X99 vs Z170 - which to prefer?

[RejZoR]

Boot bugs are common on many boards. I had it on my ASUS X58 as well. Just when overclocked. When stock it was all fine.

Honestly, you'll be able to shuffle most of the old gear into new system. Except CPU, RAM and motherboard, obviously.

 

[Ebo]

X99 you get more of everything, the "advantages" X170 has right now with newer CPU will change when next batch comes out for our platform, then its time to upgrade again.

 

[the54thvoid]

Add in fuel to fire- with Broadwell E going to be X99 compatible with BIOS updates, X99 gets a few more years as well. Skylake E (if it exists) will not be on z170 (surely not?)

 

[erixx]

X99-X: I had many cold and warm boot and reboot issues, OCed and not, seeing only the 2 words : American Megatrends (bigger letters than normal). Unplug PSU and restarted fine. I believe it is (was) memory related.
Now, with new bios version 2001 and a fresh Win10 install it is all over: boots, suspensions, overclocked to 4500, RAM set to 2666@14-14-14, : as happy as i can be!
I don't want USB-C stuff (have no devices that use it).
+ what 54thVoid says... quite a future proof platform!

 

[Vlada011]

I will maybe upgrade on i7-6850K because few lanes more if I found cheap as Haswell-E.
Because i7-5930K and i7-6850K anyway have more PCI-E lanes than Z170 and Skylake together and you can use how do you want.
If USB 3.1 Flash drivers become available I will by adapter from Silvestone and make modification on my I/O Panel.
ASUS should offer Rampage 5 Extreme without OC Panel.
OC Panel cost 100$ and seriously influence on price of motherboard.
Without him board could be 50-70$ cheaper and ASUS would sell much more boards.
If they done that with Rampage 5 Extreme Black to offer two version they will sell many boards.

Z170 is good platform, better than Z68, Z77, Z87 and Z97...
But people who like Xtreme no reason to think about Skylake, they will get same only with more cores, without cheap paste and Internal GPU only later.
It's much better when you have board with huge socket and CPU same design as
Intel Xeon E5-2699 v3 with 18 cores and 45MB Cache. In hand they look identical.
I don't know why people decide to choose little Skylake with paste over i7-5820K when any i7 is strong enough in single applications and so small advantage in single threaded applications is really not important.
Are you aware before few days Skylake i7-6700K cost more on Newegg and Amazon than
i7-5930K in Microcenter. And still cost more. I never saw price of i7 mainstream 435$.
While i7-5930K on discount cost 399$.

 

[RejZoR]

Decent alternative to Rampage V Extreme is Sabertooth X99 (because I know what it is like because I had the exact same dilemma, wanted high end but not quite Rampage V Extreme which is stupendously expensive). It's cheaper and has less of unneeded stuff but is still an incredibly capable board even for overclocking. Maybe even more with actively cooled VRM and I've even slammed a fan on rear MOSFET cooling plate. Or maybe even ASUS X99-A which is the bottom X99 but still offers some kit and decent OC capability. But yeah, they should offer like Rampage V Hero, somewhat the same thing as Rampage VIII Hero. It's high end but not ridiculous top end.

 

[Ebo]

I cant really see the problem, Broadwell-E will be on socket 2011-V3, and even mabye Skylake-E. Mabye its time to upgrade when Broadwell-E comes out.

 

[Schmuckley]

hmm..i gotta z97 board fer cheap..allofasudden

 

[erixx]

12249 in Firemark 3DMark.... allofasudda!!!

 

[Mexx]

Hi guys, so for the ones who followed me and my crazy powerful rig earlier on this thread (RejZoR for example), I finally decided to upgrade my rig and to take advantage of the Cyber Monday and store closure deals Tigerdirect offered yesterday in Miami (really too bad that TD will close its last store... :-((
So I bought a 5960x with a Rampage V and 32gb of 2800 Adata DDR4. Very very good deal !!
What I cannot decide now is what storage technology should I chose knowing the limitation of the board (shared slots) having "only" 40 pcie lanes and having 2 pcie slots already at x16 with my two Asus ARES III.
What I'm looking for is max speed on different supports to optimize video editing as well as fast game & Win 10 loading.
Thanks in advance for all your suggestions and recommendations.

 

[RejZoR]

Check if Rampage V Extreme has a shared 3rd PCIe x16. If not or you don't need 3rd graphic card, using M.2 NVMe SSD is the only way to go imo. It is crazy fast and doesn't restrict airflow inside the case. And I think you can already get 1TB M.2 variants. As I can see you're loaded so this shouldn't be an issue. But izt's CRAZY fast. We're talking 2GB/s read and 1.5GB/s write on high end models.

 

[Mexx]

Check if Rampage V Extreme has a shared 3rd PCIe x16. If not or you don't need 3rd graphic card, using M.2 NVMe SSD is the only way to go imo. It is crazy fast and doesn't restrict airflow inside the case. And I think you can already get 1TB M.2 variants. As I can see you're loaded so this shouldn't be an issue. But izt's CRAZY fast. We're talking 2GB/s read and 1.5GB/s write on high end models.

Thank you RejZoR for your prompt reply and advice. I'm not sure to understand what you mean by "shared 3rd pcie x16"... I'm already in quadfire but only with two cards since each of them carry 2 GPUs. Do you think I should go with a M.2 ssd like the Samsung 952 or with a pcie card like the Intel 750 or the Kingston HyperX Predator or something else ? Thanks again

 

[RejZoR]

The number of GPU's is not important. The number of PCIe x16 slots occupied is. Well, at least for my Sabertooth X99 that is. Using a graphic card in 3rd PCIe x16 slot means it'll work even slower or even be disabled (or disable M.2). Dunno how it is with that on Rampage V Extreme.

As for the SSD, I think currently the best option is Samsung 950 Pro NVMe.
http://www.samsung.com/global/busin...SSD/global/html/ssd950pro/specifications.html

It's currently the fastest M.2 module known to me. It isn't the largest however. Would 512 GB be enough for you? This one has insane sequential speeds, insane IOPS and Samsung seems to be one of the most reliable ones lately. I'm using a more modest Samsung 951 128GB for my HDD+SSD cache and it's jolly fast. M.2 is also bootable so you should be able to run entire system off this M.2 module alone. You can then throw out HDD cages and improve airflow even further. Rampage V Extreme only has 1x M.2 slot afaik, so that'll be your limitation. Still, if you're not a data hoarder like I am, 512GB should be fine. And a huge external HDD for movies and stuff that is useful in portable form anyway (so you can stick it to TV and watch directly from it).

 

[Mexx]

The number of GPU's is not important. The number of PCIe x16 slots occupied is. Well, at least for my Sabertooth X99 that is. Using a graphic card in 3rd PCIe x16 slot means it'll work even slower or even be disabled (or disable M.2). Dunno how it is with that on Rampage V Extreme.

As for the SSD, I think currently the best option is Samsung 950 Pro NVMe.
http://www.samsung.com/global/busin...SSD/global/html/ssd950pro/specifications.html

It's currently the fastest M.2 module known to me. It isn't the largest however. Would 512 GB be enough for you? This one has insane sequential speeds, insane IOPS and Samsung seems to be one of the most reliable ones lately. I'm using a more modest Samsung 951 128GB for my HDD+SSD cache and it's jolly fast. M.2 is also bootable so you should be able to run entire system off this M.2 module alone. You can then throw out HDD cages and improve airflow even further. Rampage V Extreme only has 1x M.2 slot afaik, so that'll be your limitation. Still, if you're not a data hoarder like I am, 512GB should be fine. And a huge external HDD for movies and stuff that is useful in portable form anyway (so you can stick it to TV and watch directly from it).

What about The Intel 750 (much higher iops) or 4 ssd Samsung 850 pro in raid 0 ?

 

[eidairaman1]

X99 all the way

 

[Mexx]

So I made my choice : Samsung 950 Pro it will be !
Thanks guys
PS: I also noticed that with the two Asus Ares 3 at x16, the card won't have any other pcie 3.0 at x4 speed, preventing me to use an Intel 750 pcie ssd at full speed (which is strange to me...). Indeed, when I count the total lanes I'll use : x16(Ares#1) + x16 (Ares#2) + x4(M.2 ssd) = 36 lanes. So since I use a 5960x with 40 lanes, where are the 4 remaining ones ? Thanks for your lights if anyone has an idea...

 

[RejZoR]

Max X99 PCIe specs:

PCIe1 = 16 lanes (16 for both, 40 and 28 lanes CPU's)
PCIe2 = 16 lanes (just 8 lanes for 28 lanes CPU)
PCie3 = 8 lanes (just 4 lanes for 28 lanes CPU or even 0 lanes on my Sabertooth X99 if I use M.2 slot!)

16+16+8 = 40 (this is for your 5960x)
16+8+4 = 28 (this is for my 5820k)

I hope you understand it this way

 

[Mexx]

So why the MB Manuel doesn't seems (to me...) to allow the use of a third pcie 3.0 slot at x4 when two pcie 3.0 slots are already populated by two x16 GPUs ?
I'd love to have :
Pcie x16-1 : Asus ares3 (16 lanes)
Pcie x16/x8-3 : Asus ares3 (16 lanes)
Pcie x8-4: Intel 750 Series SSD (4 lanes)
M.2 slot : Samsung 950 SSD (4 lanes)
See Manual photo below...
Thank you,

 

[MMAAA]

newest

 

[eidairaman1]

So why the MB Manuel doesn't seems (to me...) to allow the use of a third pcie 3.0 slot at x4 when two pcie 3.0 slots are already populated by two x16 GPUs ?
I'd love to have :
Pcie x16-1 : Asus ares3 (16 lanes)
Pcie x16/x8-3 : Asus ares3 (16 lanes)
Pcie x8-4: Intel 750 Series SSD (4 lanes)
M.2 slot : Samsung 950 SSD (4 lanes)
See Manual photo below...
Thank you,
View attachment 69758

theres a hand that points at the limitation of the motherboard

 

[Schmuckley]

I wouldn't recommend Super-expensive Rampage when x99 Champion gets it done beautifully.

 

[Mexx]

I wouldn't recommend Super-expensive Rampage when x99 Champion gets it done beautifully.

You're right and I totally agree with you but I really like the Rampage's extremely wide coverage over the net, its remote control with digital display plus I was lucky enough to get a good deal during Cyber Monday...

theres a hand that points at the limitation of the motherboard

Thank you for your reply eidairaman1 but I'm not sure to understand : would you please clarify ? Thx

 

[xkm1948]

Loving my X99+5820k every single day. Saves me tons of time for my daily work. I will probably grab an octa core Broadwell-E when they come out next year. The X series platform should be able to last a good 5~6 years. Very worthy investment.

 

[Schmuckley]

You're right and I totally agree with you but I really like the Rampage's extremely wide coverage over the net, its remote control with digital display plus I was lucky enough to get a good deal during Cyber Monday...

Remote or not..It doesn't out-OC x99 OC Champion.

 

[The N]

well, better to be latest with z170 with CL cooling