Gadgetory

welcome back to harbor unbox today we are breaking out the 32 core thread Ripper 2990 WX for some vrm torture testing if you recall late last year I took 4 flagship X 3 9 and motherboards and put them to the test and of course the focus was on vrm thermal performance so we compared a number of configurations to see which board kept its cool the best the most extreme board of the bunch was MSI's x3 9 iron creation a 16 phase monster that handled the 2990 WX with ease it was the only board to do so without active cool an impressive feat indeed with the 32 core processor running and its stock clock speeds all tested boards passed without an issue even in our no airflow test but then as we overclock the 29 9 WX to 4 gigahertz using just one point to 5 volts we had our first victim the asrock fatality x3 99 pro gaming failed then for our extreme unrealistic stress test the gigabyte x3 9 horas extreme failed leaving just the MSI x3 nine creation and a soos rog zenith extreme standing the assist board provided the best thermals but it was also quite loud with that 40 millimeter fans screaming to keep the temperatures under control in a somewhat makeshift effort a soos did develop an upgrade kit for the zenith extreme that added a 40 millimeter fan directly to the vehicle VM heatsink we never tested this but was more loud 40 millimeter fans this isn't exactly an ideal solution so a soos has recreated the zenith Extreme as the zenith Xtreme alpha yeah they really need to work they're naming out so basically what this means as we now have the asou ROG zenith Xtreme alpha and boy oh boy does that abuse the hell out of my two words per product name rule anyway the zenith extreme is a completely new beast actually it's a really heavy beast I'll sit this down here as I talk about it so a soos has been forced to push the eight DIMM slots down to make way for 16 power stages and this is the same thing MSI had to do with their creation however whereas the creation has a 16 phase VR this board has 16 power stages but despite that it doesn't have a 16 phase VRM a soos maintains that opting to neglect phase doublers is the way to go they say double has introduced a processing delay of 20 nanoseconds and increase operating temperatures they do provide us with some information as well as some thermal imaging for the zenith extreme alpha apparently with and without phase doubles and the images they showed us with phase double as the board was running about 4 degrees hotter of course without the two different versions to test for ourselves we'll just have to take them at their word none of this really matters what matters is how well there's anything stream alpha stacks up to MSI's X through 9 creation and we'll get to that in a moment the Alpha still isn't a completely passive board though it is much closer than the original there's still two tiny verum fans integrated into the main heatsink but by default these little guys only spin up when the verum temperature exceeds 60 degrees Celsius that said you can completely customize how they work in the bath by using the manual fan profile setting now this isn't a motherboard review per se rather it's just a look at how the board's vrm performs thermally under heavy load since I did do that X 399 verum thermal testing roundup late last year I felt it made sense to update that content with the new zenith extreme alpha that said before we get into the thermal results I would like to just quickly touch on a few features of the board and highlight what's new for starters the soos has integrated the 10 gigabit networking into the board the original version included a PCI expansion card to support this feature the 8 plus 4 pin CPU power input has been upgraded to an eight plus eight pin configuration and while we've already gone over the vehicle portion of the verum the vdd SOC has also been upgraded from to power stages without cooling 2/3 power stages with a heatsink the Wi-Fi has also been upgraded whereas the original version supporter transfer speeds of up to 866 megabits per second the Alpha is good for 1.73 gigabits per second bluetooth support has also been upgraded from version 4.1 to 5.0 the unit 2 ports been dropped in favor of two SATA ports which I'm happy to see this takes the SATA port count from 6 to 8 there's also two extra USB 3.1 gen2 ports there's also a few other asou speeches that have either been added or upgraded such as ROG Ram cache 3 ROG knowed the fan connect to module and bars flashback for example but I think that's enough about the board let's get into the vrm testing to apply load to the system I'm not using a power bug type program like prime95 nothing against using that kind of software certainly has its place but for this kind of test I really want to use a real-world application so therefore I went with a blender workload and the workload that we use takes the 2990 WX a little over 20 minutes to complete so for the hour-long stress test we are running three back-to-back runs the load results are reported after the hour-long stress test and we're reporting the peak temperature and then the idle is taken after a 10-minute cooldown period there's three main tests in total first we're looking at the stock results so that is the stock out of the box 2990 WX performance then we have a fog you go hurt overclock using just one point to five volts so somewhat of a realistic overclock there but then we have a unrealistic ridiculous stress test at 4 gigahertz using one point 4 volts just to see what these boards are made of all three tests are conducted twice once on an open air test bed there was no direct airflow over the vrm though take note that the asou sang gigabyte boards do have small fans so they aren't truly passive and therefore they do kind of cheat on that test then we have a second test configuration inside the corsair 500 d with three 120 millimeter intake fans in the front two 120 millimeter intake fans in the top and then a single 120 millimeter exhaust fan in the rear so the top mounted fans are pushing air flow directly over the board's vrm heat sinks then cooling the CPU was the nm acts liquor tech 280 which was mounted in the front of the case for recording temperatures I'm using a digital thermometer with k-type thermocouple x' I've placed multiple sensors on the surface of multiple power stages to measure the temperature across the verum and I'll be reporting the highest value so this means I'm measuring the temperature directly on top of the component between it and the thermal pad and not an internal temperature which is bound to be a little bit higher still with all boards tested under the exact same conditions it will give us a clearer idea of how they compare starting with the open testbed results which sees no direct airflow over the vrm heat sinks we have the stop 2990 WX temperatures again remember the gigabyte board packs to 35 millimeter fans and the original Isuzu Zenith Xtreme a single 40 millimeter fan while the MSI and asrock boards are completely passive then we have the new Zenith Xtreme alpha which has two small fans though by default they only spin when the vrm exceeds 60 degrees which in this test it didn't here we see the Alpha hitting just 59 degrees and this did cause the fans to twitch every now and then but they never really fully fired up this is a two to three degree improvement over the MSI x3 and creation and the original Zenith Xtreme so a solid result but without an overclock we're not really taking advantage of these high and motherboards okay so time to overclock and at 4 gigahertz using 1.25 volts the Alpha was a degree cooler than the original zenith extreme and that would certainly be within our margin of error the completely passive MSI X 399 creation also does very well in this test given its the only board not aided by an active fan then finally the extreme stress test using 1.5 volts and it's here that the zenith extreme alpha really starts to shine the small fans were spinning but honestly they weren't very loud certainly much quieter than the fan featured on the gigabyte X 399 or s extreme and the original Zenith extreme the Alpha is almost 18 degrees cooler than the x3 nine uncreation though I feel this is a bit unfair as a small fan would certainly help bring down the temperatures for the msi board in this zero airflow stress test now with the boards installed inside the corsair 500 d we have direct airflow over the verum heatsink so this will no doubt help reduce load temperatures in fact we see just 5 degrees separating the msi a sous and gigabyte boards the x3 99 creation does very well in the stock test while the Alpha was a few degrees cooler than the original zenith extreme moving on to some overclocking with airflow we see that the MSI x3 night uncreation does much better this time we're basically seeing the same performance out of the Croatian Zenith extreme and Zenith Stream alpha finally we have the most extreme stress test which sees the 2990 WX running at four gigahertz using one point 4 volts here we're yet again seen basically the same performance from the zenith extreme Zenith extreme alpha along with the creation the zenith extreme alpha is a quieter board under these extreme test conditions but as you can see the actual temperatures aren't really any different ok so last time I did a VR M thermal testing I concluded that the Asuza rog zenith extreme rivaled the bigger beefier msi board i went on to say though that for extreme overclocking the msi board will ultimately win out but for a more typical overclock 1.25 to 1.3 volts there appears to be little difference between the Asuza and msi boards both around it just over 70 degrees when installed in our corsair 500 d test system now with the zenith extreme alpha added to the mix a sous does have a high-end X 399 motherboard that can rival the creation for extreme overclocks having said that I suspect that this won't mean a whole lot for most of you running the 2990 WX @ 4 gigahertz maybe up to 4.2 gigahertz with 1.25 to 1.3 volts can easily be achieved on either of their sous boards whether that be the zenith extreme or the new zenith extreme alpha but it is nice to know that the Alpha is built to do it more comfortably the Alpha is a more refined offering with some nice features having said that I nearly spat my coffee all over my screen when I saw the price meant 650 dollars u.s. at middlee for an extreme high and X 399 motherboard that's not absurd the MSI x3 9 crashing for example that was selling for around $600 not that long ago but the original Zenith extreme did only sell for five hundred and twenty dollars and today MSI's croatians also selling for just five hundred and twenty dollars us this is a small issue because if I were buying a thread ripper 2950 X or better I'd consider my motherboard options to be the MSI X 3 9 and creation or a soos ROG zenith extreme alpha of the two boards the Alpha is probably the better offering as a workstation grade practice we appreciate the inclusion of 10 gigabit networking but I'm not convinced that the fad eight phase-- BRM is any better than MSI's doubled 16 phase but I suppose it doesn't really matter they both handled the overclocked 32 core processor with ease in the end if you require 10 gigabit networking then I think you'll agree the zenith extreme alpha is the obvious choice it also helps that the board looks great to load it with tons of really good features and it has that glorious of SUSE UEFI BIOS with the exception of the price is really nothing negative or no drawbacks that I've come across with this board in my testing it's a really solid product from top to bottom and certainly one of the best if not the best x 399 motherboard on the market again this was mostly meant to just be a vrm test but I did spend quite a few days playing around to the zenith extreme alpha and I really do like it and that is going to do it for this one if you enjoy the video be sure to hit the like button subscribe for more content I don't appreciate the work we do here at Harbor unbox then consider supporting us on patreon thank you for watching I'm your host Steve see you again next time