[UPDATED] Der8auer States Some X299 Low End boards Have Bad VRM Coolers

[The Benjamins]

2 minutes ago, Jahramika said:

Why do you include Thread ripper in this? The Thread ripper boards I seen by Linus and others have dual 8 pin on the motherboard, BTW.

how can AMD be more prepared then the almighty Intel.

 

/s

[Dylanc1500]

15 minutes ago, The Benjamins said:

how can AMD be more prepared then the almighty Intel.

 

/s

By meditating for 5 years.

 

I think it's where they got their "Zen".

[PCGuy_5960]

5 minutes ago, Jahramika said:

Why do you include Thread ripper in this? The Thread ripper boards I seen by Linus and others have dual 8 pin on the motherboard, BTW.

And do you think that the VRM overheating issue has to do with the fact that the board has a single 8 pin?

[cj09beira]

1 minute ago, PCGuy_5960 said:

And do you think that the VRM overheating issue has to do with the fact that the board has a single 8 pin?

both are problems 

[The Benjamins]

1 minute ago, PCGuy_5960 said:

And do you think that the VRM overheating issue has to do with the fact that the board has a single 8 pin?

well it seems that Threadripper had more time for testing then x299 which would help find issues like this and fix them before launch.

 

When you accelerate a launch by a month they may have cut most of the testing time away from board partners to iron things out.

[Hunter259]

14 minutes ago, Jahramika said:

Why do you include Thread ripper in this? The Thread ripper boards I seen by Linus and others have dual 8 pin on the motherboard, BTW.

Just because it has dual 8pin doesn't mean that the VRM cooling design won't be shit.

[79wjd]

9 minutes ago, The Benjamins said:

well it seems that Threadripper had more time for testing then x299 which would help find issues like this and fix them before launch.

 

When you accelerate a launch by a month they may have cut most of the testing time away from board partners to iron things out.

This isn't a testing issue. Ten core CPUs existed on X99. This is just motherboard manufacturers cutting corners to release a "cheaper" board since x299 covers such a wide range of products.

[Spuriae]

Jon Gerow (Jonnyguru) commented that the reason Roman is seeing those wire temps is because of Superflower's modular connectors, which use fewer conductors than normal ones. This is causing his PSU cables to heat up.

 

My guess is that the resistance of those cables is heating up the PCB in turn, adding a good 30C or so to the normal VRM temps (which is exactly what Roman is measuring, BTW). The reason taking off the heatsinks and using a fan is lowering the temps is because he's actually cooling the PCB and not the VRM itself; the VRM heatsink is only supposed to cool the mosfets.

 

In other words, he's using temperature probes mounted to the PCB, and the PCB is the heat source. When he cools the PCB directly the PCB temperatures drop. With the VRM heatsink attached, the mosfets themselves cool down but his thermocouples read a higher temperature because they're measuring the temperature of the PCB and not the IC's.

 

I think we're going to discover later on that these issues have nothing to do with the design of the VRM's or their cooling, just like with EVGA's 1080's.

[The Benjamins]

49 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

This isn't a testing issue. Ten core CPUs existed on X99. This is just motherboard manufacturers cutting corners to release a "cheaper" board since x299 covers such a wide range of products.

They could be using a new power delivery design, or something. testing would of found this. I use to work at a engineering company were they had to go from order to design manufacturing test validation to shipping  in a few months. even using previously used and tested designs things come up, and you have to work around it. I am willing to bet if they had a extra month or so they could of fixed a lot of these issues before release.

[cj09beira]

this is another case of beauty over function, look at old motherboards, what you see ? copper heatsinks, designs with fins to allow for bigger surface area, all that gone in modern days 

[The Benjamins]

Just now, cj09beira said:

this is another case of beauty over function, look at old motherboards, what you see ? copper heatsinks, designs with fins to allow for bigger surface area, all that gone in modern days 

That is why Asus WS boards were so good, they had no frills

[Spuriae]

1 hour ago, The Benjamins said:

They could be using a new power delivery design, or something. testing would of found this. I use to work at a engineering company were they had to go from order to design manufacturing test validation to shipping  in a few months. even using previously used and tested designs things come up, and you have to work around it. I am willing to bet if they had a extra month or so they could of fixed a lot of these issues before release.

They've used the exact same components on X99 and had no issues (Rampage V and Gigabyte SOC in particular; exact same as the X299 VRM's and nowhere near having thermal issues - on X99 they could have gotten rid of the heatpipes and had no problems). The problem is extremely unlikely to be the VRM's themselves. I'd guess that the problem (if indeed real) either lies with an efficiency problem with this batch of components from International Rectifier (every single board is using their Powerpaks) or a change in the way things other than the CPU distribute power on X299 (perhaps whatever is increasing idle power consumption is also responsible for increased PCB temps).

 

1 hour ago, cj09beira said:

this is another case of beauty over function, look at old motherboards, what you see ? copper heatsinks, designs with fins to allow for bigger surface area, all that gone in modern days 

I agree that lots of these new heatsinks are getting worse (MSI's glossy coating has me questioning things, and the fact that only a handful of boards have beefy coolers comparable to X99 is odd). The switch from copper heatsink to anodized aluminum, however, was not a case of form over function. Anodized aluminum has much higher emissivity than copper, making it far better for passive cooling. With coolers trending away from direct airflow through the VRM heatsinks, the switch makes a lot of sense. Fin design also starts getting really weird with thermal radiation as fin arrays begin radiating more into themselves than their surroundings, with solutions that potentially make fewer fins and off-axis fins ideal.

 

[VagabondWraith]

So a quick update:

 

I mounted a 92mm fan directly over the "heatsink" of my MSI Pro Carbon motherboard. My VRM temps dropped by 15c. At load, they were 55-60c, now 42-45. Idle, from 41-42c, to 29-30c. 

 

So yes, I can confirm that the "heatsink" is a piece of shit.

[PCGuy_5960]

Just now, VagabondWraith said:

So yes, I can confirm that the "heatsink" is a piece of shit.

It's not a heatsink. It's an aluminum block with RGB

[Rune]

We've not had any returns on x299 yet as far as I can tell (not at work today), so either people are waiting for a solution or this really is not a problem at all.

[samcool55]

6 hours ago, KOMTechAndGaming said:

if that is true, why wont my 32gb 4x8 kit of corsair vengance red led run at 2993(3000) and only run at 2666

edit 

NVM im only the latest bios listed on https://www.asus.com/uk/Motherboards/ROG-CROSSHAIR-VI-HERO/HelpDesk_Download/ which is AGESA 1.0.04a

AGESA 1.0.0.6 might be available in a beta bios atm for you. No idea where you can get them but you do see at /r/AMD posts of beta bios'es being available from time to time. And it's the VI hero so i would be surprised if there isn't one somewhere atm.

Of course, it being still a beta version, stability and bug-free operation isn't guaranteed

[VagabondWraith]

10 minutes ago, PCGuy_5960 said:

It's not a heatsink. It's an aluminum block with RGB

That's why I put heatsink in quotations.

[samcool55]

6 hours ago, porina said:

I'm not seeing a major problem here. Generally you're offered products that are expected to operate at stock. If you overclock, you are responsible for taking appropriate measures including selecting suitable components for the level of overclock targeted. That lower end X299 boards might hit some limit and not overclock as well as higher end ones? Is that really a surprise to anyone? If you said running it at stock was potentially dangerous, that's another matter, and the early RX 480 issue was an example of this. The current drawn from the PCIe slot was outside of standards.

 

When I first got a R7 1700, I initially paired it with a B350M-A purely as the mobo I could get quickest. It has no heatsink on the VRM, and using a thermal imaging camera shown below it was hitting around 84C or so under load. Posting my observations on another forum, another user requested the part numbers of the components used in the VRM and found the datasheets for them. They're rated for -55°C to 150°C operation. The mobo was not even close. The mobo in question did have mounting holes around the VRM, so presumably they kept the option open to put a heatsink on if necessary. I later got an X370 mobo and that did have a heatsink on the VRM, and the temperature of that was insignificant.

 

-snip-

The thing is that you don't want your VRM to run at Tjunc temps, it's not healthy and efficiency does through the floor.

Also, for now for cpu's at stock speeds it's fine. But it's just a 10-core. Don't forget those motherboards are suppose to handle 18-core cpu's in the future.

I don't see that ending well... Even at stock speeds i don't think the VRM's are capable of powering an additional 8 cores.

[PCGuy_5960]

1 minute ago, samcool55 said:

Also, for now for cpu's at stock speeds it's fine. But it's just a 10-core. Don't forget those motherboards are suppose to handle 18-core cpu's in the future.

Dood, do you think that people who buy $2000 processors, pair them with $350 motherboards? 

[VagabondWraith]

Don't know if it's posted yet:

 

[LooneyJuice]

2 hours ago, Nimrodor said:

Jon Gerow (Jonnyguru) commented that the reason Roman is seeing those wire temps is because of Superflower's modular connectors, which use fewer conductors than normal ones. This is causing his PSU cables to heat up.

 

My guess is that the resistance of those cables is heating up the PCB in turn, adding a good 30C or so to the normal VRM temps (which is exactly what Roman is measuring, BTW). The reason taking off the heatsinks and using a fan is lowering the temps is because he's actually cooling the PCB and not the VRM itself; the VRM heatsink is only supposed to cool the mosfets.

 

In other words, he's using temperature probes mounted to the PCB, and the PCB is the heat source. When he cools the PCB directly the PCB temperatures drop. With the VRM heatsink attached, the mosfets themselves cool down but his thermocouples read a higher temperature because they're measuring the temperature of the PCB and not the IC's.

 

I think we're going to discover later on that these issues have nothing to do with the design of the VRM's or their cooling, just like with EVGA's 1080's.

OC3D Jumped on the bandwagon testing the hypothesis, with preliminary temps seeming to lean towards what Jonnyguru said. Sadly, I'm on the fence about this. Der8auer, even if he's no Jonnyguru when it comes to PSUs, should maybe have tested more extensively. On the other hand, I think it's safe to say that unless you have pretty in-depth knowledge about the connectors, it's a pretty easy omission to make. What sucks the most is A. People jumped onto the "X299 Boards are Garbage" bandwagon, and B. If this flips over, poor Roman may suffer some backlash. 

 

I want to be clear, point A. is in no way me being sympathetic to the platform, but rather merely wanting everything to be judged on even footing.

[HalGameGuru]

How many cores did x99 max out at? And how much time before launch did mobo manufacturers have to respond to 18 core SKU's being added to the mix?

[Lord Nicoll]

Just now, HalGameGuru said:

How many cores did x99 max out at? And how much time before launch did mobo manufacturers have to respond to 18 core SKU's being added to the mix?

It's claimed by unnamed sources (unnamed for obvious reasons) that they didn't hear about the 18 core chips until Computex at, so no time, however they still would have been working with the idea of a 12 core one.  

[porina]

3 minutes ago, HalGameGuru said:

How many cores did x99 max out at?

I have a 14 core CPU in mine right now, but it is a Xeon so no easy overclocking. Xeons went to twenty-something I think. I recently heard there is a way to OC Xeons, but it involves hacking microcode which is a bit more work than I'm going to bother with.

[tom_w141]

7 hours ago, PCGuy_5960 said:

The answer is it depends: Do you want to push your 7900X to 5+GHz?

• Yes? Get a board like this: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813145014
• No? Any X299 board will work

 

7 hours ago, PCGuy_5960 said:

Der8auer used 1.35V not 1.2V 

So I rewatched video. 4.6GHz 1.25V so not 1.35 and 5Ghz. So not even a mild OC just to correct you there  

 

Non AVX load

 

~ 1:20