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

[skypine27]

The 11th as well, my EK email:

*Dear customer, Thank you for your order. Sadly I must inform you that your order is unfortunately "stuck in processing" because the item EK-FB ASUS ROG R6E Monoblock - Ac+Ni (3830046994493), will start shipping on 11th of October, 2017. I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience, we have some problems with our supplier, who is being late with the materials that we need for manufacturing the Monoblock and therefore keeping our customers satisfied and up-to-date. Once again I apologize for delay and thank you for understanding and your patience. Best regards, Ana

[Brighttail]

So I bit the bullet and go the Phantek's Enthoo Elite. My first build in it may not use all the space wisely or look perfect cause I'll be using soft tube to start, but I figure this case will be my main case for at least the next 3-5 years. It will give me the ability to grow and try new things down the road like hardline tubing and bending. Having more than one Reservoir/pump in a system and more than two radiators.

WHen i first got my Enthoo Primo... All I had was a single GPU and an AIO. The case was enormous for the little I had in it. I think I also had a total of 5 fans, 3 of which came with the case. In time tho, I learned about water cooling, bought a couple radiators, reservoir/pump and slowly built it up with SLI GPUs, ect. I learned that not all GPUs that were built for watercooling were equal. My GTX Poseidon 980's were great for cooling but sucked in flow rate. In the end I learned a lot and that is what i'm looking for in this case, to learn more and more. I can honestly see myself adding up to 4 radiators, two reservoir/pumps and potentially hardline tubing in the future. I may even learn how to make some modifications that won't hurt the aesthetics of the case but add to it.

Of course this means I may have to be patient and do things in increments but I'm good with that.

[FireRx]

Hey Brighttail, When and where did you buy you board. bought mine last tuesday and still nothing.

[Brighttail]

Hey Brighttail, When and where did you buy you board. bought mine last tuesday and still nothing.

I was lucky enough to find it on Amazon.com. I had to pay import fees but they were about the same as sales tax here so it turned out okay.

Amazon had it up for one day, sold out in about 6 hours, then had it up two days later and sold out even quicker.

[FireRx]

Yeah,
Guys Avoid NextWarehouse.com on this item. I ordered last Tuesday Sept 26th when they they shown 20 in inventory. Here it is a wsek later and still nothing. Fortunately CDW had one. It cost me $32 bucks more but at least I have one now coming in 2 days. Cancelled the order with Nextwarehouse.com and got a refund.

[smithkid]

So, we get a packet with 3 thermisters and I can only find 2 thermister pin out's. What am I missing!

[meankeys]

Provantage has 21 in stock

http://www.provantage.com/service/se...x=0&SUBMIT.y=0

I ordered my board there got it as advertised.

[Vislor72]

So, we get a packet with 3 thermisters and I can only find 2 thermister pin out's. What am I missing!

The fan extension card included with the motherboard includes at least 2 more thermistor connections.

[rzotti]

HI Guys !

I just completed the first stage of my build - all in but the custom cooling and a few bells and whistles, which will still take some days to ship out of EKWB. Want to share some lessons learned and my experience so far:

* Memory - for some unknown reason, standard, safe boot memory config left my system unstable and randomly freezing. This got solved when I added the memory timings suggested by the supplier / moved the overall memory clock up.
** I was not able to boot over 3800mhz though - although the Gskill modules I am using are timed at 4266. Any recommendation on how to get close to 4266 is most welcomed !

* M2 - I am using three 960 pro's, one for boot at the M2 slot under the cover and 2 for apps, on Raid 0, at the Dimm2. THe dimm2 is set as CPU.
** Of course VROC does not work. You can set the RAID through windows though.
** IRST / IRSTe software will not recognize the M2's too - if you are not planning on raiding SATA drivers, you may not need to even install it.
** Performance is very acceptable on all M2's- but is a bit below what I expected. A bit more than 3000 seq speed on the boot drive and around 6200 on the raid.
** When having the dimm2 on CPU, M2s will not be visible to the Magician software. You will also not be able to use the Samsung driver.
** There is a setting also on the BIOS to support raid on the dimm2 and on the chipset slot under the cover. If enabled, Magician / samsung driver will not work, even if you have your dimm2 on chipset. If disabled, I was not able to boot out of the chipset slot under the cover.
** The M2 settings look a bit buggy on the BIOS. Toying with them made Windows not boot several times - even when coming back to a known working configuration. Most times, to make the system whole again, I had to put all M2/Dimm2 settings on the chipset / with no raid support, and then configure everything up again.
** As magician does not work , if you want to update firmware on the samsung M2s you may need to create a bootable USB/DVD with the samsung updater, properly tune your system out of CPU / RAID support, and have the bootable unit you created run the update without booting windows.

* Overclocking was easy and straightforward. Was able to get to 4.6 rock stable on all cores easily , with temps getting to the 70's at most (delidded processor). Will invest more time tweaking this after the custom cooling is installed.

* Surprised with the Strix 1080ti OC performance on SLI. Temps under control in OC mode and amazing performance so far. Can't wait to see what is possible after I install the waterblocks. EKWB is about to launch a new plex terminal for making it easier to connect the Strix waterblocks to a custom loop - this is part of the items I am still waiting from EKWB.

* Enthoo Elite case - amazing case. Lots of space for you to do whatever you want with it, easy to work, great cable management options and it simply looks amazing. It is very large and heavy though - you may need two persons for properly raise it / put your build together. If you plan on mounting your GPU's vertically, in SLI, you will need to get another riser cable and you will lose a row of connections (usually the DVI). If you dont plan to watercool your system though, dont go for this case, your system will look like an oasis in the middle of the desert, given the size of the case and all the unused space. It is also overpriced by about 200/300,00. You may get a similar benefit our of the new Lian Li, the V3000, for a better price. You may lose in Aura connectivity though. Only bad thing I noted so far - the power on / off button and the front connections do not look as premium as the rest of the case.

* The Rampage VI. Simply the best motherboard I ever had. Beautiful, efficient and packaged with features. Really ease to overclock and config. I experienced though issues a few times when booting the system - it randomly hanged on different stages a few times. A few resets solved the issues the few times it appeared. May need to invest some time to better understand / fix this (if it ever happens again)

* Windows experience so far: noted the 802.11ad driver is still beta. A few times I boot the computer it also does not find my 802.11ac network. Not sure why. Since yesterday also I was not able to shutdown the computer, screen blanked and returned to login upon key presses. Was able to shutdown again after turning off Fast Boot on Windows. May be software conflicts after something installed. Need to investigate this further.

* Kraken X62 - my temp cooling unit. Works very well and is extremely quiet. It could easily support my system without further overclocking. Under extreme loads though, it is not enough to avoid a bit of thermal throttling , even on a delidded processor.

And that's it ! So far I'm very happy with the system and looking forward to put the custom cooling solution in place. It will be my first time with water cooling, and I am feeling brave enough to go with hard tubing too. It should be fun :-) !

[Brighttail]

HI Guys !


* M2 - I am using three 960 pro, one for boot at the M2 slot under the cover and 2 for apps on Raid on the Dimm2. THe dimm2 is set as CPU.
** Of course VROC does not work. You can set the RAID through windows though.
** IRST / IRSTe software will not recognize them as well - if you are not planning on raiding SATA drivers, you may not need to even install it.
** Performance is very acceptable on all - but is a bit below what I expected. A bit more than 3000 seq speed on the boot drive and around 6200 on the raid.
** When having the dimm2 on CPU, M2s will not be visible to the Magician software. You will also not be able to use the Samsung driver.
** There is a setting also on the BIOS to support raid on the dimm2 and on the chipset slot under the cover. If enabled, Magician / samsung driver will not work, even if you have your dimm2 on the chipset. If disabled, I was not able to boot out of the chipset slot under the cover.
** The M2 settings looks a bit buggy on the BIOS. Toying with them made Windows not boot several times - even when coming back to a known working configuration. Most times to make the system whole again I had to put everything on the chipset / out of raid support, and then configure everything up again.
** As magician does not work , if you want to update firmware on the samsung M2s you may need to create a bootable USB/DVD with the samsung updater, properly tune your system out of CPU / RAID support, and have the bootable unit you created run the update without booting windows.

I wonder if you can load the Samsung drivers with the m.2 in a PCI-e slot, then move them over to the DIMM.2. Same with Firmware updates.
How can you tell that the samsung driver isn't being used or working. I was able to install it just fine, but then i was trying the M.2 in PCI, the M.2 slot and the DIMM.2 slot. After it was installed tho, all those slots had the same speed for each.

I too got an Enthoo Elite today. Thing is huge. I think the flight case itself is $200-300 of the price. I am going to watercool with three rads and two reservoirs but it is going to be softubing first. I need to get a feel for the size/space first.