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

[Dabombinable]

Still, the VRM coolers could be better for the price. Especially considering what we used to get for a lower cost with LGA775.

[Dabombinable]

Eg. 
It may have to also cool the NB + have a heatpipe to the SB, but that board there only cost around $250 AUD when new, so it would be cheaper in the US than current ATX X299 boards. And this was 9 years ago.

[done12many2]

18 minutes ago, MageTank said:

I disagree with this entirely. While it is true, he is blowing a lot of it out of proportion, his intent still seems noble. His comparison of the Z170 Maximus heatsink to the X299 Strix is a valid one to make, as both are part of the ASUS ROG premium lineup and both were (hopefully) designed around the product stack intended to be used in them. The problem he sees, is that the smaller platform got a more robust cooling solution than the larger platform. He isn't trying to compare strong against cheap, but rather point out that what is on the bigger boards, isn't exactly enough for his standards.

 

I understand what you are saying, but my overall point still stands.  VRM throttling isn't specific at all to x299.  By a cheap board on any other platform and you'll see the same thing when you start pushing chips.  His title is most of the problem.

 

Quote

I understand you like that board of yours, but just because the higher end product stack is good, doesn't mean the rest is above criticism. It would be one thing, if he said "all gigabyte boards from this lineup are bad", but I didn't see him say that. Pointing out a potential flaw in people's testing methodology isn't him trying to profit off disaster. To people like myself, that actually explore the many various ways to stress ones system, it seems that he is trying to make sure people are doing so correctly. 5ghz Prime95 with a -500 AVX offset, isn't stressing 5ghz on Prime95. Just like 5ghz Prime95, rapidly throttling down to 1.2ghz and back to 5ghz, isn't stressing Prime95 at 5ghz. 

 

His intent was quite obvious in the titling.  He titled it to draw attention to the entire platform or he would have specified that it was lower end boards.  "X299 VRM Disaster" was exactly what he wanted people to see.  It's not a platform wide issue.  

 

Quote

I said it before, and I'll say it again, the thermals he saw wasn't dangerous (aside from the warm 8 pin), and it really is being blown out of proportion, but it does not make what he says any less true, or insightful for those that need to know. 

 

Of course what he said is true, but when has it never been true in previous generations?  We've known about cheap VRM cooling for years.  

[Notional]

7 minutes ago, done12many2 said:

I understand what you are saying, but my overall point still stands.  VRM throttling isn't specific at all to x299.  By a cheap board on any other platform and you'll see the same thing when you start pushing chips.  His title is most of the problem.

 

His intent was quite obvious in the titling.  He titled it to draw attention to the entire platform or he would have specified that it was lower end boards.  "X299 VRM Disaster" was exactly what he wanted people to see.  It's not a platform wide issue.  

 

Of course what he said is true, but when has it never been true in previous generations?  We've known about cheap VRM cooling for years.  

1

Have you even watched his videos? He has not claimed the entire x299 platform was faulty in any of his videos. But it IS an issue that spans over several vendors and models, so it IS a general issue with the x299 platform. 

 

19 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

Eg. 
It may have to also cool the NB + have a heatpipe to the SB, but that board there only cost around $250 AUD when new, so it would be cheaper in the US than current ATX X299 boards. And this was 9 years ago.

Exactly. Look at the fins on the VRM heatsink. They are like the fins of the heatsinks on GPU's today. Huge surface areas are the point, and what makes a good heatsink. The heatsinks in question are almost just solid blocks and thus are more for show than actually useful. Heck my z97 cheapo ranger board has a vastly superior VRM cooling to many of these x299 boards. 

[MageTank]

Just now, done12many2 said:

I understand what you are saying, but my overall point still stands.  VRM throttling isn't specific at all to x299.  By a cheap board on any other platform and you'll see the same thing when you start pushing chips.

Where exactly did he say it was specific to all X299? He mentions X299 in the title, but he only mentions specific boards that he has issues with in the video. I am aware of how VRM throttling works, and I am also aware that cheaper boards suffer that fate. However, I wouldn't consider the MSI X299 Pro Carbon a "cheap board" coming in at $350 as MSI's second-highest flagship (literally right behind their M7 board). The ASUS X299 Strix is also ASUS's second most expensive board available on the market (as of this post) right behind the X299 Prime Deluxe. Are we to write this off as a cheap motherboard as well, when it's the second most expensive ASUS board people can buy at the moment? 

 

The Auros Gaming 3, i'll lend you some credit on. It's gigabyte's cheapest X299 board on the market as of right now, and ironically, it's performing better than the others (allowing 4.6ghz without throttle under the same testing conditions he used, 100mhz higher than the rest) but he also said that, under his extremely stressful tests, it too wasn't enough. While I agree, it's hard to compare apples to oranges when varying quality exists across the platforms (and price alone does not dictate quality), it's still a valid concern, and it's one anyone should raise when consumers may potentially suffer the consequences for being ignorant to potential issues.

 

5 minutes ago, done12many2 said:

His intent was quite obvious in the titling.  He titled it to draw attention to the entire platform or he would have specified that it was lower end boards.  "X299 VRM Disaster" was exactly what he wanted people to see.  It's not a platform wide issue.  

Intent is subjective to some extent, and I cannot argue against this. I will say, I gave him the benefit of the doubt as English isn't exactly his first language. I do agree that other words could have been far more appropriate, but i'll leave it at that.

 

6 minutes ago, done12many2 said:

Of course what he said is true, but when has it never been true in previous generations?  We've known about cheap VRM cooling for years.  

Again, I can't really argue against this, because he wasn't exactly doing this for X99 (when some pretty flaky VRM's did exist on the cheap boards) so I can't really defend his decision to make a big deal out of it now. Yes, the timing seems like he is trying to potentially ride the hype for more viewers, but for me, it doesn't make his information any less useful. Yes, we are aware that bad VRM cooling is bad, but it's safe to say we don't expect it on the enthusiast platform, given what that platform represents as a whole. Not all consumers on the consumer-level platform buy boards with overclocking in mind, but on the X enthusiast platforms, it's basically a given. The fact that these board partners spent money trying to make boards look pretty, rather than focus that budget on practical functionality, is what bothers me personally. You and I share similar beliefs on function over form, so I need not argue this point any further.

[done12many2]

Just now, Notional said:

Have you even watched his videos? He has not claimed the entire x299 platform was faulty in any of his videos. But it IS an issue that spans over several vendors and models, so it IS a general issue with the x299 platform. 

 

Exactly. Look at the fins on the VRM heatsink. They are like the fins of the heatsinks on GPU's today. Huge surface areas are the point, and what makes a good heatsink. The heatsinks in question are almost just solid blocks and thus are more for show than actually useful. Heck my z97 cheapo ranger board has a vastly superior VRM cooling to many of these x299 boards. 

 

I watch all of der8auer's videos.  The problem is that anyone who doesn't watch them as closely as we have will assume that there is a x299 VRM issue across the platform when there isn't.  "X299 VRM Disaster" isn't the best wording and implies that the issue is much bigger than just cheap coolers on cheap boards.

 

Just go back through this thread and you'll see how misleading the title was.  People within this thread actually believe that the VRM itself is bad.  Titling is everything.  

[Notional]

1 minute ago, done12many2 said:

 

I watch all of der8auer's videos.  The problem is that anyone who doesn't watch them as closely as we have will assume that there is a x299 VRM issue across the platform when there isn't.  "X299 VRM Disaster" isn't the best wording and implies that the issue is much bigger than just cheap coolers on cheap boards.

 

Just go back through this thread and you'll see how misleading the title was.  People within this thread actually believe that the VRM itself is bad.  Titling is everything.  

Well, his actual video is in the OP. It's not exactly his problem that people don't watch the video or OP's don't quote those parts. This is an issue that would hit any and all videos about anything, as no video ever explains exceptions in the headline. Right now we simply don't know how many boards are suffering these issues. Besides if people are buying into the x299 platform, they would probably do proper research before dropping that kind of cash.

[done12many2]

5 minutes ago, Notional said:

Well, his actual video is in the OP. It's not exactly his problem that people don't watch the video or OP's don't quote those parts. This is an issue that would hit any and all videos about anything, as no video ever explains exceptions in the headline. Right now we simply don't know how many boards are suffering these issues. Besides if people are buying into the x299 platform, they would probably do proper research before dropping that kind of cash.

 

Agreed to a point, but you make it sound complicated to use effective titling.  How much longer is this "exception"?  "Low-end X299 VRM cooling issues" or "Concerns with some low-end X299 boards".  

 

You make it sound as if I expect him to explain conditions within a title.  That would be nonsense.  

 

X299 seems to be the brunt of a great deal of sensationalized titling for the sake of increased views.  To be expected I guess.  

[Notional]

1 minute ago, done12many2 said:

Agreed to a point, but you make it sound complicated to use effective titling.  How much longer is this "exception"?  "Low-end X299 VRM cooling issues" or "Concerns with some low-end X299 boards".  

 

You make it sound as if I expect him to explain conditions within a title.  That would be nonsense.  

 

As @MageTank also explained, these are not necessarily low end motherboards. They are also expensive boards. The essential problem (outside of a single 8 pin connector), is that the heatsinks have been designed with aesthetics in mind rather than functionality. This time the vendors simply underestimated how much power the CPU's could draw. Not entirely unexpected, when a platform is rushed.

[MageTank]

4 minutes ago, done12many2 said:

 

Agreed to a point, but you make it sound complicated to use effective titling.  How much longer is this "exception"?  "Low-end X299 VRM cooling issues" or "Concerns with some low-end X299 boards".  

 

You make it sound as if I expect him to explain conditions within a title.  That would be nonsense.  

 

X299 seems to be the brunt of a great deal of sensationalized titling for the sake of increased views.  To be expected I guess.  

Your issue seems to be your interpretation of the title. I saw the title, and I did not think that every VRM on every X299 motherboard was an issue. I know that different boards use different phase counts, controllers, mosfets and what not. I know that not all of them are designed exactly the same, and it would be impossible for every single VRM to be bad. I also watched the video, and nowhere did I see him say every board was an issue. He explained exactly which boards he had the problems on, and explained his exact testing methodology, along with asking others to report their own findings. If the man had ill-intent to deceive people, he would not be taking this route. 

 

As I said before, I find the use of the word "disaster" to be incorrect, and it could use a more accurate description of the problem. Saying X299 in and of itself, even without specifying which boards (or quality of boards) is still okay to me. Context is everything after all, and in order to obtain the context, watching the video is required. Is it clickbait? Probably, but it was still relevant to the video, and that is all that matters to me. I know it's far reaching for me to assume his mistake in titling that video was due to the fact that English isn't his first language, I still give people the benefit of the doubt at least once before jumping to the conclusion that they are out to deceive or spread misinformation.

[Dabombinable]

18 minutes ago, Notional said:

Exactly. Look at the fins on the VRM heatsink. They are like the fins of the heatsinks on GPU's today. Huge surface areas are the point, and what makes a good heatsink. The heatsinks in question are almost just solid blocks and thus are more for show than actually useful. Heck my z97 cheapo ranger board has a vastly superior VRM cooling to many of these x299 boards. 

Its actually a similar situation for my Z97 Sabertooth MKII, the heatsink is almost a solid block, but then again that's fine due to Haswell's F.I.V.R taking a lot of the load off the motherboard's VRM (hence my 4790K doing 4.8GHz on a 4 phase motherboard with a tiny heatsink).

[Notional]

Just now, Dabombinable said:

Its actually a similar situation for my Z97 Sabertooth MKII, the heatsink is almost a solid block, but then again that's fine due to Haswell's F.I.V.R taking a lot of the load off the motherboard's VRM (hence my 4790K doing 4.8GHz on a 4 phase motherboard with a tiny heatsink).

Yeah, they are almost solid blocks on mine too, but there's twice as much block than on the x299 boards with small heatsinks.

[arnavvr]

2 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

Its actually a similar situation for my Z97 Sabertooth MKII, the heatsink is almost a solid block, but then again that's fine due to Haswell's F.I.V.R taking a lot of the load off the motherboard's VRM (hence my 4790K doing 4.8GHz on a 4 phase motherboard with a tiny heatsink).

Well, you can't really compare LGA775 to modern day motherboards because LGA775 used a lot more power hungry chips, and the fact that many of the chips are now on the CPU (memory controller and such). The whole point of this video is to point out not to overclock on cheap boards. There is a reason why some boards are cheap. Just look at the MSI 970A Krait in this video:

Cheap Boards are shitty for overclocking, that's nothing new.

[done12many2]

9 minutes ago, MageTank said:

As I said before, I find the use of the word "disaster" to be incorrect, and it could use a more accurate description of the problem. Saying X299 in and of itself, even without specifying which boards (or quality of boards) is still okay to me. Context is everything after all, and in order to obtain the context, watching the video is required. Is it clickbait? Probably, but it was still relevant to the video, and that is all that matters to me. I know it's far reaching for me to assume his mistake in titling that video was due to the fact that English isn't his first language, I still give people the benefit of the doubt at least once before jumping to the conclusion that they are out to deceive or spread misinformation.

 

I'm fairly confident that many people reached out to him about the title between his first and subsequent follow up video.  Too easy to fix, but it isn't as effective.  

 

No biggie.  I still like the dude and enjoy his videos a lot.  I just hope that he isn't heading in the direction of a great deal of YouTubers with the sensationalizing of things.

 

 

3 minutes ago, arnavvr said:

Well, you can't really compare LGA775 to modern day motherboards because LGA775 used a lot more power hungry chips, and the fact that many of the chips are now on the CPU (memory controller and such). The whole point of this video is to point out not to overclock on cheap boards. There is a reason why some boards are cheap. Just look at the MSI 970A Krait in this video:

Cheap Boards are shitty for overclocking, that's nothing new.

 

You get it.  Cheap boards do us no favors when pushing CPUs.  Nothing new.

[MageTank]

1 minute ago, arnavvr said:

Well, you can't really compare LGA775 to modern day motherboards because LGA775 used a lot more power hungry chips, and the fact that many of the chips are now on the CPU (memory controller and such). The whole point of this video is to point out not to overclock on cheap boards. There is a reason why some boards are cheap. Just look at the MSI 970A Krait in this video:

Cheap Boards are shitty for overclocking, that's nothing new.

To be fair, they used a CPU that was specifically listed as incompatible on that platform (and motherboard). In fact, if you go to AMD's website, they list those 9590's as "990 only" when it comes to the chipset. 

 

The Krait came out long before the 9590's, so I'd push the blame more towards AMD on that one. Hard to design a motherboard for a CPU you didn't know existed yet. Before anyone mentions it, yes, I am aware that the 9590 is just an overclocked 8350, but most 8350's were incapable of being pushed that far (hence the binning for the 9590's in the first place). 

 

Cheap VRM's should be outed, so that the consumers that purchase them don't suffer the consequences from not knowing before hand, so I understand your point in bringing that specific circumstance up. I would rather board partners err on the side of over-engineering the power delivery, and skimping out on aesthetics, instead of delivering a potential issue for a customer, with full emphasis on it looking pretty. 

[Drak3]

5 minutes ago, done12many2 said:

I just hope that he isn't heading in the direction of a great deal of YouTubers with the sensationalizing of things.

You can say their name.

 

CrankGameplays

 

(Sig line 5.)

[79wjd]

12 minutes ago, MageTank said:

The Krait came out long before the 9590's

The Krait came out like two years after the 9590. 

 

The Krait launched around Q2 2015 while the 9590 was available in OEM systems in 2013 and retail around Q2 2014.

[VagabondWraith]

Nvm

[MageTank]

2 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

The Krait came out like two years after the 9590. 

 

Wow, I thought it was one of MSI's launch boards. Thanks for clarifying that. Still, looking at their CPU support list, 125w is what the board is rated for as far as CPU support goes. AMD also has a specific supported motherboard list for the 9000 series: http://support.amd.com/en-us/search/faq/295

 

On that list, only the 990 motherboards are listed. Though, as I said before, it's a bit of a hassle for the end-user to have to look through all of this just to determine if their CPU is compatible with the board. I'd rather higher-end motherboards just over-engineer their power delivery and call it a day. If consumers want to save money, then buy a cheapo board with a bad VRM, and understand that the VRM is bad because it's cheapo. When we are talking $300-$350 boards, the VRM should not come AFTER the aesthetics. 

[Dabombinable]

29 minutes ago, arnavvr said:

Well, you can't really compare LGA775 to modern day motherboards because LGA775 used a lot more power hungry chips, and the fact that many of the chips are now on the CPU (memory controller and such). The whole point of this video is to point out not to overclock on cheap boards. There is a reason why some boards are cheap. Just look at the MSI 970A Krait in this video:

Cheap Boards are shitty for overclocking, that's nothing new.

Didn't I post that video earlier in this topic . Also, these "cheap" X299 boards are more expensive than my P5Q Deluxe was back in 2008.....and it had far better VRM cooling.

[79wjd]

Just now, MageTank said:

Wow, I thought it was one of MSI's launch boards.

Nope, iirc the Z97 Krait was the first Krait board and it didn't come out until Q4 2014~. I remember because I was kind of "upset" that I got the Z97s SLI Plus (which has a black/brown PCB and blue accents) in Q2 2014 and as much as I love blue the white still looks nicer imho. 

Just now, MageTank said:

When we are talking $300-$350 boards, the VRM should not come AFTER the aesthetics. 

Yeah. It's acceptable if the $150~ X299 boards can't really push more than a 7820x, but a $300 board should really be able to handle almost the entire lineup -- I think it would be okay if you needed a $500 board for the 16c/18c Skylake X. 

[Dabombinable]

34 minutes ago, Notional said:

Yeah, they are almost solid blocks on mine too, but there's twice as much block than on the x299 boards with small heatsinks.

Still don't know why manufacturers have to use solid blocks, when they could have the older+better fin design with a removable metal cover sitting over the top of the fins (primarily for cleaning+boosting the surface area).

[79wjd]

1 minute ago, Dabombinable said:

Still don't know why manufacturers have to use solid blocks, when they could have the older+better fin design with a removable metal cover sitting over the top of the fins (primarily for cleaning+boosting the surface area).

Cheaper to manufacture and aesthetics. 

[arnavvr]

3 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

Didn't I post that video earlier in this topic . Also, these "cheap" X299 boards are more expensive than my P5Q Deluxe was back in 2008.....and it had far better VRM cooling.

Like I said, X299 and the LGA2066 are much less demanding and require less cooling. 

26 minutes ago, MageTank said:

To be fair, they used a CPU that was specifically listed as incompatible on that platform (and motherboard). In fact, if you go to AMD's website, they list those 9590's as "990 only" when it comes to the chipset. 

 

The Krait came out long before the 9590's, so I'd push the blame more towards AMD on that one. Hard to design a motherboard for a CPU you didn't know existed yet. Before anyone mentions it, yes, I am aware that the 9590 is just an overclocked 8350, but most 8350's were incapable of being pushed that far (hence the binning for the 9590's in the first place). 

 

Cheap VRM's should be outed, so that the consumers that purchase them don't suffer the consequences from not knowing before hand, so I understand your point in bringing that specific circumstance up. I would rather board partners err on the side of over-engineering the power delivery, and skimping out on aesthetics, instead of delivering a potential issue for a customer, with full emphasis on it looking pretty. 

That's where the market is going imo, just look at the stupid RGB build log on LTT. They picked parts just because they had lights. Pathetic. 

[Notional]

Just now, Dabombinable said:

Still don't know why manufacturers have to use solid blocks, when they could have the older+better fin design with a removable metal cover sitting over the top of the fins (primarily for cleaning+boosting the surface area).

I assume it's easier/cheaper to manufacture. But with the added design element, I just don't know. I guess Intel CPU's have just been too efficient compared to the VRM earlier. But honestly, I think the two biggest reasons are the rushed release date as well as these CPU's are capable of drawing a lot more power than what the vendors expected/were able to test in such a short time.