Gadgetory

over the last year or so this channel has seen a lot of bills 13 to be exact but when the Harbach next team got together at CES this year we realized that there was a missing platform among all those systems somehow skylake X and the X 299 platform were missing from our system setups and yes you guys called us out in the comments you wanted to see what Intel's high-end desktop platform could offer I didn't have all these sky like X processors I wanted to test so we reached out to Intel and they agreed to help us put together this video now before I get too far I want to explain that my sky larkings journey is gonna be spread across three videos so you guys can actually follow along through the process since I haven't built with X 299 yet this video is gonna be a recap of my own research into the platform and its capabilities as I choose the right components that fit my needs hopefully a lot of information in the next few minutes will also help you make the right decisions as well but remember sky like X is part of a flexible ecosystem that can offer you everything from an ultra high-end system to a compact ITX setup so it was kind of love at first sight you know there's really nothing like this exterior I love the metallic color the tinted glass panel the RGB fans at the front it's basically a see-through case and who doesn't love that your graphics card can go vertical the top is Radiator friendly and the right side is so unique when exposed thanks to these cable covers so you can show off everything you've got with the age 500p my coolermaster check it out in description below speaking of picking hardware actually building the system and running benchmarks that'll be done in the second video of the series from there in video 3 I have something a bit different planned with tricks and that will get the most out of your systems with a huge number of processing threads but the first thing I want to talk about is the processors and for those I have to thank Intel because without their support none of this would have been possible sitting right at the top of Intel skylake X lineup is the $2,000 970 980 Extreme Edition which has 18 cores and 36 threads making it the highest performance desktop processor available right now it operates at a base clock of 2.6 gigahertz and can run its turbo frequency to four point four gigahertz but Intel also gave all their high-end Scylla qex processors a third gear with turbo boost max 3.0 technology which basically identifies cores within each CPU that can run at a higher sustained frequency than the others it will then take advantage of the thermal and power head room to push speeds even higher and in the case of the I 979 80 Hz that means it can hit 4.6 gigahertz in the right conditions next is the I 979 60 X which goes for about $1,700 and features 16 cores with 32 threads operating at a pace clock of 2.8 gigahertz a turbo of 4.2 gigahertz and turbo boost 3.0 that could hit up to four point four gigahertz the I 979 40 X is a little bit expensive at $1,400 it has 28 threads that operates at a slightly higher frequency but otherwise it has the same specifications as the other high-end Scylla Keck CPUs to close out the i-9 series there's heai 979 20 X which has 12 cores and 24 threads a base clock of 2.9 gigahertz and a turbo frequency of 4.3 gigahertz and 4.4 gigahertz do not that it features a slightly lower TDP finally there's the I 970 900 X a processor that a lot of you may be looking closely due to its price and large number of processing threads what I like about this is it's higher bass and turbo 3.0 speeds which should be a good fit for gaming scenarios and it still has 44 PCI 3.0 lanes from the processor the skylight X family also has a bit more budget-friendly processors as well and they could act as a great starting point for an impressive system based off the X 299 platform these are the i7 78 20x and the i7 7800 X the 78 20x uses 8 cores and 16 threads while running at the highest speeds of any skelux processor one thing to take into account is that it only has 28 PCI 3.0 lanes but that shouldn't be too much of a limitation unless you plan on running two GPUs or a whole array of nvme SSDs but then again epic setups are what's callek X is meant for at $389 the i7 7800 X is the least expensive processor in this lineup it has 12 friends and a respectable 3.5 gigahertz base clock but it's 4 gigahertz turbo speed is the lowest of the bunch and unfortunately there's no support for turbo boost max 3.0 so I know that's a lot of information to digest but it looks like intel has hit every possible usage case scenario with these processors I can't blame them either since people have different needs for example if you're like me needs to process parallel workloads like rendering gaming and streaming at the same time then something like this the i9 79-80 Extreme Edition processor could be a good fit sure it may cost $2,000 but that cost could be justified for professionals who know that every minute counts in their workflow meanwhile a processor like the i9 70 900 X combines pricing the possibility of using up to 20 threads and higher frequencies and I see this as a great option for someone who's on a smaller budget but most importantly they can also get to experience and create in-game frame rates you see these were all the things that went through my head as I was approaching on how to you know put this bill together because fun factors are making this video I still haven't decided on which CPU to choose you know should I go the 18 core processor or maybe the 10 core CPU yeah it's it's definitely gonna be an interesting one for sure now I also wanted to talk about motherboards since just like the processors there are ton of options and various price points and sizes and with different capabilities let's start with something that just serve Ryan and it shows how versatile this platform is so check this out this is the asrock x2 99e ITX / AC and it's the smallest high-end desktop board currently available when we first saw this boy at CES I was inspired to create something with it asrock has built a ton of features onto this board like three ME ME ME two slots two USB 3.1 gen2 ports six SATA 6 ports support for octane technology and a wireless AC module but before thinking this board is for you remember the limited space means many of ex-students best features can't be included for example there's only a single PCIe x16 slot so ultra fast SSDs that means a PCI slot at Intel's own 900 P series can't be installed so the memory needs to be used as well so memory choices will be limited and they could potentially become expensive as well I should also mention there the up come x2 99 IT exports who own support or walking on 165 watt CPUs or these 16 and 18 korskaya X processors because of the limited space they have for the input power regulators the azrog Board does support 18 core chips and can even overclock them but you might need additional cooling on PWM so overheating doesn't happen especially if you are using a liquid cooler these x2 nine-nine IT exports will likely be a great fit for people who want to maximize CPU power in a compact case while running a single GPU but what if you want to step up a bit well that's where MITx boards come in right now the asrock x2 99 ITX AC is the only ultra small form-factor motherboard available and M ATX options are also pretty limited as a matter of fact there are very few micro ATX motherboards available for any platform right now but this is the MSI x2 99m gaming Pro carbon AC and even though that isn't too much larger than ITX it almost has all the features Intel skylake X platform is known for almost but not all so there are still sacrifices you'll make if you want to use these processors in a more compact set up basically on this board when a 44 Lane processor is installed you get to full speed x16 slots for dual graphics and a bottom back slot that takes 8 lanes since the board isn't that high there's not enough space to install another GPU there's also just 4 memory slots instead of the usual 8 which means the MSI x2 9 and can only support up to 64 gigabytes of memory rather than 128 gigabytes storage has been limited to since there are only two m dot 2 and mimi slots and no you da - connector for intel's high speed SSD but like I said a lot of expansion can be done if you use the PCI slots the MSI micro ATX board isn't unique in these things either so make sure you research smaller x2 + 99 boards before assuming that they will all have the features you want 4x 299 now if you want to get the absolute most out of X 299 and don't want to worry about your systems overall footprint ATX and ATX boards will be the way to go to be honest with you there are many ATX motherboards that cost less than the micro ATX and ITX options that have talked about but the smaller form factor designs have a premium for their compactness I won't go through all the options here since right now there are about 50 different options in the ATX category alone but let me say this if you have a specific set of needs and a set budget there is likely an X to 9 and point out there that will meet them if you want or ability a huge number of options for professionals the asu's WS series will have you covered everyone from Oris to asus and msi and asrock have something for gamers and there's even a huge number of budget focus boards that cover necessities another big investment into any new system these days is memory what you need here is a good quad channel memory kit while you can use a dual channel setup on Scylla X it isn't something that should be done since the negative performance impact can be huge for example I give it a try in Adobe Premiere and my running times increased by almost 50% with a dual channel kit so I would highly recommend going quad-channel of a dual channel for skylark X so guys we know that Intel's high-end desktop platform needs quad channel memory but which kit should you choose there are a ton of options but they're really boiled down to what your needs are heavy multitasking will require a minimum of 32 gigabytes while more intensive professional applications could even stress this platform to own the 128 gigabyte limit the memory frequency will also play a pretty big part in these things for example with 32 gigabytes of memory running at 26 66 megahertz I got an average of 170 frames per second with an average minimum of $135 per second switching to 3600 megahertz at the same time ins boosted that to 188 frames per second with smoother minimums of 155 even Adobe Premiere benefited from the faster memory but not by much rendering a one-minute 4k video went from 75 seconds at 26 66 megahertz to 70 seconds with the faster memory personally I like the combination of speed and capacity for gaming and more professional tasks that means a 32 gigabyte or 64 gigabyte kid that's as fast as I can afford will be amazing right now the sweet spot seems to be a 32 gigabyte setup that runs at 3200 megahertz but that might change since Ram prices are all over the place these days if you can afford to step up to 64 gigabytes at higher speeds jump on it okay so another challenge that I had when putting together my skylight kick system was figuring out the cooling situation now while I won't recommend any specific models here I can point you towards what I learned after testing a few processors at both stock and overclock settings so basically the i7 7800 models can be easily handled by a single all-in-one liquid cooling solution or a basic tower style he think even a bit of old clocking shouldn't be a problem provided you keep the voltage under 1.2 volts but remember that skylight X builds up heat faster as you increase the voltage and the clock speeds especially on I nine CPUs so that's something to keep in mind when you consider overclocking these processors and those I nine processors need some pretty substantial cooling in just their stock form I would recommend at the minimum a large tower style heater sink or dual fan all-in-one solution if you intend on even a small overclock or running at stock frequencies aiming for even higher speeds and voltage increases temperatures output like crazy so for series overclocking you should think about triple BIOS or building a custom water cooling loop my big word of advice here is to not underestimate skylight X's ability to push out heat and upsize your cooling solution so by now we learned that skylight X is a serious performer but we also learned that cooling these processors is just as important because if you're planning on overclocking these processors you want to make sure that the temperatures are well within reach one more thing that needs to be taken into account is the power supply because they play a huge role when it comes to powering these CPUs so these processors are actually very efficient from a performance per watt standpoint but the sheer number of cores means power consumption is something to take note of for my build I ended up following a pretty simple strategy if I was going to use one of the 18 16 or 14 core processors along with two graphics cards and a few storage drives I wanted at least a 900 watt PSU or maybe a bit more since overclocking could push input needs even further that may seem like an overkill but I would want to have some breathing room for upgrades sometime down the road as well using one of the other skylake CPUs like these 79 20x or below with a single high-end graphics card with lower my needs to about 650 watts meanwhile that set up with a second GPU would likely need about 800 watts to be safe and allow for overclocking as well so there you guys have it that's my little journey through researching and doing a bit of testing with skylake X the only thing that's left to do is pick the components and proceed with the build but as I mentioned in the beginning of this video that will be in the second video of this series so stay tuned for that I'll also be comparing some rendering results to my current workstation PC featuring the Rison 7 1700 X but most importantly I'll be fine-tuning the components in this upcoming X 299 build to give me a better editing experience because currently my main PC is giving me a lot of issues especially when editing the video so definitely stay tuned for part 2 I'm even with hurricane X thank you so much for watching and we'll see you in the next one