has motherboard shopping gotten easier or harder?

[EarthDog]

Its timely, the vid, for sure.

Here is my issue...with just a bit of airflow on the vrm, this doesnt really happen. Out of the over dozen motherboards of x299 i reviewed using a corsair h115i and 7900x at 4.5ghz, i was unable to see vrm throttling. It was open air and minimal airflow environment using that cooler.

Maybe i had one do so but it was mini-itx??? I dont recall offhand.

 

[Alaric]

I just took it to mean that combo under those circumstances was a fail. It was kind of borderline to begin with. A bit of a disappointment to see an Asus board come up short in a HEDT platform, but one example falls way short of the FX VRM Fiasco that really was a platform wide problem.

 

[EarthDog]

Overclocking a 7980XE with a CLC and no airflow.

Im currently running a 7960X at 4.5ghz on custom cooling as well without issue (msi xpower). It passed p95 small fft using avx....cpu temp limited.

 

[Alaric]

No airflow, definitely. But the chip wasn't throttling, the board was.

 

[EarthDog]

I know that... im saying the cpu ran/runs there just fine. If the vrm causes throttling, the cpu clocks down.

 

[Alaric]

People blamed the chip?

 

[EarthDog]

Nope.

 

[Alaric]

I guess I confuse easily. It was one board on a bench in a studio. How did it get blown out of proportion? I watched it for the entertainment value, that's why I used "timely" instead of "relevant". LOL

 

[EarthDog]

You do seem confused here, indeed. That wasn't the original video der8aur did on this stuff. There was another one before that he actually made which led to the one you linked.

It was that original video which prompted a 'panic' over the concern.

 

[Alaric]

Ohh. I didn't know that. Well, that makes it a lot more clear. The title of that video pretty much explains your point with agonizing clarity. Geez. "Content creator" is starting to carry the same connotation as hipster and millennial for me. Too many Rednecks Of Tech out there. That's why I come here for hard information, or to be pointed the way to it.

 

[EarthDog]

Right, so, heavy overclocking on a 145W flagship CPU, with no airflow around the VRM heatsinks which some boards made too small.

I'm not saying the problem doesn't exist, it does. But at the time, seems to have caused panic and more concern than needed, in particular with the uninformed.

Some companies then made "XE" versions of their boards with more robust heatsinks or added a small fan. But that was like 4 boards IIRC (2 ASRock and two ASUS). Maybe GIGA did it too... I think they did with a board or two as well. But those who did, did so on generally higher end boards as in general those are the ones people choose (and rightfully so) to push these chips way past spec.

 

[Alaric]

Now I feel bad for perpetuating that nonsense by posting the video.

 

[Woomack]

We've passed that multiple times. I have no idea why people were spreading that info but I haven't seen any VRM issues on 8 or 9 X299 motherboards on ambient cooling. In all cases CPU was reaching throttling temp much faster than VRM could overheat or show any other issues. Even X299 ITX motherboard was stable maxing out my 7900X CPU at about the same clock as top X299 series.
What is really annoying is how info spreads around the forums in last years. People have no idea how things work and post stupid articles made by clueless people. 99% of info is a simple repost because of course, if someone posted that then has to be true.

I'm not saying there are no issues with VRM on some motherboards but I simply haven't seen that for a long time. I'm barely using Gigabyte or EVGA and I wasn't overclocking on these brands since total fail with Z87/97 and 7x RMA on GB boards in less than a year. I simply had no VRM issues at all with MSI, Biostar, ASRock or ASUS but again, I'm not really overclocking on the cheapest mobos.

 

[EarthDog]

Nothing with giga or evga boards ive reviewed either.

 

[wingman99]

The Gamers nexus Video Alaric posted was with 18 core i9-7980XE and x299 ASUS ROG RAMPAGE VI EXTREME VRM throttling on passive cooling with a 4.3GHz overclock. They were not testing with a 10 core i9 7900X

Steve Burke was conferencing with Der8auer for his opinion on throttling. What was said by Der8auer is the heat sinks are poorly designed for looks and not efficiently, like efficiently finned VRM heat sinks for work stations instead of heat sink blocks.

The point to take away from this motherboard manufactures could make better overclocking motherboard VRM cooling efficiency without adding more cost or fans. This just adds to what I was saying picking out a motherboard for i9-7980XE overclocked to 4.3GHz on passive VRM cooling takes what little information can be obtained on the net or luck of the draw when you purchase the PC without knowledge about overclocking and VRM throttling.

 

[EarthDog]

7900X at 4.5 GHz will use more power than a 7980XE at stock.

I also added personal experience on top of that with a.......

7960X at 4.5ghz on custom cooling as well without issue (msi xpower). It passed p95 small fft using avx....cpu temp limited.

and even earlier......."but chances are much better users run out of cooling before running out of board."

 

[caddi daddi]

vrm heatsinks are just ugly chunks of metal now, look at the asrock extreme 9 z97.
the asus crosshair for fx, now those was some sinks!!!!!!!

 

[wingman99]

MSI X299-XPOWER GAMING uses VRM heat pipe to a finned cooler. Not a fair comparison to most x299 motherboards.

 

[caddi daddi]

http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z97 Extreme9/

just look at those sinks, advertising billboards.........

 

[EarthDog]

MSI X299-XPOWER GAMING uses VRM heat pipe to a finned cooler. Not a fair comparison to most x299 motherboards.

Zero airflow. It sits in a Thermaltake P5.

The previous board in there doing the same job was a X299 tomahawk arctic. BetteR?