Asus responds to Der8auer's X299 VRM problem

[Zyndo]

Just now, MageTank said:

I can provide two videos in which a normal case (with fans near the VRM) are used if you'd like to catch up on the issue

Go for it. I'm all for receiving new information.

[Drak3]

17 minutes ago, MageTank said:

Thanks, my mom says that too. 

 

What about your significant other? He/she sticking around for the looks, or the memory overclocks?

[MageTank]

1 minute ago, Zyndo said:

Go for it. I'm all for receiving new information.

(that is a flattering thumbnail)

 

(used the exact timestamp in which he used a Phanteks Evolve as per the request of user-comments)

 

Again, I need to reiterate a few things: I am not trying to defend Der8auer. He is silly when he refers to this as a "disaster" and his testing methodology is backwards. Small FFT Prime95 is NOT a stability test, and never was intended to be. It will not test your core voltage stability in the slightest. You need larger FFT's (1344k-2688k) if that is truly your intention. Secondly, he is wrong when he says "Prime95 is worst case scenario". That's not even remotely true. Linpack MKL is where men go to die. I am still afraid of it after going back to a large case (CM Master Case Pro 5) and a CLC (EVGA 280mm CLC). The difference between Prime95 48k FFT and Linpack MKL has been 8-12C on my personal rig, and that's with me underclocking my ram out of fear of MKL (which scales dramatically based on memory bandwidth due to AVX). My point is, if his intent was to test worst-case scenario, he is still wrong.

 

Now, the ASUS X299-A isn't an enthusiast board. It gets a pass for me, since it's literally the cheapest X299 ASUS board you can get. The Strix on the other hand, I have an issue with because it gets the ROG branding, while being a painted up ASUS X299 Prime (non-deluxe). Another cheap board that masquerades as an expensive board because "muh RGB's". The MSI Gaming Pro Carbon really surprises me, because it's normally MSI's second highest board in their product stack. For it to perform just as worse as ASUS's cheapest offering, tells me they clearly don't deserve to label this a "pro" board. Now, the funny thing is when Gigabyte gets involved. Their lowest-end board outperformed the others slightly, and was able to hold a 100mhz higher overclock under this "worse case" load. A testament to over-engineering that can pay off, even on the cheaper side of things. Either that, or they allowed for a higher temperature limit of the VRM, can't remember which was the actual case.

 

Either way, the cheap boards that are not presented as enthusiast-level, record breaking OCing boards get a pass from me, because they are cheap for that reason. However, when you have something like the ROG Apex or Maximus lineup, where people buy these boards specifically because of how well they do under the most extreme overclocks, I expect the board to handle anything the CPU throws at it. I expect that CPU to fold long before the board does. 

Just now, Drak3 said:

What about your significant other? He/she sticking around for the looks, or the memory overclocks?

You honestly think I can afford a girlfriend with a hobby this expensive?!?! Can barely afford to feed myself with DRAM prices this absurdly high. 

[Drak3]

Just now, MageTank said:

You honestly think I can afford a girlfriend with a hobby this expensive?!?! Can barely afford to feed myself with DRAM prices this absurdly high. 

I had a girlfriend that didn't require spending money on her. She was extremely boring to be around, but that's not the point.

[vanished]

15 hours ago, NumLock21 said:

Spoiler

 

 

 

you have got to be kidding me... please tell me this is a joke, right?  omg...

[NumLock21]

24 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

 

you have got to be kidding me... please tell me this is a joke, right?  omg...

No, it's legit. My old Asus Rampage Formula came with those heatsink coolers. But I never used them cause I had a air cooler. Your only suppose to use it, when you're running a AIO or passive cooling.

[Curufinwe_wins]

I don't understand people not blaming mobo makers on this one, or those defending them. You want evidence they knew this wasn't good enough... Merely look back to every equivalent from x99 era. All of them have beefier VRM coolers.

 

Literally just reusing the x99 VRM cooler setup would have been perfectly fine.

 

On 6/30/2017 at 11:15 AM, Curufinwe_wins said:

Completely Agreed.

 

 

With all due respect (to the intel bashers).... this looks 100% to be motherboard manufacturers cheaping out.... Look at the difference in the heatsink height and size between the x99 Deluxe and the x299 Deluxe.

 

The only part of this that would be on Intel is the rush, but even then... it would have been better just to reuse the old power delivery then over this shit.

 

Also here is the x99 Sabertooth compared to the x299 TUF... You can't honestly tell me anyone other than Asus (and other mobo makers) are to blame for that...

 

 

[Curufinwe_wins]

And not just with Asus....

 

MSI x299 pro carbon...

 

 

MSI x99 pro carbon

 

See the size and in particular surface area difference?

 

[mr moose]

snip, duplicate

 

[mr moose]

7 hours ago, LooneyJuice said:

Well, from what I gathered (and the followup videos) after the issues regarding methodology, there were still overheating issues with the VRM. Mostly what was rectified was EPS connector temp, but VRM temp-induced throttling conditions were still replicated after the colab with Tim Logan from OC3D. Now, the usual argument can be made about how most people won't even touch those loads, and it's already been made here. On the other hand, though, I'm of the impression that if you can somehow induce these loads by operating a CPU to its max capacity, even on an overclock (one which doesn't appear to be unsustainable for the long term), and without hardware mods, you are obligated to be able to accommodate it.

 

Overclocking is a sliding scale, the more you overclock the more mods you have to make to keep it stable,  why would VRM cooling be excluded from this scale and expected to cater for every conceivable mod made in order to reach the limit of a CPU? No one argues the CPU's are dodgy becasue some people have to buy an after markert cooler to get better overclocks.  I think the same thing applies here.  The product works to certain degree, and unless Asus said their boards a capable of sustaining any specific power draw without modification then they aren't actually faulty, just not quite good enough for extreme overclocking.

[Zyndo]

22 minutes ago, MageTank said:

Snip

Very well. Looks like my ignorance was the issue in this debate. thank you for clearing things up. I didn't bother watching the OC3D TV video, because I suspect it would repeat a lot of the same information and its 34 friggen minutes long... and my problem was with De8auer anyway, and he addresses most of the concerns and issues out there quite well.

So my exact reasoning may have been a bit off because I did not have all of the information (thank you for pointing it out).... But my conclusion isn't wrong either. This IS still user-error, albeit intentional user-error... Lets sort something out here so people don't draw the incorrect conclusions I did.

For anyone wondering, In order to have the issues he was having with these "bad VRM heatsinks" you need to:

1. De-lid the CPU and apply liquid metal TIM (otherwise your CPU throttles)
2. Raise the TJ max to 105C ,up from 94C (otherwise your CPU throttles)

3. Disable SVID (otherwise your CPU throttles)

4. Raise CPU current limit to %140 (otherwise your get non-obvious throttling according to De8auer, not sure how that works but whatever, lets move on)

5. He also mentioned that some boards (such as his gigabyte board) had other specific issues related to them ("vccn throttling") which he had to adjust for and deal with, yet another barrier he had to manually get around...

So for anyone looking to buy X299 and go "all out" for a custom water cooling (even with a de-lid) you will not encounter VRM related issues with such a "casual" approach to your overclock. the VRM heatsink "issues" only really pertains to those who monkey around with all of their settings, and who intend to go well beyond even their already extreme custom loop setups, or to take it to the next level at least. Looks like you have to be truly extreme (and disable at least 4 in place countermeasures) before your VRM heatsink becomes a problem. I still hold De8auer responsible for this misinformation, because at no point in his initial video does he even so much as VAGUELY hint or suggest that any of these things are happening, other than his de-lid, so it comes off as a "oh I just de-lided my 7900x, and now i can't overclock it, intel screws us again!" sort of video. In reality its a "oh hey I took off all the safety settings, threw an impossibly high load at it, and my stock heatsink on my budget board can't keep up", but it just doesn't mention it.

 

@MageTank for the more nitty gritty parts..... pretty easy question. If people believe its laziness, cheapness, and/or oversight that, even with these beyond extreme conditions, there is a heatsink issue my question is this; where do they put more heatsink? Where on the board is there physical space which is disposable enough that such heatsinks should be present on most, if not all, boards? With the socket being so large, 8 DIMM slots, and require spacing for these components, where could they put it? The Gigabyte Gaming 7/9, which are not budget boards, alters the layouts slightly by lowing the DIMMS/socket, sacrificing a PCIe slot to do it, then sneaks a pipe to a second heatsink under the rear IO shroud, but under there what good is it doing? The Apex makes up for this by sacrificing half the DIMMs to put the proper amount of heatsink in to do the job for these beyond extreme situations (which makes sense considering the apex lineup and what its intended for)... Should all motherboards come with fewer PCIe slots or DIMM's (or some other sacrifice) in order to make the %0.1 users out there able to do whatever? I certainly don't think so...

And even if there was some way to engineer this (like Gigabyte did), why would they want to? The reason you get an Apex board is to have the utmost in this overclocking area, the budget boards shouldn't be able to compete with your specialized boards (worth noting the gaming 7 and 9 are much more expensive than those discussed in De8auer's review) otherwise there is no need for the specialized board to exist.

Although I do not like the "in a case" test he did.... he picked a terrible airflow case with poor roof mounting placement and I feel that was done deliberately to prove a case wouldn't help, I think there are plenty other cases which would, but at the very least its definitely a very realistic situation one could realistically do -- X299 in one of the most popular cases on the market.... soo yeah... he did what i technically asked for and its a realistic situation (settings aside) so fair is fair.

 

 

So all that being said, I'm still adamant there is nothing wrong with the VRM heatsinks on X299 boards; although I have new reasons for it now (Thank you @MageTank for the video updates). Certainly haven't seen any evidence of it thus far. If you have specialized extreme overclocking needs, get the specialized extreme overclocking boards... that's what they're there for. I certainly don't blame Asus, Gigabyte or any other board maker for that (or intel least of all). I feel like the information was misrepresented by De8auer (intentionally or not) which got him on the X299 hate bandwagon clickbait that has been going on for weeks; most of which is entirely unfounded, and entirely is done for YouTubers to get more views... its just been YT publicity at Intel's expense. I mean there are SOME dumb things about X299, like the RAID keys, but mostly X299 is a badass platform for baller users who can afford it.

 

 

Also, @NumLock21, In my quest for the truth some other information came out, near the end of De8auer's initial "the X299 VRM disaster" video, he mentions that the APEX board will be having finned heatsinks to combat heat problems, contrary to what was displayed at computex, and he was told this internally (at at the very least, before his VRM critique video was released, not after)... so this can't be an Asus "response" because it always was and has been happening haha.

 

[mr moose]

snip delete please, browser shat and kept reposting

 

[Zyndo]

6 minutes ago, mr moose said:

 

Overclocking is sliding scale, the more you overclock the more mods you have to make to keep it stable,  why would VRM cooling be excluded from this. No one argues the CPU's are dodgy becasue some people have to buy an after markert cooler to get better overclocks.  I think the same thing applies here.  The product goes to s certain degree, unless Asus said their boards a capable of sustaining a certain power draw without modification then they aren't actually faulty, just not quite good enough for extreme overclocking.

this... THIIISSSS!

 

I think most people (like myself until just earlier) aren't aware that these "bad VRM heatsinks" are being put under unrealistic situations with all of the dials and countermeasures put up WAYYY past 10..

[Curufinwe_wins]

9 minutes ago, Zyndo said:

snip

 

See the above comparison images of x99 and x299 equivalent motherboards... You can easily see how they make the VRM heatsinks bigger. x299 isn't any more restrictive than x99 (marginal difference). x299 wasn't going to consume less power than x99...

 

So why were massively inferior VRM solutions considered acceptable for x299 when they were not for x99?

 

I mean there is no explanation worth talking about other than mobo makers cheaping out on already expensive motherboards.

 

 

And motherboards being only "to minimum spec" is how we get the old 970/990 fiascos.

[LooneyJuice]

1 minute ago, mr moose said:

 

Overclocking is a sliding scale, the more you overclock the more mods you have to make to keep it stable,  why would VRM cooling be excluded from this scale and expected to cater for every conceivable mod made in order to reach the limit of a CPU? No one argues the CPU's are dodgy becasue some people have to buy an after markert cooler to get better overclocks.  I think the same thing applies here.  The product works to certain degree, and unless Asus said their boards a capable of sustaining any power draw without modification then they aren't actually faulty, just not quite good enough for extreme overclocking.

Not quite sure which one of the 3 posts to quote, but I'll pick this one. 

 

By hardware mods, I meant stuff like soldering additional components to a VRM and such. Just for clarity. Also, there's I think a bit of a problem when it comes to the argument that they aren't obligated to accommodate every eventuality, seeing as a lot of these guys (Der8auer included) get invited to pre-launch gatherings and crank the absolute shiz out of the boards. I mean, before these boards were even out, Roman was lathering them with vaseline and sticking LN2 pots on them. They do know what they're supposed to be put through, it's just that for some reason, they elected to knock the overall quality down a notch by not machining fins into their already existing heatsink block design. It's just a silly thing is the point. They had fins, why not now? It's just an overall better thing for the product. The bottom line is always what matters in the end, but we're not talking budget boards.

[-rascal-]

17 hours ago, nerdslayer1 said:

is this a joke? it feels like a really shitty joke. 

this MOBO costs 270 USD

 

That sir, is the Maximus IX Apex for $269.99.

Z270, LGA 1151.

 

The one der8auer is talking about / using is the X299 variant...Rampage VI Apex.

[mr moose]

5 minutes ago, LooneyJuice said:

Not quite sure which one of the 3 posts to quote, but I'll pick this one. 

 

By hardware mods, I meant stuff like soldering additional components to a VRM and such. Just for clarity. Also, there's I think a bit of a problem when it comes to the argument that they aren't obligated to accommodate every eventuality, seeing as a lot of these guys (Der8auer included) get invited to pre-launch gatherings and crank the absolute shiz out of the boards. I mean, before these boards were even out, Roman was lathering them with vaseline and sticking LN2 pots on them. They do know what they're supposed to be put through, it's just that for some reason, they elected to knock the overall quality down a notch by not machining fins into their already existing heatsink block design. It's just a silly thing is the point. They had fins, why not now? It's just an overall better thing for the product. The bottom line is always what matters in the end, but we're not talking budget boards.

Quote any one, my browser shat and I was spamming the post button but nothing was happening.

 

It seems to me there is too much ambiguity in was is to be expected from hardware based on the degree of torture some users put them through.  It's safe to say that any component with a clock (baring maybe routers) are subject to overclocking, but expecting every single manufacturer to make the most robust and product and guarantee it seems a little too impossible.   I guess this is why we have reviews and some products are favored for such tasks.

[Zyndo]

17 minutes ago, Curufinwe_wins said:

 mean there is no explanation worth talking about other than mobo makers cheaping out on already expensive motherboards.

Perhaps people were getting annoyed at VRM heatsink clearance issues when installing their roof mounted fans/radiators? even a large air cooler could require clearance in this area. Seeing as X299 is so hot, its very probable someone would want to install a large heatsink and/or AIO in their system. This sort of thing would happen considerably more often than the extreme situations where these "cheap" CRM heatsinks actually become an issue for people.

 

It could also be an issue with aesthetic marketing. doesn't matter how big your heatsink is if its too ugly to actually sell any product. perhaps their focus groups and other various studies show these new sleeker heatsinks will sell better.

 

It could also be an issue with practical marketing. No point in designing and producing an Apex style board if its not going to actually be any better than your other boards.

 

 

 

Plenty of reasons for it, there's three very sane ones I came up with (there are probably a lot more). the number of users this "VRM issue" affects is decidedly small. You need to be an overly extreme overclocker, who is willing to de-lid (mod) and watercool (at least AIO water cooling) and do a bunch of custom BIOS and disable your regular limitors(mod) but who is unwilling to fork out the money to buy or mod additional VRM cooling such as a monoblock or even a VRM liquid block (decidedly small investments against a custom cooled X299 system).... and also not be willing to simply buy the board(s) which are designed for your needs...

I don't see any good reason for everyone to be so outraged about the mod-heavy water cooling users who aren't willing to keep moding and/or water cooling when their moding goes a bit overboard..... like whaaaa? I would wager this "horrible excuse of a VRM cooling setup" (probably said by some guy somewhere at some point) would affect less than 0.1% (fabricated number based on my own arbitrary reasoning) of all X299 users.... are we really saying that motherboard manufacturers should build ALL of their boards to cover those extreme and exceptionally rare situations?

[LooneyJuice]

11 minutes ago, mr moose said:

 

but expecting every single manufacturer to make the most robust and product and guarantee it seems a little too impossible.   I guess this is why we have reviews and some products are favored for such tasks.

Therein lies a distinction and the reason I think a lot of people took umbrage with this malarkey. It wasn't any manufacturer, product tier or random component. It's, I think, very succinctly, a motherboard, in this case by ASUS, marketed as an enthusiast-grade board for overclocking. 

 

If we're talking about a bargain bin B350 B250 motherboard, no I wouldn't expect it to run anything past rated specs. We're not though. Not to mention that even if this was somewhat of a knee-jerk reaction, it did help to make a decent product, even better, rather than go unchecked. So, I can't really blame people for dropping a hot load on it, even if, in some cases, the reaction was a bit disproportional.

 

EDIT: Apologies, my finger slipped, I meant B250.

[Curufinwe_wins]

1 minute ago, Zyndo said:

1. People were getting annoyed at VRM heatsink clearance issues when installing their roof mounted fans/radiators? even a large air cooler could require clearance in this area. This sort of thing would happen considerably more often than the extreme situations where these "cheap" CRM heatsinks become an issue for people.

 

2. It could also be an issue with aesthetic marketing. doesn't matter how big your heatsink is if its too ugly to actually sell any product. perhaps their focus groups and other various studies show these new sleeker heatsinks will sell better.

 

3. It could also be an issue with practical marketing. No point in designing and producing an Apex style board if its not going to actually be any better than your other boards.

 

 

 

Plenty of reasons for it, there's three very sane ones I came up with (there are probably a lot more). the number of users this "VRM issue" affects is decidedly small. You need to be an overly extreme overclocker, who is willing to de-lid (mod) and watercool (at least AIO water cooling) and do a bunch of custom BIOS and disable your regular limitors(mod) but who is unwilling to fork out the money to buy or mod additional VRM cooling such as a monoblock or even a VRM liquid block (decidedly small investments against a custom cooled X299 system).... and also not be willing to simply buy the board(s) which are designed for your needs...

I don't see any good reason for everyone to be so outraged about the mod-heavy water cooling users who aren't willing to keep moding and/or water cooling when their moding goes a bit overboard..... like whaaaa?

 

1. The VRM heatsinks on all of the ones listed were still lower than low profile ram. This is not a valid complaint.

2. If that was the case, the second-gen x99 mobo's would also have had the reduced VRM design. 

3. See the comparison between the x99 Deluxe and x299 Deluxe. The x99 TUF Sabertooth and the x299 TUF. The x99 Pro Carbon and the x299 Pro Carbon. No point in designing any of these boards? Why have the boards at all if you don't expect to sell them.

 

None of those reasons are valid, and mobo makers simply cheaping out and thinking they could get away with it is clearly the most logical solution (occam's razor).

 

All of these boards are explicitly marketed for their "overbuilt" and "extreme" reliability. Which is pathetic even compared to the last generation of product.

 

When should we be happy that the iPhone 8 is patently worse and less reliable than the iPhone 7 at the same price just because Apple wanted to save a few cents (great equivalent comparison to bend-gate btw)?

[Curufinwe_wins]

4 minutes ago, LooneyJuice said:

Therein lies a distinction and the reason I think a lot of people took umbrage with this malarkey. It wasn't any manufacturer, product tier or random component. It's, I think, very succinctly, a motherboard, in this case by ASUS, marketed as an enthusiast-grade board for overclocking. 

 

If we're talking about a bargain bin B350 motherboard, no I wouldn't expect it to run anything past rated specs. We're not though. Not to mention that even if this was somewhat of a knee-jerk reaction, it did help to make a decent product, even better, rather than go unchecked. So, I can't really blame people for dropping a hot load on it, even if, in some cases, the reaction was a bit disproportional.

Also the x299 Deluxe is a 500 dollar motherboard and is also that much of a regression from the x99 Deluxe. (again images above).

 

Completely unacceptable for that sort of pathetic regression on one of their halo products....

 

 

 

[The Sloth]

18 minutes ago, -rascal- said:

 

That sir, is the Maximus IX Apex for $269.99.

Z270, LGA 1151.

 

The one der8auer is talking about / using is the X299 variant...Rampage VI Apex.

i was mistaken, is there a price for it? 

[Curufinwe_wins]

1 minute ago, nerdslayer1 said:

i was mistaken, is there a price for it? 

Not yet, but the lower end strix is 350 dollars. So yeah. 400-450 is probably reasonable.

[The Sloth]

1 minute ago, Curufinwe_wins said:

400-450 is probably reasonable.

makes it worst 

[PCGuy_5960]

1 minute ago, Curufinwe_wins said:

So yeah. 400-450 is probably reasonable.

The Deluxe costs $500, so the Rampage will probably cost $600-700