The Internal
Limp Gawd
- Joined
- Nov 14, 2004
- Messages
- 132
Short version:
I could use suggestions on a solid x99 board that's not terribly expensive (around $300 ideally, with $400 being near the top of my price ceiling) for my i7-6850k.
Thus far, I've boiled it down to the following three motherboards (unless I discover some new one I overlooked) and would welcome any feedback to help me narrow it down:
GIGABYTE GA-X99-Phoenix SLI (rev. 1.0)
- best bluetooth implementation
- better customer reviews than most x99 broadwell-e boards
- relatively stark backplate
- trickier board colors to match for build aesthetics
- highest support RAM OC
ASRock Fatal1ty X99 Professional Gaming i7
- relatively ugly looking (to me)
- 2 x Ultra M.2 slots is nice
- Sound Blaster Audio a plus
- 12 phase power is cool
- mediocre Wi-Fi and most old-skool bluetooth config of the three
ASUS ROG STRIX X99 GAMING
- Matches my ROG STRIX 1070 GPU
- I like the RGB support
- disturbingly large number of "this ate my CPU" user reviews
- most expensive
The Long:
Wow... so, this has proven to be a bigger challenge than I originally anticipated.
Often, I would just buy an Asus motherboard and be done with it, but I've found a LOT of negative feedback on Newegg and Amazon when it comes to the last round of x99 boards (and ASUS boards in particular).
Though not a scientific survey, I get the impression that a lot of folks are having issues with their X99 boards toasting their CPUs.
Is there something going on with the X99 chipset? Are the 5000 and 6000 series 2011-v3 chips having a particularly high failure rate? Are more folks than usual just bitching about a user error that caused their board to die?
Features I Require:
- Ultra M.2
- Good Audio
- support for 2-way SLI and Crossfire
- support for RAID 0 and 1
- 10/100/1000 wired LAN
- USB 3.1 Type C connector
- healthy number of USB 3.0 ports
- being able to run two GPUs at full speed, 1 NVME SSD, 1 SATA SSD 6 GB/s, and a minimum of 2 hard drives in a raid 0 or 1 at the same time.
Features I really want:
- 2x Ultra M.2
- RGB lighting
- bluetooth 4.0 or newer
- color scheme that matches my existing ROG STRIX 1070 OC GPU
- lots of fan headers
- headers for LED strips
- ridiculous number of USB 3.0 or 3.1 ports
- not terribly expensive
- ATX or mATX formfactor
Nice to haves:
- Thunderbolt 3
- U.2
- Wireless AC
- NVIDIA SLI Bridge included
- onboard overclocking / error code doohickies
Feedback welcomed!
I could use suggestions on a solid x99 board that's not terribly expensive (around $300 ideally, with $400 being near the top of my price ceiling) for my i7-6850k.
Thus far, I've boiled it down to the following three motherboards (unless I discover some new one I overlooked) and would welcome any feedback to help me narrow it down:
GIGABYTE GA-X99-Phoenix SLI (rev. 1.0)
- best bluetooth implementation
- better customer reviews than most x99 broadwell-e boards
- relatively stark backplate
- trickier board colors to match for build aesthetics
- highest support RAM OC
ASRock Fatal1ty X99 Professional Gaming i7
- relatively ugly looking (to me)
- 2 x Ultra M.2 slots is nice
- Sound Blaster Audio a plus
- 12 phase power is cool
- mediocre Wi-Fi and most old-skool bluetooth config of the three
ASUS ROG STRIX X99 GAMING
- Matches my ROG STRIX 1070 GPU
- I like the RGB support
- disturbingly large number of "this ate my CPU" user reviews
- most expensive
The Long:
Wow... so, this has proven to be a bigger challenge than I originally anticipated.
Often, I would just buy an Asus motherboard and be done with it, but I've found a LOT of negative feedback on Newegg and Amazon when it comes to the last round of x99 boards (and ASUS boards in particular).
Though not a scientific survey, I get the impression that a lot of folks are having issues with their X99 boards toasting their CPUs.
Is there something going on with the X99 chipset? Are the 5000 and 6000 series 2011-v3 chips having a particularly high failure rate? Are more folks than usual just bitching about a user error that caused their board to die?
Features I Require:
- Ultra M.2
- Good Audio
- support for 2-way SLI and Crossfire
- support for RAID 0 and 1
- 10/100/1000 wired LAN
- USB 3.1 Type C connector
- healthy number of USB 3.0 ports
- being able to run two GPUs at full speed, 1 NVME SSD, 1 SATA SSD 6 GB/s, and a minimum of 2 hard drives in a raid 0 or 1 at the same time.
Features I really want:
- 2x Ultra M.2
- RGB lighting
- bluetooth 4.0 or newer
- color scheme that matches my existing ROG STRIX 1070 OC GPU
- lots of fan headers
- headers for LED strips
- ridiculous number of USB 3.0 or 3.1 ports
- not terribly expensive
- ATX or mATX formfactor
Nice to haves:
- Thunderbolt 3
- U.2
- Wireless AC
- NVIDIA SLI Bridge included
- onboard overclocking / error code doohickies
Feedback welcomed!
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