X399 MB choice

Phixzet

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 9, 2005
Messages
196
I'm a little troubled and maybe some people with much more wisdom can educate me.

Planning to buy an X399 board, that of course will run 24/7, and likely at some decent loads for a good part of the time. (And I'd like it to run for 5 years minimum)

So I was looking for a MB with great voltage regulators and long life power capacitors... And while they exist (Asrock), those boards are using M.2 SSD slots without any heatsink support.

Just a bit concerned that in an area with not a lot of airflow that SSD life could be substantially impacted.

Any insight on either of these two features I'm interested in? (Robust power and good M.2 SSD cooling)


Thanks :)
 
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M.2 SSD are temp throttled so you won't hurt them in that respect. The only thing that will hurt is the drive performance when its throttled due to heat. Thus to keep the performance at maximum, keep it cooled via heatsinks or block etc. As to your original question of which board, imo if a high workload is important than I'd go with the Zenith Extreme. It is the stoutest x399 board imo, and it comes with just about every bell and whistle.
 
Thank you for reminding me of that.

I don't really expect to be hitting the drives that hard really so maybe I'm overthinking it.

Unfortunately a lot of these MB's are EATX - which my Antec P180 will not support. So if I go with the Zenith Extreme I have to go find a good case that has dust filters, but not one that you have to pull the PC out to remove the power supply filter. (Just won't work well in my situation)
 
MSI SLI Plus is alright, and I own the MSI Carbon.

Both are standard ATX, and have 3x M.2 ports.

The Asus Pro board is also great for the price.
 
X399 Taichi is a great mobo with 11 pwer phases and last time Ive check its actually with a good price. Might be worth a look.
 
X399 Taichi is a great mobo with 11 pwer phases and last time Ive check its actually with a good price. Might be worth a look.

Definitely on my short list.

I prefer Asus's MB's that have the M.2 SSD's mounted up by the RAM... I don't expect huge amounts of sustained transfer from my 960 Pro, but still... Just don't so much are for the poor cooling options for that MB.
 
Thanks giga - glad new MB's are coming.

I'd prefer an ATX... I definitely want 8 memory slots. Not sure if I'm going with 32GB for now, or jumping right to 64. But regardless I want room to grow.
 
I have the x399 asrock tachi that's been in operation 24/7 since late November. The processor
for this one is a 1920x which has spent a large amount of time at 4.1g at 1.3volts. Neither the drive a nvme 960 pro
or the voltage regulators have shown high temps. In fact i was rather surprised at how low the temps for the
voltage regulator have been granted the OC i am running.

I really don't think u can go wrong with the Asrock x399 boards. The biggest thing for your threadripper happiness will be
in memory selection. Get something that is agreeable like the Gskill flare x stuff that is cas 14. Going over 64 gigs seems to be
hit or miss for a lot of folks. With 128 gigs a real pain for some to get working.

https://valid.x86.fr/gu5m2i Pretty much shows what i am running.
 
The tachi is a board I'm interested in.

Damn it though, 64GB of memory is crazy expensive. Really can't justify $1k for the processor, $1k for memory, $1k for GPU... (Yes, exaggerations.. But then add case, MB, power supply, cooling system..)

I need to slow down a little. :) I fear I'll have to stick with 32GB just to be practical.

So many things up in the air...

Like cooling system. I was thinking of an AIO liquid cooler for the CPU, but just worried it will fail. Figured AIO (sealed) would be safer than home-built, but not so sure about that.
 
Give me that matx X399 board right now lol. 8 dimms is kinda dicey on TR and higher speeds anyways.

3x16 is actually a better arrangement for one of my use cases than 2x16 + 2x8. Multiple M2/U2 remove the desire for any x4 slots.
 
Give me that matx X399 board right now lol. 8 dimms is kinda dicey on TR and higher speeds anyways.

3x16 is actually a better arrangement for one of my use cases than 2x16 + 2x8. Multiple M2/U2 remove the desire for any x4 slots.
that will drop you down to single channel and the performance impact. 2x16 get you double channel.
Edit: And I mean the memory, not PCIe. How would the memory divide with three sticks? Can you get three channels or wouldyou only have one?
 
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that will drop you down to single channel and the performance impact. 2x16 get you double channel.

Uh you're kinda confused, the pcie is 3x16 on that matx which is a first and also awesome. 2x16 + 2x8 is the pcie config on all the other X399 atx boards so far, both ways use all 60 available lanes.

The ram is 4 channel, the matx board only has 4 dimms (1DPC) but populating all 8 dimms (2DPC) is generally not as reliable on TR, rarely does it work at higher ram speeds.
 
I think I've narrowed it down to the Asus ROG Zenith Extreme and the Asrock Taichi.

I'd jump on the ROG right now if it was compatible with the Noctua NH-U14S TR4-SP3 cooler.

But that cooler makes the first slot (only one of two x16) unusable by any card whatsoever. So I'd have to go with the smaller Noctua which produces 5 degree higher temps (at full load).

Damn it. Nothing's easy every time I build. :)
 
You should go with a big 320mm AIO if you want to maintain a comfortable overclock at 4ghz or better yet get a monoblock.
 
I had been thinking about that.

But in the end...

1) The Noctua can actually be more silent
2) Lot's of reliability concerns on liquid cooling systems.
3) I don't really want to mess with it - once it's setup, over the next several years, unless there's a failure, I plan to just clean the filters. Water cooling will need maintenance, and again - worried about a failure of the pump, or leaking, etc..

If there was a maintenance free solution, highly reliable, and more quiet than the air cooler (notice I'm not implying lower temps)... I'd probably jump all over it.
 
I'm down to two boards. Hope to decide today.

The Asus Rog Zenith Extreme has the benefit of a great mounting solution for my M.2 SSD's.
The major con is that I can't use a Noctua NH-U14 which has let's say a 5C temperature improvement (with only one fan) versus the 12. At least if I want to be able to use both x16 slots. I don't today, but in the future - maybe.
The reason for the slot 1 incompatibility SEEMS to be Asus's beefy VRM cooling system moving the CPU bracket "down".
Tweaktown rating: 94 (Just for apples to apples comparison with same review site)

The Asrock has no such issues with slot #1 clearance with a NH-U14. Although tbh, if I'm only going to use one card (likely but who knows) - I probably should put the video card in the 3rd slot anyway.
The Asrock also has 10gb on board, not something I need today, but maybe years from now :)
It also seems to have some pretty good VRM cooling by the reviews, and 12k hour capacitors that they brag about.
The SSD is sitting in between two slots. Concerned about cooling - even though I won't be pushing my drives that hard.
Tweaktown rating: 92

In the end, I guess overall build quality and longevity / good service is probably the thing that would push me either way. On that, you hear it both ways - some people have had a lot of issues with Asus, others say no problems with Asus, but Asrock has been a problem. And you hear it in the reverse.

I could of course go with Asus, the larger heatsink... Video card in slot 3... And then later just replace the heatsink if I need to add a second card.
But having a dedicated 10gb port - which would probably improved performance even at 1G... On the MB with Asrock, is also pretty nice.

Any final thoughts, or should I just flip a coin? :)
 
You can get an aftermarket m.2 riser that slots into a PCIe slot. Asus make 2 of them, 1 that takes a single drive and one that takes 4.
 
Asrock w/ U14S here, great board, no offset needed at all vs asus even 6mm isn't enough. The pro and tachi are the same pcb with extra ethernet on the pro. The pro goes on sale for around tachi price sometimes, if you really want fast network though use one of those x8 slots for a cheap 40GbE off fleabay.

3 * m.2 (1 combo with u.2) is nice but the fastest SSDs are PCIe and u.2 ;)

Newegg reviews are a bad decision method, there is good information to be found for sure but only after a heavy pass with your mental noise filter. IMO asus has been putting too much emphasis on fluff, lights and feature segmentation to drive up average prices; while asrock has been more hungry and pushing useful features down to lower price points instead.
 
I also just learned about Fujipoly.

http://www.overclock.net/t/1588449/spot-fan-for-m-2-drive#post_24814254

That would support moving in the Asrock direction.

Strange to see reviews for the Asrock board being higher than Asus on Newegg. I think traditionally Asus has been considered the better brand. The reviews don't tell that tale though, and there's more than enough reviews to substantiate the data.

Its even more funny to remember, Asrock was actually a spin off ASUSTEK.
I bet they are regretting that decision.
 
Is Threadripper 2 getting a new motherboard chipset, or will that be a CPU refresh only?
 
I have the MSI X399 Gaming Pro Carbon - I love it. It's one of the most stable, quirk free boards I've used (once I updated the BIOS). It plays nicely with my 32gb Corsair DDR4 clocked at 3333.

I originally bought the ASUS X399 Strix, but it was DOA and I had to return it. It was also EATX which technically fit in my case but was really cutting it close to my 360mm AIO radiator, since the cables had to be routed farther towards the front of the case. I prefer the standard ATX form factor and sort of thought EATX was lazy engineering on ASUS' part (the Strix is relatively barebones and the MSI crams the same/more features into smaller space).

After building with both boards, I greatly prefer the M2 slots on the MSI board - with the ASUS you had to use this riser board, which was really fiddly to screw together and also just kind of sketched me out having them mounted like that. I get that there are airflow and cooling benefits to having them stick out like that, but I just worry about bumping the damn thing and breaking it if I ever have to adjust something in the case.

The MSI board has metal covers with heat spreaders, which is probably good enough given that I'm not thrashing my drives enough to thermally throttle them anyway.
 
PS here's the finished build lol (case is a Corsair 540 and I never thought I'd call it a small case until I put a front-mounted radiator in, damn)
IMG_20180123_115257.jpg
 
Yeah the enermax seems to be an exception to the usual trash you expect from AIO, full cover block that TR loves and actually has a decent pump.

That spinning rust though, ewwww ;)
 
Spinning rust is useful and cheap if you have lots of storage requirements, there's 8TB of spinners just gone into my 1920x build.
 
Just completed my build this morning. 1920x, Strix x399 Gaming E mobo, 32Gb Corsair 3200mhz Vengence RGB DDR4, Samsung 256gb nvme, 2 Corsair neutron SSD, AX860i PSU, Enermax 360mm AIO, Corsair 750D case and 8TB of spinning rust. Everything just worked and currently getting everything installed.
 
Spinning rust is useful and cheap if you have lots of storage requirements, there's 8TB of spinners just gone into my 1920x build.

I have lots of spinning rust, kept far away from any computer I sit next to though ;) TR has all those pcie lanes just begging for big fat pipe NICs.
 
Just completed my build this morning. 1920x, Strix x399 Gaming E mobo, 32Gb Corsair 3200mhz Vengence RGB DDR4, Samsung 256gb nvme, 2 Corsair neutron SSD, AX860i PSU, Enermax 360mm AIO, Corsair 750D case and 8TB of spinning rust. Everything just worked and currently getting everything installed.


Sweet, did you want the new bios 0503? It gives you NVME raid, just installed last night and works great.
 
I have lots of spinning rust, kept far away from any computer I sit next to though ;) TR has all those pcie lanes just begging for big fat pipe NICs.

I'm still debating a proper NAS or home server. Maybe a project for later in the year.
 
Sweet, did you want the new bios 0503? It gives you NVME raid, just installed last night and works great.

No, i'm just using NVME for my boot and apps drive, games are going on the 2 240GB ssd's and the 4TB WD Black that I just purchased
 
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