Can't decide what to buy, x299 or x399.

G

Grinmaul

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I am going back and forth on this, for a month now.

I am a long time abuser of hardocp but not in the forum. but i feel this is where the right people hang out:)


I can't make up my mind on this, there is to many choices.

I want to go with either i7 or tr4. my main requirement is a monoblock for cpu/MB. and not need to upgrade again for a few years.

I am disappointed in intel's premium to unlock i9 features and that is steering me to amd, but the only monoblock available for tr4 is ek and asus mb.

reviews of the asus mb are very varied. a lot complaining about memory problems even when buying from the qvl list.


Newegg ca has the 1900x for $ 580 cdn, $210 off. and the 1920x $904 cdn, $290 off. until sunday.

so it looks like i am leaning to threadripper. my worry is the mix mobo reviews.

the one i think i want is Asus PRIME X399-A. i don't need wi-fi or onboard video on a mb and don't want to pay a premium for it.

and omg what is up with ram prices? what ram has been tested working on the above MB.


oh and it's a p5 open air case, msi 1080 seahawk ek video card, so rgb ram would be nice:)

Thoughts?
 
Go for Intel I'm a totally former brainwashed Intel Retail Edge Legend threadripper has it's problems...
Ram went though the roof over the past year or so shortages......
 
Well, i'm in the middle of buying a new TR build so my suggestion would be TR but that's just be my 0.02. I'm going with the Asus x399 ROG strix, mainly because its a newer board, has RGB if I go down that route and all the review ones I have seen have the better LOTES socket. Ram support is getting a lot better and there are RGB kits available from Corsair and Gskill.

Prices for RAM either side are fxxking ridiculous, bank on $575ca for a 32GB kit at a decent speed, TR4 runs best with 3000 or 3200 speed
 
Thanks for the reply, the 1950x is at $1,099 cdn right now. with ram and mobo i am looking at just over 2k cdn.

that a lot:) for 3 pieces of hardware, plus 200ish for the monoblock.
 
X399 or 8700k depending on your use case. X299 is a bad trap - put the money in your gpu and other cards instead.

8700k best for games/ST-bound code, X399 is way cheaper $/perf for cores/multithread and platform features than X299. The big X299 chips do some strange throttling and other IPC weirdness, its a rather unpolished turd versus TR which frankly only need(ed) bios updates to solve issues, and it has gotten most of those. TR is numa etc but there are no surprises about it, except for people surprised that amd wasn't dead yet. X299 Being a regression in some ways from X99 is a bad sign but also classic intel. Funny enough they could've gone up to 18 unlocked if they actually wanted to as early as haswell-E (the dies exist, also 24 for BW-E and no not E7, there were E5s) would've been interesting times for sure.

B-die ram for AMD, simple lazy method is C14 3200 (or 3600 C16) but make sure it is all 14s, none of this 14-16-16 crap. No corsair, if they even have any samsung (didn't last I looked) and they bait-n-switch dies anyways - they have been coasting on their brand name for too many years. B-die ram will also clock well on intel but not needed to go fast.
 
Aluminum said:
X399 or 8700k depending on your use case. X299 is a bad trap - put the money in your gpu and other cards instead.

8700k best for games/ST-bound code, X399 is way cheaper $/perf for cores/multithread and platform features than X299. The big X299 chips do some strange throttling and other IPC weirdness, its a rather unpolished turd versus TR which frankly only need(ed) bios updates to solve issues, and it has gotten most of those. TR is numa etc but there are no surprises about it, except for people surprised that amd wasn't dead yet. X299 Being a regression in some ways from X99 is a bad sign but also classic intel. Funny enough they could've gone up to 18 unlocked if they actually wanted to as early as haswell-E (the dies exist, also 24 for BW-E and no not E7, there were E5s) would've been interesting times for sure.

B-die ram for AMD, simple lazy method is C14 3200 (or 3600 C16) but make sure it is all 14s, none of this 14-16-16 crap. No corsair, if they even have any samsung (didn't last I looked) and they bait-n-switch dies anyways - they have been coasting on their brand name for too many years. B-die ram will also clock well on intel but not needed to go fast.
Click to expand...


Thanks for the detailed reply, i pre bought a LGA 2066 delid tool, i am very sure i will not be needing it now..:(

The ram insight is helpful, thanks.
 
Grinmaul said:
I am going back and forth on this, for a month now.

I am a long time abuser of hardocp but not in the forum. but i feel this is where the right people hang out:)


I can't make up my mind on this, there is to many choices.

I want to go with either i7 or tr4. my main requirement is a monoblock for cpu/MB. and not need to upgrade again for a few years.

I am disappointed in intel's premium to unlock i9 features and that is steering me to amd, but the only monoblock available for tr4 is ek and asus mb.

reviews of the asus mb are very varied. a lot complaining about memory problems even when buying from the qvl list.


Newegg ca has the 1900x for $ 580 cdn, $210 off. and the 1920x $904 cdn, $290 off. until sunday.

so it looks like i am leaning to threadripper. my worry is the mix mobo reviews.

the one i think i want is Asus PRIME X399-A. i don't need wi-fi or onboard video on a mb and don't want to pay a premium for it.

and omg what is up with ram prices? what ram has been tested working on the above MB.


oh and it's a p5 open air case, msi 1080 seahawk ek video card, so rgb ram would be nice:)

Thoughts?
Click to expand...

Let's separate fact from fiction. I've worked with quite a few X299 and X399 motherboards now. So let's get into it.

First and foremost, memory compatibility across all motherboard brands, chipsets and processor types is all over the place. It's a fucking joke right now. It has been since the Intel X99 chipset was released. Effectively since DDR4's introduction. XMP? Don't worry about it. The feature isn't likely to work anyway. I've got a drawer full of memory modules from three different brands. I have so many DDR4 modules because motherboard manufacturers and memory makers have to keep giving us more RAM just to get through motherboard reviews. I've used a dozen kits on a single board without success.

The ROG Zenith Extreme worked perfectly with a couple different kits. I was able to throw RAM on it and more or less go. I can't recall if XMP worked on it or not, but dialing in the settings manually isn't too difficult. The ASUS Crosshair VI Hero was a fucking disaster of a board. I tried a bunch of kits without success. Kyle found one kit that worked and I happen to have the same part on hand to use. Other kits didn't work. I think it was a GIGABYTE board that didn't work with any of my dozen kits. I tried modules from Patriot and Corsair without success. Eventually, GIGABYTE sent me some Kingston HyperX modules which worked fine. That was an Intel chipset based board.

Memory compatibility is practically thrown out the window when you start talking about UEFI BIOS updates. Firmware updates can drastically effect hardware compatibility. Especially when those updates are done for the purpose of improving performance or memory compatibility. While UEFI BIOS updates usually improve compatibility, I've seen cases where updates had the opposite effect. AGESA code updates are particularly bad about this. This is why buying from the QVL list isn't a guarantee of compatibility.

I get what you mean about AMD vs. Intel making you lean towards AMD. Intel's decision to force people to buy $1,000 processors to get access to all the PCIe lanes of the platform deep throats sweaty horse cock. It's inexcusable. AMD's Threadripper chips are tempting given what they offer for the money. I've nearly bought the X1900 a few times given that it's gone as low as $700 at Microcenter. It's an incredible value, despite Intel's IPC and clock speed advantages. If $1,000 is in your budget and you don't necessarily need more than 10c/10t, then Intel is going to be the right way to go I think. If you do need more cores than that or $1,000 for a CPU just isn't going to fly, then AMD's probably the better choice. Both platforms are similarly problematic and similarly great when you get things working right.
 
Dan_D said:
Let's separate fact from fiction. I've worked with quite a few X299 and X399 motherboards now. So let's get into it.

First and foremost, memory compatibility across all motherboard brands, chipsets and processor types is all over the place. It's a fucking joke right now. It has been since the Intel X99 chipset was released. Effectively since DDR4's introduction. XMP? Don't worry about it. The feature isn't likely to work anyway. I've got a drawer full of memory modules from three different brands. I have so many DDR4 modules because motherboard manufacturers and memory makers have to keep giving us more RAM just to get through motherboard reviews. I've used a dozen kits on a single board without success.

The ROG Zenith Extreme worked perfectly with a couple different kits. I was able to throw RAM on it and more or less go. I can't recall if XMP worked on it or not, but dialing in the settings manually isn't too difficult. The ASUS Crosshair VI Hero was a fucking disaster of a board. I tried a bunch of kits without success. Kyle found one kit that worked and I happen to have the same part on hand to use. Other kits didn't work. I think it was a GIGABYTE board that didn't work with any of my dozen kits. I tried modules from Patriot and Corsair without success. Eventually, GIGABYTE sent me some Kingston HyperX modules which worked fine. That was an Intel chipset based board.

Memory compatibility is practically thrown out the window when you start talking about UEFI BIOS updates. Firmware updates can drastically effect hardware compatibility. Especially when those updates are done for the purpose of improving performance or memory compatibility. While UEFI BIOS updates usually improve compatibility, I've seen cases where updates had the opposite effect. AGESA code updates are particularly bad about this. This is why buying from the QVL list isn't a guarantee of compatibility.

I get what you mean about AMD vs. Intel making you lean towards AMD. Intel's decision to force people to buy $1,000 processors to get access to all the PCIe lanes of the platform deep throats sweaty horse cock. It's inexcusable. AMD's Threadripper chips are tempting given what they offer for the money. I've nearly bought the X1900 a few times given that it's gone as low as $700 at Microcenter. It's an incredible value, despite Intel's IPC and clock speed advantages. If $1,000 is in your budget and you don't necessarily need more than 10c/10t, then Intel is going to be the right way to go I think. If you do need more cores than that or $1,000 for a CPU just isn't going to fly, then AMD's probably the better choice. Both platforms are similarly problematic and similarly great when you get things working right.
Click to expand...


Thank you, great info. i think i will push the systems i have for another year and see what comes next or wait until this matures.


again thank you.
 
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