Gadgetory

x3 99 has been out for over four months and in that time we've seen the flagship 1950 x16 core CPU go down to as little as $800 on sale where it currently resides now at $900 as of the time of this video an incredible CPU if you can utilize all the power that it has though one tough sell to customers has been the high average price of X 399 motherboards at this time the cheapest x3 nano motherboard on Amazon is that board that we have here today the X 399 taiji as well as an international giveaway involving these two motherboards right beside me to the left here they're more on that later a big part of why this motherboard cost so much compared to other boards is quite simply the insane amount of hardware needed to go into this board not just in the form of high amount of traces stronger vrm more PCB layers more solder on USB ports etc but also a much larger socket and by much larger it is indeed huge the tr4 socket measures in a whopping seventy eight mil by a hundred and twenty millimeters that is over four times larger than the am for socket which measures in it roughly 50 millimeters by 45 millimetres though a tricky dilemma that has been faced with enthusiasts buying X 399 motherboards and also verizon thread Ripper CPUs has been an odd dilemma with the socket itself when installing the CPU there has been many reports of the Foxconn sockets simply not being able to thread the bolts when trying to screw down the socket cover and I indeed did manage to replicate this problem when screwing down the CPU in the closing order of one two and three and this happened especially when I was screwing the first screw down all the way first before threading the other screws they did manage to thread but they needed an immense amount of pressure and amount which I'm sure most people are not comfortable doing I did however find a workaround for the Foxconn socket and that was to just initially thread all one two and three screws and then tighten them down after threading them this seemed to be the least amount of hassle and saved the most time though what about the other socket choice the loath socket which is a different company from Foxconn altogether so essentially a different make for the TR for 399 socket and I had no problems with the Lodz version doing both methods of the first thread tighten down fully or threading one two and three lightly and then tightening them down so the Lodz version is more builder friendly and this is where it gets tricky because apparently motherboard manufacturers used both interchangeably and the board we have here today the XS three nine nine Tai Chi from asrock uses the load socket though other samples sold in the world can use the Foxconn socket and it really comes down to whether or not this is a problem for you personally I honestly think for the price that the boards cost this should be a problem that doesn't exist there with the sheer size and dimensions of the thread Ripper socket it is easy to see that the four thousand and ninety four pins worth of CPU coverage does require a very stable and firm locking mechanism as even a pin loose at a micro level could mean the difference between smoke and whistles so really it can be an annoying problem but one that shouldn't be too hard to overcome if you do have a Foxconn socket as I said before just lightly thread the screws firstly and then tighten them all down to wrist level tied in terms of pin thickness I didn't notice the difference between the two sockets and the biggest difference however was with the three screws themselves the load screws Worth dinner and the Foxconn screws with thicker though nothing I wanted to talk to you guys about today was this motherboard to the left of me the x3 99 Tai Chi and asrock are going to be giving away this and also a fatality professional gaming so that's 2 X 399 motherboards international giveaway it'll begin today so the link is in the description below all you have to do is click that link gain some entries and also it's completely free as well no strings attached and I will be announcing the winners on a live stream so you know there's no funny buggers and then announcing them on Twitter after that if you can't catch the live stream this will be happening on Christmas Eve so good luck to you guys and I hope you win it'll be a great Christmas for someone out there so make sure also as well there's more giveaways coming this month so stay subscribed with notifications turned on because the season of giving is now becoming this season of yes and with that said let's take a look at the x3 990 motherboard and what you're getting here is an extremely well-constructed motherboard now I've already tested out various external motherboards in a detailed comparison which I'll put the link for in the video in the description below though the fatality did very well in that comparison managing to get my 1950 x2 4 gigahertz on all 16 cores with a H 100 Corsair cooler as we cool as though one thing I will point out is that you may want to buy a cooler specifically designed for X 399 I know Animax designed that to our fourth series that has a much bigger block to cover the massive heat spreader implemented in the thread Ripper design though if I can get 4 gigahertz on an H 100 which was never designed for a CPU this big imagine what you could do with a bigger cooler since the 1950s is the top 5% of chips that is an V Binns the best of the best with these CPUs go back to the asrock board 11 phase V RM with a true phase is dedicated to the CPU and three for the system-on-chip voltage the board features 60 amp IR 355 MOSFETs 60 amp chokes and PopCap tantalum capacitors basically this VR M is the real deal and will be good for sustaining solid overclocks on water or air as for audio crosstalk is extremely low amperage is good they'll be careful with raising the volume level above 90 at 91 there is a bizarre leaking of crosstalk but seems to happen on every motherboard that I've had come through here in the later half of 2017 from all four different motherboard manufacturers as for aesthetics it has a different heatsink and a slightly different aesthetic on the board itself though mainly for what it's worth it looks very similar and performs identical to the gaming professional x3 99 motherboard the only difference being that the professional has a 10 gigabits per second additional nicht solution offered which does raise the price exactly a hundred retail so I would say that most people getting x3 na9 would use it for professional workstation purposes or at least I would think so and ultimately asrock offer a very solid option with their Tai Chi lineup and this board comes in at 340 us currently or if you're in Australia you can get it for 442 Australian dollars which in terms of exchange rates it's actually a pretty good deal down under then when it comes down to it with the Taiji X 3 9 our motherboard versus the professional gaming it's really about that tanking of its Ethernet solution whether you need that for a hundred dollar premium is up to you though keep in mind for that hundred dollar premium it actually is worth it when you consider the prices of stand-alone NICs that are added in by PCI solution this is integrated onto the motherboard and it does a fantastic job without slowing down after extremely long transfers now my personal opinion with the asrock taiichi lineup is that it's very solid whether it's X 3 9 9 X 2 9 9 X 370 or Z 370 it is usually my go-to board for recommendations if you want to overclock and another benefit with having such a solid vrm is also slightly higher overclock than competitors boards or at least the competitors boards that aren't implementing a V RMS good and of course with the X ray nice solution here you get a lot of connectivity 3.1 USB a and c as well 3m 2 slots 5 PCI Express slots with 2 16 X slots 2 8 X slots and 1 1 X slot and you guys hope you enjoyed today's video if you did then be sure to slap that like button and let me know in the comment section below what you think of the whole Foxconn vs. loads argument and have you had any problems on either socket me personally I haven't had any problems that's at least led to loss of sleep for example but in the past I have heard of some overclockers at least extreme overclockers having problems on either socket me personally I'm one of those guys are just over clocks on either air or water and I think if you're just looking for sweet spot over clocks on water or air then you should be fine on both sockets also don't forget to check out the link in the description below completely free international giveaway 2x 399 motherboards courtesy of asrock and with that said I'll catch you guys in another tech video very soon peace out for now bye