NO CONFUSION:
It was easy to find stock on the shelf right after launch. Shortly after launch the Gigabyte boards were on the shelf in full force.
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Intel delivered a combination of old and new technology as we see the Skylake and Kaby cores being moved from socket 1151 onto socket 2066, not only are these cores being moved but they are also getting new core counts, cache sizes, and CPU instructions to name a few of the obvious changes.
With those changes we have higher clock speeds, higher memory bandwidth, an improved memory controller, thicker PCB substrate, and much more. The most impressive is the IMC on the X299 based processors, we can see well Intel focused here to deliver improved results on our already stellar performance. Skylake-X running quad channel is far more impressive than Broadwell-E for performance tuning, now anyone can hit 100K Aida64 bandwidth test with a little work. This is a huge improvement over socket 2011v3 with DDR4 overclocking. |
The first benchmark targets with the new platform included everything that benefits from the improved memory controller including world record memory clock frequencies. This platform reset most of the world records easily besting all previous platforms. Another improvement we can see is the thickness of the CPU's and we no longer have to worry about bending the PCB with too much pressure, socket 2066 solved this problem. Huge props to Intel for delivering once again a superior overclocking platform.
Intel made a great choice with the deletion of FIVR on this platform. FIVR would have given us another "Broadwell" type chip. We may see FIVR again in the future. FIVR is the Fully Integrated Voltage Regulator that was inside the CPU die to control voltages we love to push beyond stock. Skylake biggest overclocking advantage was the absence of FIVR.
System INFO:
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INtel 7960X:
You want more cores, you know your application or game is threaded and you are pretty sure that adding more cores will make your system faster. Well chance are, no it wont. The core count race is on between the chip makers offering server class chips in the consumer market space and lot of consumers can afford thinking bigger is always better. A good analogy is the image on the right, which of these two vehicles can get your load delivered faster? Cost wise, one is far more expensive than the other and would be a bad choice for delivering small loads.
The IMC on the 7960X is phenomenal and can reach ludicrous speed easily even when running a 32GB kit in quad channel. Intel has done a spectacular job with the IMC across all product lines. |
The 7960X has a lot of headroom for performance tuning beyond stock speed and I would suggest purchasing a quality "All In One" CPU cooler for best results. Running at 4.4Ghz all cores is possible for a brilliant daily driver and a monster for those applications that can take advantage of all the threads.
I was a bit unhappy with the temperature delta across all of the cores so I lapped the CPU to 2000 and took a screen shot of what you can expect from a job done right. Yes the CPU is running at 4.5Ghz all cores and the TD between all cores is 3C.
This CPU has not been delided. Tuning wise, SkylakeX is a home run. The IMC is fantastic and Intel does this consistently across all the parts on the X299 platform. The cores themselves should be run at the lowest possible core voltage to get the maximum speed and coolest temps, this should be obvious when tuning for max frequency. BIOS across all boards is stable and highly tune-able. I wish my friend David Hunt was still with us, he had a dream of one day we would have unlocked XEON processors and that day has come. |
Intel 7900X:
Similar to the X99 platform in memory layout, the memory is spaced nicely from the CPU.
Truly a lot of fun to tune and explore, I did not have to reset BIOS one time. Tuning memory was also very easy with the MEMOK button to quickly return to BIOS to make changes. Both motherboards were very forgiving with mistake in timing and running full auto voltages worked great, you can trust SVID to do its job.
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Based on the Skylake architecture and moved over from socket 1151 the Skylake was our first real taste of full LN2 pot in a few years but with the transition to socket 2066 it now exhibits a cold bug usually around -120c. My chip is seems to be worse than average. The luxury of having an exact temperature on the CPU at just below the cold bug is being able to dial in voltages exactly at maximum load and being able to loop threaded benchmarks. |
Intel 7740x:
Based on the Kaby Lake and moved over from socket 1151, this architecture is the most recent in terms of release from Intel. The 7700K was a beast and many of the LN2 overclockers breached 7GHz including myself pre launch. Even though the platform launch was moved up, the partners delivered exceptionally well on a functional stable platform. There was some concerns to the VRM overheating when overclocked. Another thing to expect on Kaby Lake-X is no cold bug, these chips lover cold, more cold than the cascade can provide. On the cascade I have exact temperature control with no temperature drop on maximum load with this CPU . |
This screen shot is the 7740X CPU running the x265 benchmark. This x265 benchmark stresses both memory and CPU, this is a quick way to determine stability when testing at the overclocked frequency. x265 is one of the harder non graphical threaded benchmarks to complete.
Being able to loop X265 in Overkill more, I have unlimited time to dial in settings seeking the lowest stable voltages I can run at. XTU completes at 5.7Ghz with 1.355 vcore on this CPU. I have also completed in 3x overkill mode at this speed.
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VRM non-issue:
The VRM getting hot during overclocking is nothing new, it is definitely not a "disaster" or something any real overclocker should be alarmed about. Legend has it, if we apply more voltage, then we must cool the hot parts in order to get more speed with stability. Some boards have poor heat sink designs, this has always been since the dawn of time and that is why our forefathers invented the 12v sealed baring fan.
To the right is a FLIR image of the VRM under load, you can see the Cascade mount glowing blue and the the VRM glowing red and white. The hottest point reads 94.4F with the 7900X CPU at 5.3Ghz running threaded benchmarks. The difference with performance tuning is that I run the lowest voltages and the highest speed possible. I test by running tough threaded benchmarks. I lived on the edge many years but I prefer having a 100% stable machine that is tuned and tested. Since I am not forcing worst case scenario the VRM is 100% happy with the CPU overclocked. |
Trouble with Optane:
One of the things I really wanted to dig into was the PCH and the handing of RAID in BIOS. We can see all the manufacturers have two or more M.2, U.2 ports boasting mixed RAID configurations with PCIe. I wanted to RAID the 32GB Optane drives as a boot drive and use the Intel U.2 750 SSD as my data drive. A first glance this should be possible... I can cut the Windows 10 install down to 10GB so this leaves me with a little space for essential apps. So I setup the MSI X299 SLI Plus first and setup the Optane drives in boot RAID to start. This started out great, I used the 15.7 drivers and loaded the .exe
As you can see the performance is good and most importantly the the 4K bandwidth is excellent. This configuration boots into windows in one second from when you see the spinning thing. The MSI board has a U.2 port but the post is shared with M.2_2 totally ruining my plans on this config. It works but performance is gone. Using a PCIe AIC worked fine but this interferes with running SLI.
I switched over to the Asus X299 TUF M2, performance matched the MSI but the TUF does not have a U.2 port so I installed the Intel 750 PCIe AIC into the lowest PCIe slot to find out this slot is shared bandwidth with M.2_2 . |
When you install a drive in one of the shared bandwidth slots it somehow damages the RAID permanently and the RAID must be reloaded. I tried reloading drivers with no success in repair. One of the other configurations I tried was to setup the Optane as a cache drive with my NVMe drives but Intel has blocked this configuration from being possible by limiting the Optane to only cache SATA drives. I tried 15.7 and 15.5 drivers with no success, I tried with M.2 960 EVO, U.2 750 SSD, and PCIe 750 SSD AIC. The MSI BIOS has a feature called "Optane Genie" that basically enables Intel Premium RAID and remaps the M.2 drives automatically. A few times the Optane Genie failed on restarts or booting and a F1 message appears F1 for setup F2 for defaults and both disabled Intel RAID automatically. I did not have this problem on the Asus. With X299 there is some progress to RAID options but there is a lot of limitations in place to exactly how you can use your Optane drives.
For my personal system the configuration that I will end up with on this system is software caching the Intel 750 SSD and forgo using Optane as I will not be booting or caching a SATA device. I did reset a world record that had been standing for almost four years set by Christian Ney using the Optane drives in RAID to surpass the performance of an Areca RAID controller with twelve SSD's and lots of cache. I was basically trying to beat the cache on the Areca using the Optane in RAID on Z270.
http://hwbot.org/submission/3576568_fugger_pcmark_7_core_i7_7700k_10100_marks
The Intel page for more complete Optane configuration information can be found here:
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/memory-and-storage/intel-optane-memory/000024018.html
For my personal system the configuration that I will end up with on this system is software caching the Intel 750 SSD and forgo using Optane as I will not be booting or caching a SATA device. I did reset a world record that had been standing for almost four years set by Christian Ney using the Optane drives in RAID to surpass the performance of an Areca RAID controller with twelve SSD's and lots of cache. I was basically trying to beat the cache on the Areca using the Optane in RAID on Z270.
http://hwbot.org/submission/3576568_fugger_pcmark_7_core_i7_7700k_10100_marks
The Intel page for more complete Optane configuration information can be found here:
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/memory-and-storage/intel-optane-memory/000024018.html
Ready?
Even though the platform was release was moved up, the platform is ready and offers a lot of options on both CPU, memory, and drive configurations with the exception you must follow the rules. Certain drive configurations are locked out as well as PCIe lane distribution with the smaller core counts. Other than that this platform is ready for you to make the move to X299.
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THANKS!
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