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GokieKS posted:Ever since the Maximus IV GENE-Z, I've felt that the mATX ROG boards have offered some of the best combination of high-end quality components, features, and price. At ~$200 they're still on the high end of cost, but it's really not that much more than good mid-range ATX boards, and for the people who really don't need all the expansion slots of an ATX board (which is most of them), the high-end features make it worthwhile. I did a build for someone with that GENE-Z, and at the time it was one of the cheapest boards with Intel NIC which is something I always prefer to use (I previously just tended to throw in a PCI/PCIe NIC). And they are solid as hell. When I was selling gaming systems, I sold a lot of the Maximus series - never had one come back dead. I love mine as well. Plus they look sexy, and, well, sex sells - I built one customer a pretty high-end rig with a black/red them, featuring a RoG board - I sold about 10 more like it before the first went out the door. I miss those days. I feel so out of touch now.
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Jun 19, 2014 02:35
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Alereon posted:The Asus ROG Maximus VII HERO is only $10 more than the GENE, and unless you really need the smaller form factor I think you get a better value. It would be interesting to see benchmarks comparing the audio performance of the GENE and the HERO, I'm thinking the GENE would have noticeably worse EMI because of the limited board space to route the audio traces away from noises sources. It doesn't appear to have a physically isolated board area like on the HERO, but they may have been able to come close via efficient routing. I actually don't care about the on-board audio at all, as my audio setup is using a Blue Yeti USB mic that has a built-in DAC/headphone output to connect to my headphones. The built-in headphone amp doesn't do an amazing job of driving my Sennheiser HD600s, but then I really don't them it to for gaming (which is the only thing this machine will be used for). Beyond that, I just don't have any need for what the HERO offers over the GENE - the only possible situation I can think of would be if I wanted to do SLI and also absolutely must use a PCIe SSD for some reason, but I really doubt that's going to happen. And to go along with the (slight) savings, I also get more flexibility in terms of cases, which is actually looking like it'll be more important since the case I've been wanting (Lian Li PC-A51WRX, the red/black windowed version) doesn't seem to be available anywhere in the US (yet?), and I might end up running the system case-less for a while.
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Jun 19, 2014 02:38
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Don Lapre posted:The gene has a separate sound card it comes with. The sound chipset isn't even on the board. What's the point of making it a separate card? Not enough real estate on the main board? What kind of interface is that? PCIe?
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Jun 19, 2014 03:15
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Shaocaholica posted:What's the point of making it a separate card? Not enough real estate on the main board? What kind of interface is that? PCIe? Saves room on the board and gives you physical seperation. Seperated onboard sound uses a shitload of pcb real estate. You can see how much pcb space is taken up on the hero, that entire lower left corner  With non seperated audio they just toss a realtek chip in with everything else and call it a day. edit: ohh, the gene soundcard is their own interface, its not meant to be used on a different board. Don Lapre fucked around with this message at 03:26 on Jun 19, 2014 |
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Jun 19, 2014 03:21
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Oh I totally didn't realize the Gene was a small form factor which make sense to separate the board for space reasons.
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Jun 19, 2014 03:29
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Tangentially related while we talk about ASUS and audio: I don't know how much exposure people here have to the audiophile world, but about three years ago ASUS made huge waves when they released the Xonar Essence Once, a DAC+Headamp for ~$500 that outperformed some $2500+ DACs and many sub-$1000 amps. The audiophile community being what it is (i.e. half of it is full of pseudoscience bullshit); people refused to accept that an outsider could really put together such a good piece of equipment -- despite the fact designing a good DAC is probably child's play compared to designing a good motherboard and the fact that we've have tons of great reference designs for the analogue stage publicly avaliable. You can tell from the feature set that whoever designed this was listening pretty closely to the ground because separate volume controls for line-out (perfect for driving bookshelf speakers) and headphones. This is an absolute godsend for an audio setup that you want to use at your PC; and for some reason pretty much no other dac+amp combo has it.
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Jun 19, 2014 03:45
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GokieKS posted:Ever since the Maximus IV GENE-Z, I've felt that the mATX ROG boards have offered some of the best combination of high-end quality components, features, and price. At ~$200 they're still on the high end of cost, but it's really not that much more than good mid-range ATX boards, and for the people who really don't need all the expansion slots of an ATX board (which is most of them), the high-end features make it worthwhile. I did a build for someone with that GENE-Z, and at the time it was one of the cheapest boards with Intel NIC which is something I always prefer to use (I previously just tended to throw in a PCI/PCIe NIC). This post reminds me of odd things like the Rampage IV Gene. That was an interesting piece of work, and I always wondered what people thought about having an X79 mATX system missing the one thing X79 seemed to have over mainstream systems: extra PCIe slots. Knowing ASUS, I fully expect them to make a Mini-ITX Rampgage V Impact or something for Haswell-E for maximum niche performance 
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Jun 19, 2014 04:09
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Sidesaddle Cavalry posted:This post reminds me of odd things like the Rampage IV Gene. That was an interesting piece of work, and I always wondered what people thought about having an X79 mATX system missing the one thing X79 seemed to have over mainstream systems: extra PCIe slots. Eagerly awaiting seeing the daughter card with 8 memory slots on it.
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Jun 19, 2014 04:12
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Don Lapre posted:Eagerly awaiting seeing the daughter card with 8 memory slots on it. Good point. The Rampage IV Gene was missing 4 memory slots.
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Jun 19, 2014 04:17
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Chuu posted:Tangentially related while we talk about ASUS and audio: I've never really understood: Is there something that a DAC will give me, compared to plugging my headphones into the 80's era JVC Digital Synthesizer Reviever & SEA Equalizer that I have my PC plugged into for sound output? Honest question. Sidesaddle Cavalry posted:Knowing ASUS, I fully expect them to make a Mini-ITX Rampgage V Impact or something for Haswell-E for maximum niche performance It's the board I mentioned a few posts back.  Rime fucked around with this message at 04:21 on Jun 19, 2014 |
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Jun 19, 2014 04:18
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Rampage, not Maximus. Maximus is for the quad-cores. Rampage is for the many-core consumer Xeons.
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Jun 19, 2014 04:23
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Rime posted:I've never really understood: Is there something that a DAC will give me, compared to plugging my headphones into the 80's era JVC Digital Synthesizer Reviever & SEA Equalizer that I have my PC plugged into for sound output? Honest question. To make a long story short, somewhere in your audio chain there is a DAC, because somewhere in your audio chain digital bits are being converted into an analogue waveform. Odds are though, the DAC is garbage. Once you have the analogue signal from the output of the DAC, it's at "line level" and needs to be amplified to get it to the volume you want. Odds are, the amp connected to the DAC is garbage. You don't need to spend much money to get something much better than the default. That pic of the GENE isn't detailed enough to make out the chips but it's probably significantly better than the default since ASUS has shown they actually care about audio quality in the past. EDIT: A lot of older amps make great headphone amps because the headphone-out and speakers were driven from the same circuit. For whatever reason this started to change and now they're usually on separate circuits -- especially with digital amps. It can't improve the sound quality coming in though. Chuu fucked around with this message at 04:34 on Jun 19, 2014 |
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Jun 19, 2014 04:27
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Cardboard Box A posted:Are there any GPUs on the horizon that use more than 16 PCIe lanes? PWM support has been a standard thing on I think all asus mobos since last generation.
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Jun 19, 2014 05:28
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The Lord Bude posted:PWM support has been a standard thing on I think all asus mobos since last generation. The difference seems to be there is no minimum % fan speed.
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Jun 19, 2014 05:33
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Don Lapre posted:The difference seems to be there is no minimum % fan speed. Oh ok... On my z87 board the minimum is 40%. So I read up on the new unlocked Pentium... I'm struggling to see the point. Yes, you can take it up to 4.5 or so, and at that point, it more or less equalizes with the core i3, or falls slightly short. But in order to do that, you also need to buy an aftermarket CPU cooler, which will end up costing almost as much as the cpu - The Tom's Hardware review uses a noctua U12S. At that point you are spending the same or slightly more as you would if you'd just bought a core i3, and you have to spend more on a z97 mobo. Unless you already have a beefy air cooler lying about, I just don't get it.
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Jun 19, 2014 05:42
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Has there been any info on if there will be a Xeon equivalent of the 4790K?
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Jun 19, 2014 05:51
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The Lord Bude posted:Oh ok... On my z87 board the minimum is 40%. Its not like it costs them anything to make them over the other ones. Its for PR it seems more than anything.
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Jun 19, 2014 05:52
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Audiophiles are idiots, Asus did the Xonar sound cards waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay before the Essence One, and all of it's iterations were considered best-in-class. I am pretty sure that they were one of the first consumer grade (a few $500+ cards had it) audio cards with replaceable opamps.
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Jun 19, 2014 05:54
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Don Lapre posted:Its not like it costs them anything to make them over the other ones. Its for PR it seems more than anything. I meant from a consumer perspective... there seems like precious little reason to buy this.
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Jun 19, 2014 06:46
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Holy crap that Gene VII is so over-engineered, I love it. They have goddamned linear regulators to provide 5V USB power; those are going to dissipate so much extra heat, it's hilarious. Using industrial grade Ethernet jacks (those are common on test/measurement/critical equipment) also, it's like they told the engineers to go bugshit insane on this board. Resettable fuses, over-spec'd capacitors, a standalone keyboard processor, no feature is left on the ground! i kinda want one
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Jun 19, 2014 08:04
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I knew ASUS ROG boards were good but I didn't think they were quite this good. Looks like I'll be grabbing a VII HERO to mount a 4790K in January. 5GHz or bust. I'm pulling every trick in the book I can think of: delid the CPU, apply Coollaboratory Ultra, full copper EK Supremacy, brand new HWlabs 420 radiator + three Noctua IndustrialPPC PWM 2000rpm fans, digital AX760i PSU, and other little touches. Do I need this? Probably not. However, since overclocking is going the way of the dodo - especially since my next upgrade will probably be Intel Cannonlake - I want to create a swansong build for everyday use without going utterly bonkers on ridiculous components.
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Jun 19, 2014 08:15
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deimos posted:Audiophiles are idiots, Asus did the Xonar sound cards waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay before the Essence One, and all of it's iterations were considered best-in-class. I am pretty sure that they were one of the first consumer grade (a few $500+ cards had it) audio cards with replaceable opamps. Replaceable opamps are stupid bullshit pandering to audiophiles who want to believe they can improve things by ~tweaking~
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Jun 19, 2014 09:22
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deimos posted:Audiophiles are idiots, Asus did the Xonar sound cards waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay before the Essence One, and all of it's iterations were considered best-in-class. I am pretty sure that they were one of the first consumer grade (a few $500+ cards had it) audio cards with replaceable opamps. I don't know when ASUS started offering cards with replacable op-amps, but my AuzenTech X-Plosion 7.1 DTS Connect launched in 2006 and has this option. Also, it was the world's first card with a chipset that encoded DTS 1.5MBps streams in real-time over S/PDIF, which was pretty baller when I was hooking it up to my Logitech Z-680s; no spaghetti mess of cables. I bought it pretty much when it came out, Still using the card, and still works just fine, although I've only been using the headphone output for a few years now. 
HalloKitty fucked around with this message at 10:06 on Jun 19, 2014 |
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Jun 19, 2014 09:56
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^ I have that card, love it to death. Sad that it will be redundant in the new build. 
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Jun 19, 2014 15:40
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 I'm really digging the separate board for the VRMs. Seems like it would be easier to clean up the thermal interface and/or roll something else with them being on a removable card. Like older workstations.
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Jun 19, 2014 15:45
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That's the coolest small mobo ive ever seen
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Jun 19, 2014 15:48
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Ignoarints posted:That's the coolest small mobo ive ever seen except it says REPUBLIC OF GAMERS on it which is cheesy and dumb.
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Jun 19, 2014 16:37
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Yes it is cheesy
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Jun 19, 2014 16:40
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I continually buy budget level (or plain Intel) uATX boards because they are the only ones that don't have stupid things that end up being obstructions in my HTPC cases
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Jun 19, 2014 16:57
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Shipping in uk to customers. One guy on overclock.net will have his monday. http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-539-IN&campaign=pcm/skinflint-couk&campaign=pcm/skinflint-couk
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Jun 19, 2014 17:39
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AlternateAccount posted:except it says REPUBLIC OF GAMERS on it which is cheesy and dumb. Looks like a removable sticker.
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Jun 19, 2014 18:33
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Shaocaholica posted:Looks like a removable sticker. But then you lose half of the resale value.
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Jun 19, 2014 18:52
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r0ck0 posted:But then you lose half of the resale value. People resell computer parts?
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Jun 19, 2014 18:57
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PerrineClostermann posted:People resell computer parts? somebody please buy my h100
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Jun 19, 2014 19:02
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PerrineClostermann posted:People resell computer parts? Lol yes, but it is this sentiment that allows me to do so and get money out of it low effort
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Jun 19, 2014 19:30
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Shaocaholica posted:Looks like a removable sticker. No one ever sees the inside of my computer, really, but this makes these boards a lot more attractive to me. Otherwise I'll just cover up that dumbness with electrical tape.
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Jun 19, 2014 19:36
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AlternateAccount posted:No one ever sees the inside of my computer, really, but this makes these boards a lot more attractive to me. Otherwise I'll just cover up that dumbness with electrical tape.
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Jun 19, 2014 19:50
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AlternateAccount posted:No one ever sees the inside of my computer, really, but this makes these boards a lot more attractive to me. Otherwise I'll just cover up that dumbness with electrical tape. I think ROG is a pretty silly brand name, but I also think that should have about 0% effect on whether or not you buy it or not. Maybe if was rear end Licker Series or something then perhaps
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Jun 19, 2014 19:59
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Ignoarints posted:I think ROG is a pretty silly brand name, but I also think that should have about 0% effect on whether or not you buy it or not. Maybe if was rear end Licker Series or something then perhaps I would buy it if it was called D.P.R.O.G.
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Jun 19, 2014 20:05
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PerrineClostermann posted:People resell computer parts? Speaking of again, you just reminded me list my build on craigslist with a 40% markup (just did). Crossing my fingers for brand new devil canyons build for free
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Jun 19, 2014 21:03
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