790K and Asus Z97 WS board, which is a rock solid board with 4-5 yr life. I use many Asus boards from WS series since 'Supercomputer' days (P55); most are heavy Workstation builds with ZERO gaming.
My case is quite different, say e.g., PCIe lanes is not for gaming (excluding home/personal builds). Heavy GPU rendering and computational performance (single/double precision) demands a lot more out of the boards. Hence, having a good bandwidth grasp helps in determining the right build with best possible performance without sacrificing much on other hardware capabilities. The chosen platform is based on the work loads and network throughput demands. Lot of hardware is there to use (say, RAID cards)
Coming to this thread topic: I don't use ROG boards at work places; only in personal builds or based on hardware availability. This year I chose to build a few Z97 machines using Maximus VII HERO and RANGER (not available in US) boards. One of the main features to choose a ROG board is because of RAMDisk feature.
Hence, I'd like to compare Asus X99-E WS vs. Asrock X99 WS because:
a) ~$200 price difference
b) hardware design, say storage choices (it matters a lot)
c) RAM difference - 64GB vs 128GB (again, it matters a lot)
d) wider case choice (cooling/low-noise) - former is SSI-CEB, latter is EATX
My plan for the upcoming holiday season: To build ten ultra workstations based on five i7-5960X (non-ECC) and five Xeon E5-2680 v3 (ECC) CPUs.
Purpose (R&D): Design, Modeling and Simulation tasks; heavy Computational apps (single/double precision); VMs on each host OS; 27" prof. triple displays for each build; WD Red Pro or Hitachi based NAS Server with 48TB storage (thinking about Synology DiskStation DS2413+ for 12-bay solution).
The planned ten machines will share that storage on the network, hence I'm serious about hardware reliability and quality. I've earmarked quite a high budget towards them - will go as 2015 financial year IT spending.
Now, what is holding me up to freeze the requirements?
#1 Motherboard reliability - since many years, Asus WS boards proved to the best performing to meet heavy requirements. But X99 platform is entirely new: CPUs, motherboards, DDR4, GPUs and Storage choices. It's like too much on the plate; with too many options but lesser known in terms of performance and numbers. For the first time since ages, I'm a bit nervous to become an early platform adopter!
Burning issue(?): why some Asus X99 boards gone kaput? Is WS board safe from OC socket or from any other issue? I don't know yet. Hence, I'm considering to split X99 builds into two groups:
all 5960Xs on Asrock X99 WS boards &
all Xeon-E5 on Asus X99-E X99 WS board
BUT, what about Asrock X99 WS performance and reliability? I'm completely new to Asrock WS series, hence a big question mark. Honestly, I'm stuck here. I'll wait for a few more weeks to see better reviews on both boards. Definitely, no ROG X99 board.
#2 GPUs: no release of Nividia's Maxell based Titan Black II (if there will be one!), Quadro and Tesla cards. All are mandatory for planned requirements. Let me re-iterate again: Zero gaming purpose.
#3 Storage solution: considering SATA Express because of excellent performance benefits; multiple times over the best performing SSD, Samsung 850 Pro series (e.g., Mushkin Scorpion 980GB PCie SSD). I'm taking time because each one costs a lot of money (multiple builds). Considering Intel's NVMe solution too.
#4 CPU cooling: CM Neptons performing excellent when it comes to cooling in Z97 workstations, but their stock fans are annoying at high loads in lab environment. Hence I'm making plans to dump all stock fans in favor of quietest ones shortly. Now, what's the problem with X99? I'm considering a new company for the first time for all ten X99 builds. Swiftech 220-X or 240-X. It seems both offer great cooling and lowest-noise performance, however I need some more time to comprehend performance data on the latter model (new).
Note: As a matter of policy, I don't allow any manual OCing of CPU/GPU/RAM in all workstations at work places. Only 'supported' Turbo or Boost range is used considering from various aspects or pre-OC'ed GPUs are purchased only on few occasions, say EVGA Superclocked Titan Black.
I do a lot of manual OCing on the home builds and mostly don't prefer to use board software (say auto-tuning). Since a few months, I'm enjoying killing G3258 CPUs over 4790Ks It's really a great processor for the money for sure.
I regret if this post gone too long, but it's warranted considering (intricacies and unknowns) the new platform. I shall post in between whenever I find new reviews or updates on X99 hardware.
*Update: I just watched a Newegg video on Asrock X99 (first one) Extreme4 board. Feature-wise it looks good but product quality and supplied accessories look above average. It's not that impressive when compared to Asus X99-A (entry level) for the money paid. Anyway, I don't need this model. I'll look for Asrock X99 WS reviews and videos in the coming days...
At the end of the day, X99 is the choice, Z97 was never a topic, and anyone can go an buy Z97, but X99 is that slight bit more non teenage exclusive. Facts and usage is one thing, pride and wishes from a system is a totally different one.
As for that, have you made a choice yet?
That's actually a good question. In the time you are thinking about the best board I already killed 2 bioses, sent MSI to rma and got ASUS RVE
About that waterblock topic couple of posts ago, both my X99 boards were heating up less than X79 and temps are pretty low with waterblock on CPU and no fans around ( fully accurate touch test ). I see no point to spend money on waterblock for X99 mobo unless you like how it looks like.
There is also no need to raise most of the voltages even for higher overclock and VCCSA can stay at stock values up to 3200 memory clock if not higher.