X99A GODLIKE Gaming LGA 2011-v3 Motherboard Review @ [H]

HoffY said:
Damn it... i was going to suggest this was what the "laser" thing was ;)

My fav mod. I"ll take the blue rune thanks ;)

/me was GOD LIKE! (i have the demo's to prove it ;) )
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Guy on my team took three months off work and spent it playing nothing but Q2 all the time. Became the top player on the planet with the Rail Gun in terms of number of kills.

Me? I wasn't "bad" or anything. I had people accusing me of botting on occasion (Carena massacres...).

But my main function on our team was "shock trooper".

It always used to upset other teams MIGHTILY when I'd just fall into the middle of a grouping of them, going ape-shit with a Rocket Launcher, wounding most of them and killing myself.
Of course, my teammates would be hot on my heels and just mopped the floor with them.
 
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Chas said:
Yeah. This board is definitely a ninjapiraterobotjedi sorta board.

And MSI's high-end boards are all going Killer NIC?

Time to start avoiding MSI boards. ESPECIALLY at this sort of silly, inflated price point.
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I had an Abit board (PIII), followed by two ASUS (A64, C2Q/P55), and one MSI (i5 2500K/P67)... I was relatively happy with the latter by comparison but those kinda choices made me rule out MSI for Skylake so I ended right back at ASUS.

The Killer branded NIC might work fine, or it might not, but who's ever heard of an Intel NIC not working right or having troublesome drivers? It's something so basic, I just don't need the hassle.
 
Impulse said:
The Killer branded NIC might work fine, or it might not, but who's ever heard of an Intel NIC not working right or having troublesome drivers? It's something so basic, I just don't need the hassle.
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Exactly. I do want to try them in Windows 10 however.
 
Chas said:
Used to regularly play on a server where the hook timing had been tweaked so that the hook was a travel device.

Spider-Man matches...
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yup, hyper hook, you could even hook and opponent and rail them, then go flying through their shower of gibs :-P

Those were the days.
 
Dan_D said:
Actually. I'm not using pre-SP1 Windows 7. I cut and pasted the lane configuration info straight from MSIs product page. Go look at it under specifications > detailed. You'll see exactly what I put in the article.

As for the M.2 slots, I thought it was clear. PCIe Gen 3.0 lanes must come from the CPU. The PCH is Gen 2.0 only.
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So whats the reason you are still not on SP1? laziness? or do you have some documented cases of SP1 causing reproducible performance loss? I would think anyone who actually uses a machine for more than getting benchmark scores would be concerned with the security of that machine and would install the updates, even if they take a few percent hit in performance of the machine.

The PCIe configuration is, well, it is a cluster fuck..

People might want to know this in the review. I know I would, hence why I went digging and brought it up.

Digging shows a really funky diagram showing none of the PCIe x16 slots are using lanes from the PCH. unless there is some error in the diagram


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I'll check some things when I get home. But, that diagram can't be right. The slots should all come from the CPU'S PCIe controller. M.2 should come from the PCH, but it couldn't be Gen 3.0 unless it shares with SATA Express implementations that are. I don't think it is on X99. I know it is on Z170.

And again I'm not using pre-SP1 Windows 7.
 
Have to agree with zaniix: M M M M Monster Bill, This MSI gaming board costs more then my Supermicro board.

A name like Godlike does get your attention though I actually read this thread because of it.

Good old Lithium CTF was pretty fun spidermaning around with the hook. They need to make a team fps game that is that fun again. I wasn't very good but it sure was fun.

I think 2011-v3 was supposed to get an update with the 6000 series being compatible with 2011v3. The 2011v2's were compatible with the 2011 socket.
 
OK, after looking at the diagram, I understand what's going on. The M.2 slot is a proper x4 implementation but it shares bandwidth with the last PCIe x16 slot. So it is a full Gen 3.0 implementation. It does connect to the PCH as well via 2x dedicated lanes. A PCIe switch on both sides determines which lanes get used. It has to connect to the PCH in some way for IRST to manage it and to boot from it, but it's using the PCIe lanes of the last x16 slot for transferring data.

Hence the confusion. In SATA mode, it shares bandwidth with the SATA Express port. In PCIe mode, assuming no card is installed in that last slot it will use those lanes.

Hope that clears things up.
 
Just ordered mine. Bad weekend and I needed a lift. If anyone wants a slightly used (8-10 hr) X99S MSI Gaming 9 ACK board please check the FS thread. Can't wait for mine!
 
Anyone notice that the CMOS battery is covered by the Dragon Shield? Like how are you suppose to change the battery when it dies?!!
 
omegatotal said:
So whats the reason you are still not on SP1? laziness? or do you have some documented cases of SP1 causing reproducible performance loss? I would think anyone who actually uses a machine for more than getting benchmark scores would be concerned with the security of that machine and would install the updates, even if they take a few percent hit in performance of the machine.

The PCIe configuration is, well, it is a cluster fuck..

People might want to know this in the review. I know I would, hence why I went digging and brought it up.

Digging shows a really funky diagram showing none of the PCIe x16 slots are using lanes from the PCH. unless there is some error in the diagram


Image snip x2......................
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I'll say this one more time. I haven't been on a non-SP1 install of Windows 7 since sometime shortly after it was released. I slipstreamed the service pack into my installer when the thing first came out. Kyle's install and test bench procedures differ from mine. We use the same motherboard, but our CPUs, RAM, locations, PSUs, drives and OS images / builds are all completely different. This is by design.

I've been in IT for 20 years. I integrate service packs as quickly as I can prove they are stable and compatible with what I'm doing.

The PCIe lane configuration is actually quite normal for an X99 motherboard. You can't have PCIe lanes for video cards come off the PCH. Or at the very least I've yet to ever see that to the best of my recollection. Furthermore I suspect it would introduce additional latency going over the DMI 2.0 bus to the CPU. If a PLX introduces additional latency that would certainly be worse.
 
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davidm71 said:
Anyone notice that the CMOS battery is covered by the Dragon Shield? Like how are you suppose to change the battery when it dies?!!
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I'm starting to wonder if they last forever. I've got one MB that's almost 9 years old and another that's close to 6 and the batteries are still chugging along.
 
nilepez said:
I'm starting to wonder if they last forever. I've got one MB that's almost 9 years old and another that's close to 6 and the batteries are still chugging along.
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8YO Dell needed a battery change last week :D. Never had to do that before though.
 
To the reviewers,

I was wondering if you or anyone noticed that upon a cold boot the board will shut down and then automatically 1/2 a second later start back up? Will post up all the way straight from a warm boot but double posts when cold.

Anyhow I got this board to replace the Gaming 9 ACK because I couldn't resist owning a 'Godlike' board but it seems there are not enough drastic differences to sell me on this board at $550. May send it back.

What I like:

The silver aluminum reinforced pci-e slots
Beefy vrm and power phases
No auxillary power needed for audio
LED Lighting
USB 3.1 addition

What I don't like:

No intel lan port
Cheap looking tin plated shielding
Only two bios releases so far
Only one m.2 slot. Why does Z170 get two?
High price tag!
 
davidm71 said:
To the reviewers,

I was wondering if you or anyone noticed that upon a cold boot the board will shut down and then automatically 1/2 a second later start back up? Will post up all the way straight from a warm boot but double posts when cold.

Anyhow I got this board to replace the Gaming 9 ACK because I couldn't resist owning a 'Godlike' board but it seems there are not enough drastic differences to sell me on this board at $550. May send it back.

What I like:

The silver aluminum reinforced pci-e slots
Beefy vrm and power phases
No auxillary power needed for audio
LED Lighting
USB 3.1 addition

What I don't like:

No intel lan port
Cheap looking tin plated shielding
Only two bios releases so far
Only one m.2 slot. Why does Z170 get two?
High price tag!
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I never experienced the cold boot problem you did when testing the X99 GODLIKE. As for some of your other questions, I do have some comments. The auxiliary power isn't for audio on any motherboard. It is expressly for the purpose of providing additional supplementary PCI-Express power. With one graphics card, this connector is usually optional. If you are using, two, three or four GPUs it is mandatory. There isn't enough power on the PCIe bus slots normally to cover the 150w draw per card that is required. The supplemental power is used to provide power to GPUs, not audio. The shielding around the I/O panel is cheap and MSI needs to do something else with that. We've pointed this out to them on a couple of motherboards now. MSI has said a couple times that they would address the problem on future motherboards but have yet to do so.

M.2 on X99 is another matter. Some models do have more than one M.2 slot. The ASUS X99 Deluxe is one such example. However that isn't as useful as you might think. There are some limitations to M.2 on the X99 platform that Z170 doesn't have. Z170 Express has limitations as well, but they aren't as bad.

In order for M.2 devices to be bootable, and controllable through the IRST, they must go through the PCH or the chipset. This forces them to transfer data over the DMI bus. DMI 2.0 has an effective transfer rate of around 2,000MB/s. That's in total. I believe the X99 Deluxe couldn't support it's M.2 devices in RAID due to one of them not going through the PCH. That one is a straight PCI-Express drive in essence but you couldn't boot from it. When you use an M.2 drive, it works on a modern motherboard in either SATA or PCIe mode. This is because it shares bandwidth with the SATA Express slots in most cases. SATA Express uses PCIe lanes and they are provided by the PCH. Again, thus the DMI 2.0 limitation. There basically isn't any point to running dual M.2 slots on an X99 motherboard as they can't be put together in a RAID array. You can put more PCIe based SSD's in the system whether they are M.2 form factor or not via adapters or M.2 slots not run through the PCH assuming the board has them. But you would be woefully limited in bandwidth or you sacrifice RAID capability and the ability to boot from them. The PCIe to M.2 slot adapters I've seen lack an OROM and even if they didn't, OROM space is a commodity that is in short supply.

Z170 Express isn't quite as limited, but don't kid yourself, it still suffers from a short sighted design. I believe the limitations are in place to make the next HEDT platform and chipset more attractive by removing the limitation. Z170 uses DMI 3.0 which is basically PCI-Express 3.0 on the backend. PCI Express 3.0's 8GT/s bit rate basically transfers around 985MB/s per lane. DMI 3.0 is an x4 link which limits the total available bandwidth of M.2 to 40Gbps regardless of how many M.2 slots you have. SSD read speeds should scale almost linearly in RAID 0 but thanks to the 40Gbps limit you will only see a marginal improvement over a single drive. In contrast write performance improves as it should but the ceiling on write speeds isn't the bus, but rather the flash memory the devices use. As a result that ceiling is harder to reach.

Z170 Express benefits from being a newer platform with an advantage where M.2 is concerned. That's simply the reality of the tick/tock strategy Intel employs. When the next HEDT platform comes out Z170 Express is going to seem rather dated. Hopefully we'll get a larger DMI bus to solve this very problem.
 
Thanks Dan for taking the time to write that explanation. Explained a lot but if I understood you correctly if theres more than one m.2 on X99 one will not go through the pch and not be bootable but just the single m.2 onboard the motherboard will be bootable but limited to 2000 mb/s? If thats so why does MSI adverstise a 32 gb/s ceiling on m.2 tranfers even though the tech is not available yet? Would a Samsung 950 m.2 with a 2500 mb/s spec be capped at 2000mb/s? Should I have purchased a Z170 dmi 3.0 board then?

Also about auxillary power for Audio the Gaming 9 X99S AcK motherboard does employ a power port for audio. I am familiar with auxillary power for multi gpu and wish the godlike had one. Maybe its designed in such a way it doesnt need it. Interestingly enough the wifi module on the Godlike says 'ACK' on the adapter while on my Gaming 9 X99S ACK board the adapter is labeled as just 'AC'. Doesnt make sense.

Anyhow got the Godlike boxed up to ship back. A tech on the MSI forums gave me a beta bios ver 121 to try and the cold boot issue persisted. I took the cpu out and put it back in the Gaming 9 X99S Ack board and it posts just fine no issues. Godlikes bios must need work. Wouldnt be healthy for a water pump to shut on and off and on again so going back. I personally would appraise this board at maybe $450 not $550.

Thanks.
 
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