1 00:00:00,359 --> 00:00:07,359 our coverage of computex 2017 is brought to you by the Corsair one and Synergy 2 00:00:05,879 --> 00:00:13,120 you can check them out at the link in the video description I have been 3 00:00:10,160 --> 00:00:19,520 conspicuously silent about Intel's new high-end desktop x299 platform and the 4 00:00:16,480 --> 00:00:23,160 CPUs that they just announced to go with 5 00:00:19,520 --> 00:00:25,640 it and this was on purpose but probably 6 00:00:23,160 --> 00:00:30,679 not for the reasons that you think I've spent the last few days walking the show 7 00:00:28,000 --> 00:00:36,280 floor chatting with industry folks and generally trying to wrap my head around 8 00:00:33,239 --> 00:00:39,280 what the actual hell it is that Intel's 9 00:00:36,280 --> 00:00:42,039 trying to do with this launch before we 10 00:00:39,280 --> 00:00:47,800 get into that though a primer on x299 so socket 2011 V3 is old news 11 00:00:46,520 --> 00:00:55,199 socket 2066 is the hot new girl in class with 12 00:00:51,640 --> 00:00:58,120 the new chipset come support for up to 7 13 00:00:55,199 --> 00:01:06,960 Series Skylake based Intel Core I9 processors we get up to quad Channel 14 00:01:01,800 --> 00:01:11,320 ddr4 memory running at up to ddr4 2666 15 00:01:06,960 --> 00:01:15,040 MHz we get up to 44 PCI Express Lanes 16 00:01:11,320 --> 00:01:17,280 for massive expansion up to greatly 17 00:01:15,040 --> 00:01:25,720 expanded NVMe and obtained storage capabilities and up to two preferred 18 00:01:21,640 --> 00:01:28,400 turbo Max cores that run at higher boost 19 00:01:25,720 --> 00:01:32,520 frequencies well what's with all this up to 20 00:01:30,200 --> 00:01:37,680 I'll get to that first let's take a look at the boards so Intel's Partners have 21 00:01:35,040 --> 00:01:42,960 been out in full force with support for this new tech ASUS was showing about 22 00:01:40,880 --> 00:01:48,759 half a dozen boards based on the same basic DNA each with some standout 23 00:01:45,360 --> 00:01:50,880 features the Rampage 6 Extreme includes 24 00:01:48,759 --> 00:01:56,039 dual water flow sensors to go with the pump headers that are standard on this 25 00:01:53,079 --> 00:02:01,520 generation their Deluxe board includes 802.11 ad multi- gigb Wireless and an 26 00:01:59,000 --> 00:02:07,200 OLED Post in system monitoring display and the tough Mark 1 comes with an the 27 00:02:04,200 --> 00:02:11,520 usual extra thermal sensors Tough Armor 28 00:02:07,200 --> 00:02:14,080 and a freaking graphics card seg holder 29 00:02:11,520 --> 00:02:18,800 gigabytes digital RGB header allows lighting effects with individually 30 00:02:15,640 --> 00:02:20,879 addressable LED strips their smart fan 5 31 00:02:18,800 --> 00:02:26,400 software now allows fans to be turned off outright if system temperatures 32 00:02:23,400 --> 00:02:30,160 allow it a huge boom to silence Freaks 33 00:02:26,400 --> 00:02:33,040 Like Me they've gone Ham on USB 3. one 34 00:02:30,160 --> 00:02:38,840 10 GB ports including like the others support for the new type-c front panel 35 00:02:35,440 --> 00:02:41,680 spec and they were showing off four PCIe 36 00:02:38,840 --> 00:02:45,879 NVMe ssds running in raid which in of itself isn't exactly groundbreaking but 37 00:02:44,120 --> 00:02:53,080 the fact that they were running off of the CPU and they were 38 00:02:48,319 --> 00:02:55,360 bootable is MSI on the subject of NVMe 39 00:02:53,080 --> 00:03:02,200 has boards with Native support for up to five m.2 ssds and is putting a really 40 00:02:59,120 --> 00:03:04,080 strong emphasis on cooling for them like 41 00:03:02,200 --> 00:03:07,959 everyone else they've given a lot of thought to the Aesthetics of their 42 00:03:05,519 --> 00:03:14,000 boards you can even 3D print accessories from templates and swap cooler covers in 43 00:03:10,640 --> 00:03:16,319 some cases and unlike everybody else 44 00:03:14,000 --> 00:03:22,360 this is interesting they've got a white or red LED that tells you what kind of 45 00:03:19,560 --> 00:03:26,959 CPU you've got installed and in turn then how many of the features that 46 00:03:24,599 --> 00:03:31,879 you're looking at on the board are actually going to be enabled which I 47 00:03:30,080 --> 00:03:36,840 guess brings us to a fairly natural conclusion to the nicely scripted part 48 00:03:34,280 --> 00:03:41,120 of this video because I've got some rough notes for some other stuff that 49 00:03:38,439 --> 00:03:45,599 I've got to get off my back but to do that I think it's probably better if we 50 00:03:42,959 --> 00:03:45,599 go for a little 51 00:03:49,799 --> 00:03:56,760 walk going back to my earlier question 52 00:03:52,840 --> 00:03:58,920 uh what what is this platform quite 53 00:03:56,760 --> 00:04:03,840 honestly what it looks like to me is that Intel the themselves can't really 54 00:04:01,840 --> 00:04:10,360 decide it's like they've changed their mind multiple times and the whole thing 55 00:04:07,599 --> 00:04:17,160 just seems like this this knee-jerk reaction to AMD's announcement of their 56 00:04:13,599 --> 00:04:19,199 up to 16 core 32 thread Threadripper 57 00:04:17,160 --> 00:04:25,720 platform and then I mean some of the things they're doing look just kind of 58 00:04:21,680 --> 00:04:29,120 like a a a half desperate attempt to 59 00:04:25,720 --> 00:04:30,560 appease enthusiasts and Gamers who if 60 00:04:29,120 --> 00:04:34,880 they feel anything anything like me where you know the mainstream's been 61 00:04:32,680 --> 00:04:40,000 stuck with quad core processors for the last 10 years and even on the Enthusiast 62 00:04:38,160 --> 00:04:44,360 level we're lucky to get another two cores and last time around we even had 63 00:04:42,520 --> 00:04:49,759 to pay another $700 just for the privilege of going 64 00:04:47,000 --> 00:04:54,759 from 8 to 10 cores with the new Broadwell E Generation I mean to be 65 00:04:52,199 --> 00:05:00,199 clear for me personally a lot of this stuff can only be good I mean High Core 66 00:04:57,080 --> 00:05:02,320 count overclockable water cooled servers 67 00:05:00,199 --> 00:05:08,520 that's that's right in my wheelhouse that's perfect and when you're someone 68 00:05:04,440 --> 00:05:11,039 who doesn't pay for Hardware then uh 69 00:05:08,520 --> 00:05:16,400 it's expensive no problem I mean not to mention that as a hardware Enthusiast 70 00:05:13,680 --> 00:05:21,400 I'm not going to be struggling to pair the correct board and the correct memory 71 00:05:19,240 --> 00:05:25,520 and the correct CPU together to make sure that I'm getting the most out of 72 00:05:23,000 --> 00:05:29,960 the entire platform cuz honestly that's one of the biggest problems with the 73 00:05:27,039 --> 00:05:37,440 platform right now it's really conf confusing KB Lake X muddies the waters 74 00:05:34,240 --> 00:05:41,280 in a way that just makes absolutely no 75 00:05:37,440 --> 00:05:43,080 sense for Intel to do I mean I've spoken 76 00:05:41,280 --> 00:05:47,160 to system integrators here at the show I'm not going to name them by name or 77 00:05:44,400 --> 00:05:52,400 anything but they flat out said we're not going to support this this aspect of 78 00:05:49,639 --> 00:05:59,120 the platform is a mess because what is kbl LX like on the surface it sounds 79 00:05:57,520 --> 00:06:04,280 like they've gone ahead and they've added latest 80 00:06:00,960 --> 00:06:06,880 architecture to this platform in some 81 00:06:04,280 --> 00:06:11,360 you know amazing wow we engineered a new generation overnight kind of way but 82 00:06:09,120 --> 00:06:16,880 what actually happened was they took the existing kbl Lake processors on the 83 00:06:13,639 --> 00:06:19,319 mainstream platform and just like 84 00:06:16,880 --> 00:06:27,120 stapled them on to socket 2066 the only difference between the 85 00:06:22,440 --> 00:06:31,000 7740 and the 7640 compared to the socket 86 00:06:27,120 --> 00:06:34,759 1151 versions is that they rated at uh 87 00:06:31,000 --> 00:06:37,560 20 W higher tdps they're clocked 100 MHz 88 00:06:34,759 --> 00:06:43,520 higher and Intel is promising uh better overclocking on them but at the end of 89 00:06:40,280 --> 00:06:46,800 the day am I going to spend another $100 90 00:06:43,520 --> 00:06:50,280 on a board just for that and why on 91 00:06:46,800 --> 00:06:52,440 Earth would Intel neuter all the 92 00:06:50,280 --> 00:06:57,759 features on the motherboard just for the sake of me being able to run a chip at 93 00:06:55,319 --> 00:07:03,440 like a little bit higher frequency they don't have more PCI express lanes 94 00:07:00,800 --> 00:07:08,319 they've still only got 16 and making matters even more confusing they only 95 00:07:05,840 --> 00:07:14,520 run dual Channel memory still so when you go and you buy an x299 motherboard 96 00:07:11,520 --> 00:07:17,479 it can have anywhere from four to eight 97 00:07:14,520 --> 00:07:24,440 memory slots on it which might support two sets of dual Channel memory a single 98 00:07:20,560 --> 00:07:26,759 set of quad Channel memory or two sets 99 00:07:24,440 --> 00:07:32,479 of quad Channel memory so you might actually have dim slots that don't work 100 00:07:29,080 --> 00:07:35,520 if you install a KB Lake X CPU oh and I 101 00:07:32,479 --> 00:07:38,599 mean right this is crazy too I even 102 00:07:35,520 --> 00:07:40,360 forgot the part how x299 boards aren't 103 00:07:38,599 --> 00:07:44,960 going to have all the connectors for onboard Graphics so the onboard Graphics 104 00:07:42,800 --> 00:07:49,759 are fused off which wouldn't inherently be a huge problem I expect someone 105 00:07:46,599 --> 00:07:52,720 spending you know 300 to $600 on a 106 00:07:49,759 --> 00:07:56,319 motherboard to buy a dedicated graphics card but the issue is that then you 107 00:07:54,479 --> 00:08:01,159 can't even use features that you would be able to on the mainstream platform 108 00:07:58,800 --> 00:08:09,039 like uh Quicks sync for example that rely on the integrated GPU in order to 109 00:08:03,960 --> 00:08:11,440 function kbl Lake just makes no sense at 110 00:08:09,039 --> 00:08:15,919 all okay so now let's talk about those reactionary High Core count CPUs again 111 00:08:14,000 --> 00:08:20,080 I'm not complaining an 18 Core Extreme Edition that's overclockable sounds 112 00:08:18,039 --> 00:08:25,240 great to me but everyone in their dog knows that Intel was only planning to 113 00:08:21,960 --> 00:08:27,879 use the low core count version of their 114 00:08:25,240 --> 00:08:34,000 xon processors to create their high-end desktop platform so that was going to be 115 00:08:30,039 --> 00:08:36,039 up to 12 cores and uh surprise surprise 116 00:08:34,000 --> 00:08:41,640 here at the show the only chips they're showing are based on that one so what 117 00:08:38,560 --> 00:08:43,680 Intel did is they saw oh no AMD has 118 00:08:41,640 --> 00:08:48,800 Threadripper they're they're making us look bad by announcing this stuff that 119 00:08:45,640 --> 00:08:50,640 people really want uh uh uh quick 120 00:08:48,800 --> 00:08:53,480 announce something even though you know we don't know how much power it's going 121 00:08:52,000 --> 00:08:58,040 to consume we don't know what clock speeds it's going to run at we don't know how much we're going to charge for 122 00:08:56,360 --> 00:09:02,920 it we just we need to make sure we're announcing something so that when AMD 123 00:09:00,640 --> 00:09:08,120 launches Threadripper we're not caught completely with our pants down and no 124 00:09:05,839 --> 00:09:13,680 way to react to it but here's the problem they're taking this wait and see 125 00:09:10,200 --> 00:09:16,720 approach for a reason that I personally 126 00:09:13,680 --> 00:09:18,880 don't really like they want to see what 127 00:09:16,720 --> 00:09:22,360 Threadripper turns into before they commit to what they're going to deliver 128 00:09:20,079 --> 00:09:26,560 to the consumer and that's exactly the problem that they're running up against 129 00:09:24,000 --> 00:09:32,399 in the first place here here's some corporate strategy advice free of charge 130 00:09:28,680 --> 00:09:35,279 Intel build the best thing you can for 131 00:09:32,399 --> 00:09:39,760 the best price that you can deliver it and you're not going to get blindsided 132 00:09:37,440 --> 00:09:44,600 by a competitor that walks in and delivers something way better for a 133 00:09:41,720 --> 00:09:51,560 lower price so we've got this really confusing platform we've got these these 134 00:09:47,920 --> 00:09:53,760 midcore count harvested zons on the 135 00:09:51,560 --> 00:09:59,440 high-end desktop platform that are going to be differentiated by having lots of 136 00:09:56,320 --> 00:10:02,120 PCI Express Lanes uh which I think is 137 00:09:59,440 --> 00:10:07,360 what gives them the core I9 designation we're going to have the normal chips 138 00:10:04,360 --> 00:10:10,519 some of which still have lots of PCI 139 00:10:07,360 --> 00:10:12,959 Express Lanes uh and go up to 12 140 00:10:10,519 --> 00:10:19,320 cores all of the ones I've mentioned so far support quad Channel memory and 141 00:10:15,360 --> 00:10:22,800 anywhere from 28 to 44 PCI Express Lanes 142 00:10:19,320 --> 00:10:25,519 then we're going to have KB Lake X which 143 00:10:22,800 --> 00:10:31,279 only supports 16 PCI Express Lanes and get this the motherboard manufacturers 144 00:10:28,240 --> 00:10:35,160 have to support any chip that you could 145 00:10:31,279 --> 00:10:39,360 put in the socket on every single board 146 00:10:35,160 --> 00:10:42,440 how do you build a board around 16 to 44 147 00:10:39,360 --> 00:10:43,959 PCI Express Lanes dual to quad Channel 148 00:10:42,440 --> 00:10:53,480 memory and anywhere from 4 to 18 cores the 149 00:10:49,920 --> 00:10:56,120 whole launch is so rushed that gigabite 150 00:10:53,480 --> 00:11:01,480 flat out isn't supporting Thunderbolt 3 on any of their x299 boards because they 151 00:10:59,519 --> 00:11:09,399 didn't have time to go through the certification process and the whole 152 00:11:05,040 --> 00:11:12,519 thing is confusing as hell to not just 153 00:11:09,399 --> 00:11:14,519 the general consumer but even 154 00:11:12,519 --> 00:11:17,000 enthusiasts and I mean there's other stuff here that just makes no sense to 155 00:11:16,040 --> 00:11:23,560 me as well v-rock okay so I talked about how 156 00:11:20,959 --> 00:11:28,839 you can have you know up to you know better support for NVMe storage than 157 00:11:26,440 --> 00:11:35,200 ever before so this is a really cool feature you can actually run bootable 158 00:11:31,760 --> 00:11:37,680 raid through the CPU rather than letting 159 00:11:35,200 --> 00:11:45,079 it get bottlenecked by the chipset now with NVMe devices but out of the box 160 00:11:41,360 --> 00:11:48,240 Intel is only supporting raid 161 00:11:45,079 --> 00:11:51,600 zero and if you want to run raid one or 162 00:11:48,240 --> 00:11:53,760 RAID 10 you need to buy a $99 physical 163 00:11:51,600 --> 00:11:58,040 key and plug it into the board and if you want to support raid five on top of 164 00:11:56,279 --> 00:12:02,600 all that other stuff you're going to pay another 300 165 00:12:00,160 --> 00:12:08,480 $100 like I get that they're worried about cannibalizing their Zeon sales and 166 00:12:06,399 --> 00:12:15,600 their server and high-end workstation sales with this platform but this seems 167 00:12:12,079 --> 00:12:18,480 like such a step backwards on a consumer 168 00:12:15,600 --> 00:12:22,680 product going back to buying like raid keys and sticking them onto a 169 00:12:20,160 --> 00:12:26,800 motherboard and as if that wasn't anti-consumer enough the word on the 170 00:12:25,199 --> 00:12:32,079 street now and I really hope they reverse this decision if it is one is 171 00:12:29,399 --> 00:12:39,120 that this bootable raid this v-rock feature is only going to work with Intel 172 00:12:35,079 --> 00:12:41,720 branded NVMe ssds they don't make the 173 00:12:39,120 --> 00:12:45,279 best NVMe ssds at least not till opan lands so they're basically going yeah 174 00:12:43,639 --> 00:12:50,839 here's the highest end you know Enthusiast thing oh by the way put some 175 00:12:48,680 --> 00:12:53,839 you know ssds in here for your wicked raate array that aren't even the best on 176 00:12:52,720 --> 00:13:01,120 the market so I'm sorry if this video was a 177 00:12:57,639 --> 00:13:04,839 little more rambly than what I usually 178 00:13:01,120 --> 00:13:07,000 do and uh maybe a little longer than 179 00:13:04,839 --> 00:13:11,880 what I do these days but I guess it just felt appropriate given the the 180 00:13:09,279 --> 00:13:15,399 frustration that I've had I mean you know I've been asking for higher core 181 00:13:13,800 --> 00:13:20,880 counts and I've been you know asking for really a lot of 182 00:13:18,600 --> 00:13:25,920 the things that they're doing right now which like it's funny cuz here I am 183 00:13:22,959 --> 00:13:29,160 complaining about it but what's frustrating is not that 184 00:13:28,079 --> 00:13:36,959 they're doing it what's frustrating ating is my perception of the reasons 185 00:13:34,000 --> 00:13:41,279 that they're doing it so I guess that's pretty much it like leave a comment 186 00:13:38,760 --> 00:13:46,880 letting me know your guys' thoughts am I am I being nitpicky or are the 187 00:13:43,480 --> 00:13:48,720 criticisms Fair um leave a comment below 188 00:13:46,880 --> 00:13:53,079 and let's uh let's at least talk about it if Intel's going to come across this 189 00:13:50,519 --> 00:13:55,759 video I'd love for them to get some real feedback not just from me but also from 190 00:13:54,839 --> 00:14:02,000 you guys so thanks for watching this video 191 00:13:58,240 --> 00:14:05,160 here from computex 2017 in beautiful 192 00:14:02,000 --> 00:14:07,199 Taiwan a huge shout out to Corsair for 193 00:14:05,160 --> 00:14:11,320 allowing us to be here the Corsair one is their 12 L Powerhouse of a gaming 194 00:14:09,680 --> 00:14:17,399 machine that's available with up to a GTX 1080 graphics card with a 1080 TI 195 00:14:14,360 --> 00:14:21,040 version coming soon and a huge shout out 196 00:14:17,399 --> 00:14:23,639 to Synergy for offering 25% off their 197 00:14:21,040 --> 00:14:27,600 mouse and keyboard sharing software to all of our viewers and you can find 198 00:14:25,519 --> 00:14:30,600 links to both of those in the video description