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

[Brighttail]

Has anyone else been having problems with Windows 10 and their NICs?
At first everything was fine and both would connect to the network, now the 10G NIC won't recognize the network (or will say it's unplugged) and the Intel NIC is either not recognising the network, or my download speeds are ~3mbps while upload is ~100mbps (meanwhile my laptop will get 100/100 from the same port).

Just outta curiosity, do you have GAMEFIRST installed? This may not be the issue but since the original R5E I have never been able to use Game first or even have it installed without the NIC throttling or not working. Had to remove it completely.

[namAehT]

Just outta curiosity, do you have GAMEFIRST installed? This may not be the issue but since the original R5E I have never been able to use Game first or even have it installed without the NIC throttling or not working. Had to remove it completely.

I installed it, toyed with it for a few hours, then removed it because it's useless to me. I've also reinstalled the drivers and reset Windows network settings. Also disabled the NICs in BIOS, booted to Windows, and re-enabled them which worked for a few days but no longer does.
When I get back home I'm going to try to install the Intel and Aquantia drivers from the manufacturer, rather than through the included flash drive (which I must say is a nice touch, having a flashdrive with drivers/software).

[Brighttail]

I installed it, toyed with it for a few hours, then removed it because it's useless to me. I've also reinstalled the drivers and reset Windows network settings. Also disabled the NICs in BIOS, booted to Windows, and re-enabled them which worked for a few days but no longer does.
When I get back home I'm going to try to install the Intel and Aquantia drivers from the manufacturer, rather than through the included flash drive (which I must say is a nice touch, having a flashdrive with drivers/software).

It is definitely a nice touch but already 1/4 of them are out of date it seems. I have gone to the Asus website and have been downloading all the latest ones.

[DragonPurr]

Attachment 67739

Hope this information from Intel help all of you to discuss. All SKL-X SKUs have 2 FMA/ AVX-512 unit since 7800X->7980XE.

Actually, his reply of "We support up to 2 AVX 512 FMA units on SKL-X SKUs" can be interpreted the wrong way. Here is a more detailed explanation:

All SKL-X SKUs have 1 dedicated (some people call that "full") AVX512 unit that is located on Port 5 of the Skylake-X unified scheduler, and 1 AVX512 unit per core that is created using a 512-bit-wide register and it executes instructions using the pair of 256-bit AVX256 units that is common to all Skylake-S and Skylake-X chips. So his comment of "support up to 2 AVX512 FMA units" is true, even though one of those two units is not an actual fully-enabled AVX512 unit, and the pseudo-dual-AVX256 AVX512 unit runs slower than the full unit. However...

The "dedicated" AVX512 FMA unit only handles AVX512 FMA vector math operations and nothing else. It is actually present on Port 5 of the 7800X and 7820X CPUs, but with Intel being Intel, they have disabled the dedicated AVX512 unit on Port 5 in the 7800X and 7820X for market segmentation reasons, and you have to buy a SKL-X i9 to have it enabled. Intel often does this with their CPU lines. It is Intel's version of "no pay, no play" - they manufacture a very similar CPU die for the 7800X, 7820X, and 7900X, but they then disable the AVX512 FMA unit and disable PCIe lanes on the less expensive 7800X and 7820X.

The per-core 512-bit-wide dual-AVX256 AVX512 processing happens on Port 0 and Port 1 of the SKL-X unified scheduler. There is one AVX256 unit on Port 0 and one AVX256 unit on Port 1 of the scheduler. The port layouts and diagrams are all described on Intel's tech paper:https://software.intel.com/sites/def...ion-manual.pdf

The KBL-X i5 and i7 CPUs have neither the dedicated AVX512 nor dual-AVX256 units, so they do not have any AVX512 acceleration. Intel is rumored to be releasing a new X299 dual-core i3-7360X CPU, which is supposed to be their HEDT version of the i3-7350K (and upcoming i3-8350K), but this kind of market segmentation for an X299 i3 chip makes absolutely no sense since their i5-7640X already is a bad purchase decision.

On Xeon-W CPUs, there are two dedicated AVX512 units, instead of just one on the SKL-X i9 CPUs. On the SKL-X i9 CPUs having both the dedicated and 2xAVX256 units enabled, the SKL-X i9 CPUs can process 64-bit single precision or 32-bit double precision floating point operations with one clock tick. The new Xeon-W CPUs boost performance with another AVX512 unit operating per clock tick, which also happens on their newer Xeon Platinum and Xeon Gold server CPUs. And on top of that, the dual-AVX256 units can process most AVX512 instructions in one clock cycle, but not all of them, and various vectorization routines such as bit shuffling can only be done that fast on the dedicated AVX512 unit. So that is where the performance gain comes in, compared to using a SKL-X i9, if you use the Xeon-W CPUs for software that makes heavy use of vector math such as 3D modeling and the processing of video/audio/image data. And for this kind of AVX512-heavy workload, I think a 10-core Xeon-W could be as fast as a 12 or 14 core i9. And their 18C Xeon W-2195 is faster than the 18C 7980XE, both due to having one extra dedicated AVX512 unit and also because the vast majority of non-scientific/non-data-crunching software cannot make use of 14 to 18 cores.

[FireRx]

It is definitely a nice touch but already 1/4 of them are out of date it seems. I have gone to the Asus website and have been downloading all the latest ones.

Yeah that what I did too, Brighttail. made a folder on my root directory and downloaded all the drivers and such from the website. Just waiting on my board delivery.

[DragonPurr]

Lookie what came!! Still no monoblock or the better thermal pads, but I'm hoping this weekend I can test bench it on an AIO.

I was going through the board looking for scratches and such. I found some apparently in the armour but then I lifted the plastic over them and the scratches were in the plastic, not in the armour. No bent pins that I can see. There was some smudging under the asus eye on the black portion, but it easily wiped clean with a microfiber cloth. Definitely the board was handled by someone probably NOT wearing gloves when putting it into the box. I haven't taken it fully apart like Dragonpurr tho. I'll look at it more tomorrow.

Woohoo! Congrats! That's a great way to end the week!

Your mobo's black ROG-logo PCH cover looks a lot cleaner than mine, unless you already cleaned it when you photographed it. I am not removing any plastic cover sheets or wiping surfaces until I have my mobo installed and my build is nearly completed, to also protect the silver armor from possible scratches. I will do my car detailing after the car is fully assembled ;-)

That pink serial number bar code sticker over the SATA ports does tend to catch your eye. Some people have removed that serial number sticker. But I am leaving my serial number sticker on, just in case I still have to return a mobo next year or 2019 (I hope not!). I am making some colorful iridescent fused glass plating in the kiln to attach to the SATA ports using a tiny square of double-sided tape to cover up that sticker and the entire U.2, SATA, and USB 3.0 port area with glass plating.

[Brighttail]

Woohoo! Congrats! That's a great way to end the week!

Your mobo's black ROG-logo PCH cover looks a lot cleaner than mine, unless you already cleaned it when you photographed it. I am not removing any plastic cover sheets or wiping surfaces until I have my mobo installed and my build is nearly completed, to also protect the silver armor from possible scratches. I will do my car detailing after the car is fully assembled ;-)

That pink serial number bar code sticker over the SATA ports does tend to catch your eye. Some people have removed that serial number sticker. But I am leaving my serial number sticker on, just in case I still have to return a mobo next year or 2019 (I hope not!). I am making some colorful iridescent fused glass plating in the kiln to attach to the SATA ports using a tiny square of double-sided tape to cover up that sticker and the entire U.2, SATA, and USB 3.0 port area with glass plating.

Send me a couple of those glass platings Yeah I'm going to leave the pink sticker on until I'm satisfied it is good to go.

[mpoffo]

Lookie what came!! Still no monoblock or the better thermal pads, but I'm hoping this weekend I can test bench it on an AIO.

I was going through the board looking for scratches and such. I found some apparently in the armour but then I lifted the plastic over them and the scratches were in the plastic, not in the armour. No bent pins that I can see. There was some smudging under the asus eye on the black portion, but it easily wiped clean with a microfiber cloth. Definitely the board was handled by someone probably NOT wearing gloves when putting it into the box. I haven't taken it fully apart like Dragonpurr tho. I'll look at it more tomorrow.
Attachment 67772

Congrats and enjoy!

[jasonelmore]

August.

It is now October and i still can't find the Rampage VI Extreme anywhere.. So far only one guy on Newegg.com has gotten one, and that's the only sale i can find. When can we expect to see these boards in the USA? And do you have any news on compatible waterblocks that use the new flow rate, water temp, and leakeage sensors on the VI?

Please get this board out asap or i'll have to go to a competitor.. the platform is already 4 months old

[apricity]

Trying to make sure I understand this right.... So are there 2 fully functioning AVX512 FMA units on the 7900x and up? If not, what about the 7940x specifically as that's the one I'm thinking about getting and would like to compare to xeon w. I think higher clockspeed is also important in my case for real time low latency vst processing triggered via midi keyboard. But more cores is good for many tracks in the DAW. It'ss a balance, just trying to figure out the sweetspot. From what I can tell while I could do some decent overclocking using rampage extreme to get high clock freq, many cores, and avx-512. While with xeon w I might get "more avx-512" ability, but I think they can't be overclocked?