Final Words & Conclusion
Final words & conclusion
As far as motherboards go, ASUS is offering something really nice. The Prime has awesome looks, a great feature-set and a strong basis for overclocking. The extras like the embedded LCD screen are funny and well .. funky. The board shines with its fantastic WIFI implementation, and I really am brutally honest here as the 802.11ad implementation is downright nice and unexpected to see. So the platform overall delivers, now I know you want to talk about that below par game performance, but I'll address that in a separated chapter. So overall this is a feature-rich and well-designed motherboard. There is little you would disagree on when looking at it. I still cannot get used to that vertical M2 slot though, it just makes no sense and it looks goofy. Also in this price category it would have been nice to see a third M2 slot much like the competition is doing. But sure, with the two M.2 slots you are covered and can go RAID with them as well. The looks overall are lovely in its black/white look (though looks are personal and thus a subjective preference). ASUS also offers an easy to tweak platform from within their UEFI BIOS. The LED design is not too much out there but intricate enough to impress. So yeah, it's a pretty lovely motherboard.
Performance
With the current BIOS firmware the processor temps remain good, at 70 Degrees C under load conditions. However the current hardware power state of the motherboard is based up-on Intel specifications. We expect that to change with a future BIOS update, rather sooner than later. Intel right now enforces a P-State that keeps energy power consumption of the a bit more in line. With most synthetic benchmarks you will not notice huge perf differences. However the lower per core clocks and voltage states have a tremendous effect on game performance. I talked about this in our initial Core i9 7900X review already. Example: a platform like this should run Rise of the Tomb Raider at ~140 FPS at 1080p on a GeForce GTX 1080. We'd end up at 90~100 FPS. The Intel recommended P-State is not sustainable as the performance in that state sits way BELOW the Core i7 6950X, and that is just ridiculous. Once the motherboard manufacturers will disable this 'feature' or if you manually set the CPU Ratios in the BIOS, that P state changes and your game performance jumps up, back to normal and expected levels including games.
** Update revision 0403 and newer of the BIOS have resolved game perf, it now is as expected.
Tweaking
Depending on choice of cooling, temperatures when the CPU is overclocked with added voltage, you are in for a challenge when compared to the last-gen Broadwell-E procs. Realistically if you already are on that or a Haswell-E platform, really there's little to get excited about upgrade wise. At the OC level you are looking at up-to 1.30~1.35V needed on that CPU core (depending on your frequency target and number of tweaked cores). Tweaking wise the infrastructure that X299 offers is easy to use, you increase the CPU voltage and multiplier and you are good to go. With a Core i9 7900X and a good LCS (liquid cooling) kit you can achieve roughly 4700~4800 MHz. For memory the sky is the limit as the Intel platform is that over the years they have been able to refine their memory controllers, pop in anything XMP 2.0 and you have a 90% chance it'll work straight out of the box with very fast memories. However, the effect of fast clocked memory is far less significant for Intel opposed to AMD Ryzen. Also with quad-channel memory available as an option, we'd always suggest to go with a more affordable 2677 MHz kit, as bandwidth on quad-channel simply is not relevant to your gaming experience. You are better off with more memory.
Power consumption
Depending on the hardware p-state the motherboard is fitted with, your numbers will be all over the place. So, with ten cores you get a 140 Watt TDP processor. With the system at idle with a GeForce GTX 1080 installed / 16 GB memory / SSD and the X299 motherboard I hovered at roughly 75 Watts in IDLE. That's just fine really, the load values are however significant. When we stressed the processor in a 100% run we reach roughly 250 to 300 Watts with this is a ten core part. So, we go from 75 Watts towards 240 Watts. With changed power states (which the manufacturers will change in a BIOS update) you will be looking at the 300 Watts marker. When we game we hover at 300~350 Watts with the GeForce GTX 1080, but obviously that factor is dependant on the type of graphics card you use of course and, sure, most games certainly do not utilize the tem CPU cores.
Something to keep in mind
We quickly have to discuss PCI-Express lanes, as honestly here is Intel just goofing up. Here is the breakdown:
- Kaby Lake-X quad core gets 16 PCI-Express Lanes 3.0
- Skylake-X six and eight core procs get 28 PCI-Express Lanes 3.0
- Skylake-X ten core procs get 44 PCI-Express Lanes 3.0
DDR4 Memory
Ever since Haswell-E was released along came DDR4 memory. With Skylake-X DDR4 may be clocked a notch faster at 2,677 MHz. Honestly, if you pick up some nice 2,133 MHz DIMMs, at quad-channel they'll offer more than plentiful bandwidth. A 3,200 MHz kit for example is far more expensive and does offer better bandwidth but the performance increases in real-world usage will be hard to find. Unless you transcode videos over the processor a lot. DDR4 mostly was released for lower voltages and higher frequencies. 2,133 MHz CL 14 or CL 15 memory in combo with quad-channel will already get you to 50~60 GB/sec. While impressive to observe for gaming you will not notice huge performance improvements with high memory bandwidth, but with content creation and video transcoding this kind of bandwidth certainly does make a difference. As always, my advice would be to go with lower clocked DDR4 memory with decent timings, but get more of it. Don't go for 8 GB, get four DIMMs and in total a minimum of 16 GB. And yeah, if you do not care about spending money, check the test page with the G.Skill RGB DIMMs at 3600 MHz, that is brilliant stuff though.
The bottom line
Intel is having a rather rough and rushed launch with the new Core X series processors and at this time I am even doubting whether or not we need to even recommend the platform in tis current state. The performance issues related to p-states focus mostly on gaming, and the true enthusiast is just, you guys - the gamers. The baffling act is that gaming on the last gen 10-core Core i7 6950X is butter-smooth, perfect with was less power consumption as well. Yep, the Core i7 i9 7900K is a challenge. Regardless of that fact, this review is about the ASUS Prime X299 motherboard. It is a sexy motherboard alright, but due to the aforementioned challenges I expect ASUS to be updating their BIOS a couple of times in the near future. They just have to address the game perf (and sure memory perf as well) with a firmware update, but once that do that, mark my words that the CPU temps and power consumption will go up significantly.
So yes, the platform does not feel as finished and refined as X99 is. In hindsight, X99 when it was released experienced a similar improvement curve. At one point I am certain, it will be an excellent platform. I can only speak for the 10-core 7900X processor, but Intel is looking at a processor series that runs hot and when fully and properly utilized, consumes significant amounts of power. You will need to get your cooling in order, we'd recommend a proper LCS cooler, or preferably a proper liquid cooling kit, especially if you plan to tweak. Tweaking, we reached 4.8 GHz on all cores, which is a significant step upwards from Broadwell-E (10-core 6950X), but here again voltages/temps/power will be trivial. Since Intel allows per core tweaking, my advice would be to explore a little further, set say 4 cores at 4.8 GHz and the rest at 4.3 GHz. This might save you on power consumption, likely a lower voltage and thus the end result also is a processor that would run a bit cooler. It's just a tip though.
The ASUS Prime is a proper designed motherboard, but everything in a PC is all about symbiosis, and thus it can only be as good as the processor will allow it to be. Looking at purely the motherboard then it is all very simple, it is lovely and feature rich, has an incredible nice dark & white design and is well built with proper components. Features wise this kit offers many SATA 6 Gbps ports, the Intel Ethernet jacks and the 7.1 channel HD audio. Exceptional is the 802.11ad WIFI, ASUS really stepped up here. The motherboard is multi-GPU ready (please keep my remarks on available processors and PCIe lanes in mind) and then add to all this features like on-board buttons, pre-overclock modes and diagnostic LEDs, fantastic design and nicely executed RGB LED lit system, USB 3.1 Gen2, SATA3, easy overclocking and sure, the design and component selection. The ASUS Prime X299-DeLuxe is easily recommended for just the features and platform on it's own. Currently it however is listed on preorder at an utterly staggering € 479,-
Given the symbiosis that is the current state of Skylake-X and X299 is, you might want to sit out that wild ride for a while and wait & see what AMD Ryzen Threadripper has got to offer before making any final decisions.
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