Rampage VI Apex (LGA2066, Intel X299) - info, experience, BIOSes etc.

[CSN7]

guys isn't the 7920X supposed to be out by uhm.. yesterday? Don't see any review or any sign of life anywhere.

[Feklar]

guys isn't the 7920X supposed to be out by uhm.. yesterday? Don't see any review or any sign of life anywhere.

Newegg has them on bakordered status with 7-10 day delivery. Probably why we haven't seen the R6E yet either. As Raja said in a previous post the R6E is for HCC cpu's and they're not out yet.

[Iceman2733]

So who all has there Apex x299 board in hand?

[meankeys]

provantage shipping sept 8
still no sign of the 7980xe

[Menthol]

My replacement Apex will be here today, I sent my 7740X to SL for delidding, should have checked news channel first, looks like Tyler Texas may be under water so it may be some time to get that chip back

[xarot]

So who's going to get one of those 7920Xs and try how it's temperature-wise. If not soldered = dreams crushed and no hope for the 7980XE either. :P

[CSN7]

In germany there are no 7920X available anywhere. Wonder why there are no reviews either since the cpu had it's official release on the 28th. I'm dying to know if it's soldered or in case it is not, if it can be delidded (got a tool on the way).

[DragonPurr]

In germany there are no 7920X available anywhere. Wonder why there are no reviews either since the cpu had it's official release on the 28th. I'm dying to know if it's soldered or in case it is not, if it can be delidded (got a tool on the way).

Although I feel that Intel should have soldered all their i9 Skylake-X CPUs (since the 7900X took a hefty $400 price leap over the 7820X for two more cores and a i9-exclusive dedicated AVX-512 FMA unit that adds a significant amount of extra power usage to justify a soldered IHS), I seriously doubt that the 7920X will be soldered. I also even have doubts that their 165W-TDP 14/16C i9s will use solder instead of paste. Their 7980XE just might be the only one that is soldered, and I am even guessing a 50/50 chance of a soldered 7980XE. Intel could surprise us all, but they are out to maximize profit and they tend to innovate at a pace that does not unnecessarily drive up R&D costs, increase manufacturing costs, or reduce profits. Intel already spends more on R&D than AMD and Nvidia combined. But these are leaner times in the price-conscious consumer CPU arena where much of the revenue comes from.

In case you were thinking that Skylake-X should be more like their Xeon CPUs, Intel announced their Xeon-W workstation CPUs this week that uses a new C422 chipset with the LGA2066 socket. So the Xeon-W CPUs and mobos are not compatible with Skylake-X CPUs and X299 mobos. Intel's new Xeon-W CPUs, not Skylake-X, are the actual "Xeon lite", bringing more of their server-class features to the desktop workstation with 48 PCIe lanes, ECC support, extended memory support out to 512GB per socket, etc. Like Xeon, Xeon-W is focused on stability, the 18C Xeon-W is still just 140W TDP, same as the 12C 7820X, the Xeon-W CPUs are locked, and some or all of them may be soldered.

You may think that $1000 or $2000 is a lot to spend on a CPU, but I think it is Intel's marketing view that soldering the IHS to get better thermals and 200MHz of extra overclock on CPUs that are already really fast is not worth their extra manufacturing cost, and the Skylake-X target market will neither increase much nor decrease much if they use solder or paste, so why not use the cheaper option. And now with companies buying Xeon-W for their true "HEDT workstation", companies having much fatter wallets will buy Xeon-W instead of Skylake-X/X299. If Threadripper had better single-core and IPC performance, perhaps Intel would solder all their i9s. But Intel is obviously not bothered by Ryzen/Threadripper offering better multi-core per-dollar value.

To use a restaurant analogy, I think of the regular Kaby Lake and Coffee Lake as dining at a chain restaurant that offers more value. And I think of Skylake-X as going to a fancy restaurant just to eat some appetizers while seated at the bar. The appetizers offer some tasty nibbles, but they are less fulfilling than eating an entree. Intel has now segmented their Skylake-X enthusiast/prosumer, Xeon-W workstation, and Xeon server CPUs so that their new Xeon-W is like eating lunch at that fancy restaurant - you get two-thirds of the dinner serving size at a cheaper price. But if you want to eat the restaurant's full entree that contains 6-channel memory support, up to 1.5TB of memory per socket, and their full palate of flavors that show what they are capable of, you have to eat from their Xeon dinner menu. And it is for this reason that I would be extremely surprised if the 7920X was soldered, and I would not be too surprised if the 7940X and 7960X also used paste.

[CSN7]

^ preach

[xarot]

No solder on 7920X.

http://www.coolenjoy.net/bbs/27/1605931