We stopped by Gigabyte’s (TPE: 2376) suite at CES 2015 and got the low down on its latest and greatest products.

The company had a lot of nice systems featuring its products that were built by companies like Digital Storm, Origin, Cyberpower PC, and Cybertron PC.  There were many of its current offerings on display as well as some of the new ones like the company’s newest addition to the Brix lineup, the Brix S Broadwell.  The Brix S Broadwell features Broadwell CPUs that make the unit extremely power efficient. The brand new X99 SOC Champion features an OC socket for the CPU that allows the board to really push the NB/cache/uncore frequencies, thus delivering blistering memory and system performance.  The Asus Rampage V Extreme sure better watch out since this board is also  a cache/uncore/NB overclocking beast, and it only costs $300.

We will be following up with more insight into some of the products that Gigabyte had to show at CES 2015 in the coming days.  We will also have some pictures of the Extreme Overclocking event that it held as well.

Brix s Broadwell and the X99 SOC Champion

The Gigabyte GA-X99M-Gaming 5

The Gigabyte Brix lineup

An absolutely stunning custom build featuring an Enermax chassis and Gigabyte parts

14″ P34W Notebook

The post A Peek Inside Gigabyte’s Suite at CES 2015 appeared first on VR World.

With the annual Consumer Electronics Show right around the corner and the industry’s marketing efforts going into overdrive, what is it that we will likely see next week?

It’s a safe bet that if will be a week of opposites.

From hardware going to both larger and smaller designs, Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) G-Sync versus AMD (NYSE: AMD) FreeSync, small displays with massive resolution, and gaming notebooks of both massive and diminutive sizes.

Small form factor hardware as is one of the fastest growing areas in the hardware segment, and no doubt there will be a lot of it on display at CES.  With hardware becoming so powerful and small we are seeing a lot of really powerful builds that can be done.  With even MATX X99 boards we are seeing that there is a move toward making things small and potent.  On the other side there is a lot of huge pieces of hardware showing up on the market, namely 4K and ultra wide monitors.  They are becoming even more prolific and the ultra wide monitors are drawing a lot of interest from gamers and power users who were once planning on going for a 4K monitor or two.  There will be a lot of talk this CES about AMD’s FreeSync for enthusiast gaming monitors as it is the newcomer challenging Nvidia’s established G-Sync.  FreeSync will draw the attention of monitor manufacturers since it is less costly to implement and license than the G-Sync solution.  The LG 34UM67 will be a curved ultra wide monitor that will feature AMD’s FreeSync, and should definitely steal a lot of the spotlight next week.

The mobile computing segment is also something to watch next week as we will see a lot of small notebooks with very high resolution displays.  It is easy to say that there will be a number of notebook models that will feature 3K and 4K screens, even at the 15.6-inch sizes.  There will also be a movement with ultraportable gaming notebooks of small size that can be docked with a desktop graphics card for superior gaming ability while at a desk.  With the shrinking of parts that make up computers we will be seeing a drastic reduction in size and weight of these ulta portable notebooks.  Not only will they be smaller but they will be potent and even come equipped with quad-core Intel i7 processors and decent graphics.  On the other hand you will also see that there is a move to the opposite extreme as there will be new 18″ gaming notebooks that will be the true embodiment of the “desktop replacement” name.  Some of these huge notebooks will even sport gaming grade mechanical keyboards featuring Cherry MX Brown switches.

Be sure to check back throughout next week as CES 2015 kicks off in Las Vegas.

The post PC Enthusiats: What Can We Expect to See at CES 2015? appeared first on VR World.

Asus’s Rampage Extreme line has long been considered by many as some of the top overclocking boards that have been on the market, and the Rampage V Extreme is in the same boat.

When the board first came out there was a lot of talk about the inclusion of a non-standard OC-Socket, an aftermarket LGA 2011-v3 socket that has additional contact pins.  These pins help feed additional voltage to the CPU and result in what we have found to be very impressive and stable overclocking from the board.

But is this just a gimmick or is it really something that will make a difference?  The answer we find is that this is no joke and that the board by far surpasses every other X99 motherboard that is currently available when it comes to cache/uncore overclocking.  This leads to massive performance gains that other boards will not be able to achieve and quite frankly they are left in the Rampage V Extreme’s dust.  Once again Asus continues the legend of the Rampage Extreme line with this shining example of engineering and hardware dominance.

Asus Rampage V Extreme Specifications:

• CPU Socket Type: LGA 2011-v3
• Supported CPU Technologies: Turbo Boost Technology 2.0
• Chipset: Intel X99Onboard Video: None
• Onboard Video: None
• Audio Chipset: ROG SupremeFX 2014
• Audio Channels: 8 Channels
• LAN Chipset: Intel I218-V
• Max LAN Speed: 10/100/1000MbpsWireless LAN: 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac 3T3R supports frequency band 2.4/5 GHz
• Wireless LAN: 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac 3T3R supports frequency band 2.4/5 GHz
• Bluetooth: Bluetooth v4.0

Memory:

• Number of Memory Slots: 8×288pin
• Memory Standard: DDR4 3300(O.C.) / 3000(O.C.) / 2800(O.C.) / 2666(O.C.) / 2400(O.C.) / 2133
• Maximum Memory Supported: 64GB
• Channel Supported: Quad Channel

Expansion Slots:

• PCI Express 3.0 x16: 4 (40-lane CPU @ x16, x16/x16, x16/x8/x8 or x16/x8/x8/x8; 28-lane CPU @ x16, x16/x8, x8/x8/x8)
• PCI Express 2.0 x16: 1 (Max. at x4 mode)
• PCI Express x1: 1
• Quad-GPU NVIDIA 4-Way SLI and AMD 4-way/Quad-GPU CrossFireX Technology (support up to 3-Way with 28-lane CPU)

 Storage Devices:

• SATA 6Gb/s: 8 x SATA 6Gb/s
• SATA Express: Intel X99 – 1 x SATA Express port, red, compatible with 2 x SATA 6.0 Gb/s ports , ASMedia SATA Express controller – 1 x SATA Express port, red, compatible with 2 x SATA 6.0 Gb/s ports
• M.2: 1 x M.2 Socket 3 with M Key, support type 2260/2280/22110 storage devices
• SATA RAID: 0/1/5/10

Rear Panel Ports:

• PS/2: 1
• RJ45: 1 x RJ45
• USB 3.0: 10 x USB 3.0
• USB 1.1/2.0: 2 x USB 2.0
• S/PDIF Out: 1 x Optical
• Audio Ports: 5 Ports

Internal I/O Connectors:

• Onboard USB
• 4 x USB 3.0
• 4 x USB 2.0

The post Asus Rampage V Extreme: An Overclocking Monster appeared first on VR World.

MSI (TPE:2377) announced today the new MSI X99S Gaming 9 ACK, a version that has been updated with the latest Killer DoubleShot Pro.  This will compliment the Killer E2205 Gigabit LAN that the board already has.

The new X99S Gaming 9 ACK from MSI is its latest motherboard release and the upgrade is one that should be an improvement for gamers.  The addition of the new Killer 1525 802.11 ac Wi-Fi module is the upgrade that makes this board the “ACK” variant.  The new module can help gain 2.9x faster data throughput compared to traditional wireless-N solutions.  MSI claims that the Killer Wi-Fi also has up to 3.5x lower latency than similar wireless solutions.  The coupling of the Killer LAN and Killer Wireless-AC module is being called “Doubleshot Pro”, which has been in the most recent MSI gaming notebooks.  If the reviews from the users of the new notebooks are anything to go by the solution should work very well.  The nicest thing about Doubleshot Pro is that it has Smart Teaming, which gives more usable bandwidth by using both the LAN and wireless to support up to 1.866Gbps of bandwidth.

The board will be the exact same as the current X99S Gaming 9 AC but the only difference will be the wireless module.  Some users are not fans of the Killer Network app that prioritizes traffic, so it is good to note that it is not required to be running when using the hardware.  The Smart Teaming feature may be a good choice with the Gaming 9 since the streaming could get a boost from the extra bandwidth.  Other network intensive multitasking will also get a boost if the Smart Teaming feature is utilized.

There will also be a Z97 Gaming 9 ACK that is being released that implements the Killer DoubleShot Pro as well, the same board design will also stay in that model.

The post MSI Releases the X99S Gaming 9 ACK appeared first on VR World.

Today we will take a look at some DDR4 from Corsair, the Vengeance LPX 16GB (4x4GB) CL15 memory kit.  DDR4 is brand new and is used motherboards featuring Intel’s new X99 chipset using s2011-3 processors. DDR4 uses 1.2v standard as opposed to the 1.5-1.65 that is now standard in DDR3.  It can operate at higher frequencies with much less voltage needed, being much more efficient.  Running in quad channel the memory will provide much more bandwidth than that of dual channel systems by a hefty margin.  This kit is some of the entry level DDR4 from Corsair, but as you will see they have much more to offer if you do some tweaking.

Specifications:

• CMK16GX4M4A2666C15R
• 16GB (4 x 4GB)
• DDR4 2666 (PC4-21300)
• Cas Latency – 15
• Timings – 15-17-17-35 2T
• Voltage – 1.2V
• Quad Channel Kit
• Anodized Aluminum Heat Spreader
• Low-profile heatspreader design
• Intel XMP 2.0

Design and Build Quality

The build quality of these RAM modules is top notch as expected with Corsair products that are currently available.  The heatsinks are of high quality and look great in the motherboard with no defects visible.  The PCB from visual inspection looks very clean and made of high quality materials.  The kits have single sided Hynix MFR for the ICs and are now the type that is most coveted by overclockers.

Performance

This kit was really impressive as the performance that was achieved with the XMP profiles and with overclocking was much better than was expected.  In these tests you will notice that they are done with varying uncore frequencies.  This was done by adjusting the frequency in the bios to achieve the overclock.  This is very important as it has a huge effect on the performance of your memory. Even at the same speed and timings there will be a huge performance gain from the simple act of overclocking the cache/uncore.  It should be noted that these tests were run on the ASUS Rampage V Extreme, as it is the best board on the market currently for achieving the highest RAM and cache/uncore clocks.  This is attributed by the inclusion of its OC Socket that is a non reference s2011-3 CPU socket.  The results with the 4000MHz and 4500MHz cache/uncore speeds may possibly be harder or impossible to replicate on other boards. be addressed is cache/uncore speed .  The first XMP profile is 15-17-17-35 2T at 2666MHz with 1.2v, the second XMP profile is 15-17-17-35 2T at 2800MHz with 1.35v.

When checking to see what these modules were set to auto and then run while increasing the speed until it could no longer be stable and boot into windows.  The max that was achieved was 3070MHz with the RAM set to 1.5v.  Running the memory at these speeds would have required setting the memory to 2T and having loose timings, which would not equate to the best performance possible from the memory.  To find the best possible performance that would be possible a memory profile from the Rampage V Extreme for single sided Hynix was needed to be loaded.  Selected was a profile for 3000MHz 1.65v, though it could not load it at 3000MHz.  This was expected since this isn’t exactly a highly binned set of Hynix MFR, so 2750 was tried.  This was a success at 12-14-16-15 1T with the 1.65v, and proved to be better performing than the other combinations that were tried.  Please bear in mind that if running DDR4 at over 1.4v additional cooling is a must or damage to the modules may occur.

Test setup

• Asus Rampage V Extreme
• Corsair Vengeance LPX 2666 C15 #CMK16GX4M4A2666C15R
• Intel i7 5960X @ 3.5GHz
• Thermaltake Water 3.0 Extreme
• Cooler Master V1200 PSU
• MSI R9 290X Lightning

AIDA64

Higher is better

Here it is seen that the write speed is impacted more than anything else with the increase in the cache/uncore speed.  The read performance also makes a big improvement, though not as drastically as the write did.  At 3000MHz  the read was 58532MB/s, the write was 46945MB/s, and copy was 60979MB/s with a latency of 71ns.  At 3500MHz it was 62801MB/s – 5480MB/s – 62948MB/s with a latency of 68.7ns.  At 4000MHz it was  65685MB/s – 62046MB/s – 62853MB/s with a latency of 67.1ns.  At 4500Mhz the results were 67654MB/s – 69344MB/s – 63552MB/s and the latency was the lowest at 66.2ns.  These results are good and fall in line with what you would expect from running at these speeds

Higher is better

The write and read speeds increase at the same rate as the other XMP profile, but here the speed is a decent amount faster due to the speed increase of the RAM. The results at 3000MHz cache/uncore were 61124MB/s – 47798MB/s – 64022MB/s and a latency of 68ns.  At 3500MHz the  results increased to 66168MB/s – 55563MB/s – 66290MB/s with 66.1ns latency.  The 4000MHz results came in at 69620MB/s – 62917MB/s – 67165MB/s and 64.6ns latency.  4500MHz returned the best results of 71367MB/s – 68829MB/s – 67348 MB/s and 63.9ns.  Being able to obtain a read speed of over 70000MB/s on the XMP profile was very good and was better than expected.

Higher is better

Here the RAM was set up by using the settings that was able to get the most bandwidth from, very tight timings and sub-timings were used.  It is visible to see just how much proper tuning of the timings can affect the performance when comparing to the XMP2 results. It can be seen that with some work these can perform on par or better than kits that are much more money, though a better binned set would likely require lower voltage at similar speeds and timings.  The results at 3000MHz were 62777MB/s – 47441MB/s – 68236MB/s and a latency of 63.4ns.  At 3500MHz they were 69794MB/s – 55169MB/s – 70848MB/s and 61.4ns latency.  The 4000MHz results were 74104MB/s – 62848MB/s – 72438MB/s and 60ns latency. 4500Mhz results were 76194MB/s – 70482MB/s – 71528MB/s and the lowest latency of all at 58.9ns.

Super Pi mod 1.5  32m

Lower is better

It is visible in this benchmark that is heavily influenced by RAM just how big of an effect that boosting the cache/uncore speed will have on the performance of a system.  The results for the super pi benchmark was 8:58.620 at 3000MHz, 8:54.301 at 3500MHz, 8:51.562 at 4000MHz, and 8:48.809 at 4500MHz. these results fall in line with the increased performance of the memory with the cache/uncore speed increase.

Lower is better

It is visible that XMP profile 2 at 3000MHz uncore/cache frequency is about as effective as the first one at 4500MHz.  The reduced time of about 10 seconds is substantial in this benchmark.  The results were 8:48.747 at 3000MHz, 8:44.192 at 3500MHz, 8:39.953 at 4000MHz, and 8:38.684 at 4500MHz.  Again, this is in line with what is to be expected from the memory performance increases like the previous test.

Lower is better

This result shows just how helpful to the benchmark memory speeds are to Super Pi, though in this one it looks like there was a bigger gain by increasing the cache/uncore than the other two. The results are 8:52.772 at 3000MHz, 8:47.063 at 3500MHz, 8:45.019 at 4000MHz, and 8:42.833 at 4500MHz.  It is interesting to see that the jump from 3000MHz to 3500MHz was far greater than the others.

SiSoft Sandra

Here it is clearly seen that increasing the cache/uncore frequency that it is possible to increase the bandwidth greatly, and the results are on par with what was expected.  The results are 52.68GB/s Aggregate, 52.36GB/s Integer, and 53GB/s Float at 3000MHz.  At 3500MHz the results were 54.65GB/s Aggregate, 54.1GB/s Integer, and 55.21GB/s Float.  At 4000MHz the results were 55.78GB/s Aggregate, 55.27GB/s Integer, and 56.3GB/s Float.  The results are in line with what was to be expected, though the jump from 3000MHz to 3500MHz showed the biggest improvement.

Looking at the results here it is possible to see that the increase gained from increasing the speed from 2666 to 2800 resulted in an increase of about 3GB/s across the board. The results at 3000MHz are 56.3GB/s Aggregate, 56GB/s Integer, and 56.64GB/s Float.  At 3500MHz the results are 58GB/s Aggregate, 57.52GB/s Integer, and 58.61 Float.  At 4000MHz the results were 59.2GB/s Aggregate, 58.76GB/s Integer, and 59.65GB/s Floar.  At 4500MHz the results were 59.71GB/s Aggregate, 59.15GB/s Integer, and 60.28GB/s Float.  Again, it is seen that the jump from 3000MHz to 3500MHz is by far the greatest leap of gain made.

Now with taking a look at these results it is clearly visible that properly configured timings at a lower speed can greatly outdo itself running at higher speeds with looser timings. The results are 60.39GB/s Aggregate, 60.49GB/s Integer, and 60.29GB/s Float at 3000MHz.  At 3500MHz the results were  63GB/s Aggregate, 62.7GB/s Integer, and 63.2GB/s Float.  At 4000MHz the results were 64.33GB/s Aggregate, 64.11GB/s Integer, and 64.55GB/s Float.  At 4500MHz the results were 65.14GB/s Aggregate, 64.91GB/s Integer, and 65.37GB/s Float.  What is able to be seen here compared to the XMP profile 2 test is that the tightened timings and sub-timings plays a great deal in helping the overall bandwidth.

User Experience

The RAM exceeded expectations in both how it performed with the XMP Profiles, but also with overclocking.  This set of RAM is fun to tweak and will reward the user with great results from the time they spend tweaking things to perfection.  This RAM performs well in 1T and will go quite far before it needs to switch to 2T to become more stable.  It was clear to see why overclockers enjoy working with the Hynix MFR DDR4, it performs great and is so tweakable with more voltage applied.  When testing to see what these could do, I tried to find the settings for the best bandwidth that I could get.

Value

Being essentially an entry level kit and being able to overclock so far and tweak it to perform so much better makes this a killer deal.  It would definitely be something to consider when it comes time to build a new DDR4 system.  Seeing what fellow overclockers were able to achieve with this kit has been astonishing since it perform better than other kits that cost hundreds more.

Should I buy this?

If you are looking to get something that you want to tweak a bit or be able to get more performance out of then this is it.  For $316.37  it is a great buy indeed, and this kit has received the Value Award from BSN*.  It has been a lot of fun to test this kit as I was surprised about how much performance can be squeezed out of these, and with more time with them I know that they can do even better.  I like to push my equipment to the max and see what it will do and these definitely proved themselves during testing.

The post Corsair Vengeance LPX 2666 CL 15, Surprisingly Fun Memory appeared first on VR World.

Intel recently released the Haswell-E CPUs and the X99 chipset to go along with it. Gigabyte has released their line of X99 to the masses with eight new boards. Gigabyte’s GA-X99 Gaming 5 is in the lower mid-range of the new board lineup, and has some promising features for the gamers that it is hoping to target. While the Gaming 5 may not have the slew of options for overclocking and performance tuning that the top of the line GA-X99-SOC Force but does have enough options to keep a serious system tweaker busy for days. Thankfully, with all those options the board still proves to be an easy overclocker.

GA-X99-GAMING 5

The board is based on the X99 chipset which means it uses the new DDR4 in quad channel configuration. It also has the Qualcomm Atheros Killer E2201 Gigabit Ethernet, which is supposed to help your online gaming with lower latency. I have used the Killer E220x series of network adapters and I am thoroughly pleased with the results that I have had with them. The sound is handled by the dedicated Creative’s Sound Core3D which does a superb job of providing audio in games. Gigabyte actually goes as far as to isolate the X99 Gaming 5’s audio components from the rest of the electronics on the board to reduce interference. The best feature of this audio setup by far is the Recon mode, which when enabled pumps up sounds that were originally faint to help give you an advantage. In Battlefield 4 I was able to get the jump on people because I heard them coming from a distance and had time to prep myself. There is a downside to the Core3D which is that those faint sounds will sometimes throw you off, sometimes hearing something new in a game that you have played many times before can definitely throw you off. With that said let’s look at what really is the focus of the testing today, the performance of the board with the 5960X.

PS/2 ports, 4 DAC-Up USB to provide cleaner power (yellow ports), Q-Flash Plus port (white), Killer GbE LAN, and Gold Plated audio jacks

This board has been downright packed with features by Gigabyte.  One of the very useful additions on this board is that of the Q-Flash Plus, it allows you to update the BIOS via USB drive without the CPU or memory needing to be installed.  The board is also ready for Thunderbolt 2 and has an onboard header to support a Gigabyte Thunderbolt add-in card.  The board sports Ambient LED that has LEDs on the motherboard and a lighted rear I/O shield.  These LEDs can be set up in BIOS to  pulse, light to the audio being played, on, and off  ( This will look great with a side window case).

Storage Options: 10x SATA 6Gb/s, 1x SATA Express, 1x M.2 ( another M.2 is for a WiFi card)

The Board also supports 4-way SLI and 4-way Crossfire with up to 320Gb/s of bandwidth for graphics.  M.2 support is here with up to 10 Gb/s of transfer speed, while a secondary M.2 slot is available for a WiFi add in card.  The x16 PCI-E slots, DIMM slots, and the CPU socket have a 30 micron thick coating of gold plating on the contacts.    This is a lot more than standard designs so as to help make better electrical connections between components and ensure enduring performance.  One very nice thing about the audio is that if has a gain switch and a user replaceable OP-AMP so that you can tailor it to your needs.  Replacement OP-AMPs can be found easily on the internet and eBay and will allow you to change the audio characteristics.

Creative Sound Core3D audio processor with Nichicon audio capacitors and a user replaceable OP-AMP.

The bios is laid out nicely and once you get the hang of it you can fly through the sections easily for making changes. The 5960X was easily overclocked by simply raising the core voltage to 1.3v and changing the multiplier to 45x. The XMP profile of the Corsair LPX 2666 DDR4 easily loaded for its default profile of 2666 15-17-17-50 at 1.2v. At 2400 the memory was able to run at 13-14-14-28 1T with the voltage bumped up to 1.4v.  The second XMP profile was for 2800 at 1.35v and had trouble loading up even with everything else at stock. Troubleshooting was made very difficult for the fact that there was no LED display for post codes. This made troubleshooting the overclocking efforts akin to flying blind since you will need to fall back on your knowledge of what it could be if you run into issues. Pushing through that it was hard to complete much of any memory OC, although it was more than possible to raise the voltage and tighten the timings down. The uncore frequency went to almost 3600MHz and that allowed for some impressive memory bandwidth measurements. Overall, the board would perform very well, but it would have a hiccup which meant pulling in the reigns since troubleshooting was proving difficult. To clear the cmos there is a jumper on the board that needs to be shorted. These are two glaring checks in the cons section for the board since for the price one would hope those are something that you would get at a minimum.

Test System
• Intel 5960X 3625MHz (125MHz x 29) and 4500 (125MHz x 36)
• Gigabyte X99 Gaming 5
• Corsair LPX DDR4-2666 4x4GB 15-17-17-50 ( @ 1T w/ NB @ 3600MHz / @ 2133 15-15-15-35 1T for 3.6GHz)
• MSI R9 290X Lightning
• Cooler Master V1200 Platinum PSU
• Corsair V64 SSD
• Thermaltake Water 3.0 Extreme cooler
• Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit

Compared System
• Intel 4960X 3600MHz (100MHzx36)
• Gigabyte GA-X79-UD3
• Kingston DDR3-2400 4x4GB @ 2133 11-12-12-30 2T
• Patriot 128GB SSD
• R9 295X2
• Thermaltake 1475 Platinum
• Corsair H100 CPU cooler
• Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit

AIDA64 – memory benchmark

 The Copy and Read scores go up nicely with the increase in speed of the processor, and the scores are clearly dominated by the DDR4.  The Write scores are a bit lower, which is likely attributed to the increased latency that the DDR4 has.  With a bit of  tuning the timings could be tightened over the stock memory specs to bring up the write speed.

SiSoft Sandra – Memory Bandwidth

 The latency of the DDR3 on the 4960X system again is likely helpful to give it such a big boost in the Integer memory bandwidth benchmark.  The decent uncore speed on both systems really helps both in bandwidth results.  The bandwidth really increases as well with the increase in speed.

SiSof Sandrat – Arithmetic

The 5960X Processor Arithmetic results are altready improved with the addition of 4 threads over the 4960X. The increase in the Dhrystone results is quite impressive when compared to the gains that the Whetstone results showed.

3DMARK – Physics

5960Xwith it’s 16 threads really is a marked improvement over the 12 threads of the 4960X in the physics tests.  At 4.5 makes some very good gains in the results.

Super Pi 32m

This The bandwidth increase really helps out the 5960X achieve some great results, Super Pi s a single threaded benchmark that relies heavily on cpu and memory speed and memory timings to improve the efficiency of the runs.

WPrime 1024M

WPrime is a multithreaded benchmark that shows the 5960X making good headway at a compared 3.6 with the addition of 4 threads.  The  results really gain traction at 4.5 with those 16 threads.

UCBench

UCBench is a benchmark that is multithreaded and really shows an improvement with those additional threads churning out more passwords per second.  The speed increase makes a huge impact on the results of UCBench.

So is this something you should get?

There are some drawbacks indeed when it comes to some basic features being excluded from this board in the form of cmos clear button and led post display. But as you can see, this board does have the performance there to carry you to a decent OC if you want, you will just need to have patience when doing so. For a $294 the GA-X99-GAMING 5 a solid candidate for a system, especially if you can take advantage of the integrated features when gaming. If you are looking for something easier to troubleshoot the GA-X99-GAMING G1 would be a great choice as it has an expanded feature set and a debug led display.

The post Gigabyte GA-X99-GAMING 5: A Solid Performer appeared first on VR World.

On Monday VR World reported on some irregularities with the “extra pin” found on Asus’ (TPE: 2357) X99 motherboards.

Asus claims that the additional undocumented pins found on Haswell-E and the sockets of Asus’ compatible boards are used to give users extra stability during overclocking. As documented by VR World’s Nebojsa Novakovic, in its own documentation Asus claims that these pins, better known as “socket 2084,” have numerous advantages when used including better monitoring of voltage, more strapping ability, higher frequency, and maximum Vcore.

However, sources that have spoken to VR World say these pins aren’t as special as Asus says they are and are merely used for CPU debugging  — and present a crash risk or even damage risk if used for other purposes. Further, sources say that Asus is attempting to patent the particular usage of the pins to keep them away from Foxconn (TPE: 2354).

But Intel (NASDAQ: INTC), for its part, has come out fairly neutral on the issue.

Lisa Graff, Intel’s boss of its desktop group, said in an interview with VR World that Intel was investigating the issue and won’t have an answer for some time.

“We understand that Asus has done some different things — and we understand that some of our customers will do different things with their boards — and beyond that at this point there’s nothing much we can say except talk to Asus about it,” she said.

Considering the number of reports of burned or otherwise dead Haswell-E chips that have appeared in the press shortly after the launch of X99, one might conclude that this was the cause. Graff doesn’t think this is the case and says that Intel won’t have an answer until it completes its own investigation.

“We have heard there have been some issues with Haswell-E based systems, but we do not know what the cause is at this point. We investigate all these kind of things. We don’t know, so we’re going to investigate,” she said.

“There’s no way to make a call on what exactly it is until we do an engineering analysis on it.”

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Although there are several DDR4 kits available for X99 motherboards, most modules are clocked at 2133 MHz and 2400 MHz.

G.Skill is looking to remedy that with the launch of its latest memory modules, which are clocked at 3333 MHz. Dubbed Ripjaws 4, G.Skill is looking to cater to the enthusiast segment with these modules, which will be available in quad-channel variants (4x4GB). In addition to the 3333 MHz modules, G.Skill is also launching slightly lesser clocked 3300 MHz and 3200 MHz kits in 16 GB (4x4GB) configurations.

The modules feature a CL timings of 16-16-16-36, which comes out to a latency of 9.6 nanoseconds. G.Skill was able to validate the latencies on a Rampage V Extreme. Base voltages for the modules are at 1.35V, which leaves a lot of overhead for overclocking. G.Skill is no stranger to overclocking, with the vendor stating last week that it was able to achieve a frequency of 4004 MHz using a liquid nitrogen cooled configuration.

Featuring a sleek black design scheme, G.Skill’s 3300 MHz and 3200 MHZ Ripjaws 4 modules will be available from September 5 on Newegg, with the 3333 MHz 16GB kit available now for $699. Other countries are slated to receive the modules later this year.

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As more and more X99 motherboards leak, it only made sense to release a portion of the trove of boards that haven’t already been announced or leaked.

The Asus X99-E WS, a Bright Side of News* exclusive, is a particularly interesting one because it is Asus’ (TPE:2357) latest high performance motherboard for workstation users. Because X99 is an entirely new platform there are very likely going to be a lot of people searching for new workstation boards like the X99-E WS to upgrade their workstations.

In terms of features, you get all the expected things like Haswell-E support, a plethora of PCIe 3.0 slots, which includes support for 4-way CrossFireX and SLI with X16 links. This board is specifically designed to support both Core i7 and Xeon E5 class chips (including the E5-1600, thanks to retailer leaks) thanks to being only a single socket workstation board. Because this is a workstation board, ASUS also talks about the boards overall power efficiency focusing on their Dr. MOS, 12k hour capacitors, ProCool power connector and beat thermal choke.

The Asus X99-E WS also has a Q-code logger and Dr. Power, even though it also has a plethora of connectivity which make it all the more attractive. That includes dual Gigabit NICs, a whopping 10 USB 3.0 connectors on the rear IO alone, not to mention the standard audio connectors, eSATA and the expected IO. You will get the full 8-slot DDR4 configuration, which is to be expected even though you very likely won’t get much memory overclocking support like the Rampage series of boards.

Asus X99-E WS IO

In addition to all of this, you will be getting backed by an Asus 3 year warranty which brings the MSRP price of this board to a whopping $519. Yes, this is a fairly high price for a single socketed board that isn’t an overclocking board, but X99 is a performance platform and this is a workstation board which should mean you are paying for higher quality components and reliability.

In fact, some retailers already have it available for pre-order but don’t really have any details or pictures of the board. So, you can already get it for $499 via some retailers, already lower than the $519 MSRP.

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