The Intel Skylake-X platform has had a troublesome starting. It was launched with a genuinely spectacular decacore CPU, the Core i9 7900X, however with AMD’s mega-core Threadripper hanging over its head, and the rushed launch of Intel’s Coffee Lake, Skylake-X has struggled to get loads of consideration. Which is a disgrace, as a result of with boards just like the Asus STRIX X299-E Gaming it’s bought lots to supply.
Check out the best CPUs for gaming in the marketplace at this time.
The X299-E Gaming is a $320 (£289) motherboard for Intel’s Skylake-X platform, with all of the flashy LEDs, myriad connections, and sturdy componentry that we’ve come to affiliate with Asus’ STRIX vary of motherboards.
It’s not the type of server-level board you’ll get from the Prime X299 Deluxe, or the intense overclocking ROG Rampage VI Apex, however the STRIX goals to ship a gamer’s board with a good mixture of gaming efficiency, overclocking potential, and computational grunt, however with a extra cheap price ticket.
Of course an important function is the actual fact it’s rocking the Aura Sync RGB LED expertise. That’s what’s going to make your PC run sooner, like portray stripes down the aspect of your automobile. Inevitably it’s bought the LED headers on the board so you possibly can hyperlink up all of your RGB strips in a single fluid stream of rainbow goodness.
Obviously taking part in second fiddle to the RGB enjoyable is the extent of safety Asus try to afford your admittedly nonetheless relatively costly motherboard. There’s armour arrayed across the PCIe slots to make them extra sturdy when mounted vertically with a heavy ol’ graphics card weighing them down. And with three full x16 slots – and an appropriately beefy X-series processor – you will get all of them crammed with graphics playing cards for a mighty gaming array. With a pair of GPUs you’ll get them each working utilizing all 16 lanes, however should you add one other into the combination (you mad idiot) then that can sadly need to make do with eight lanes.
Because it’s not one of many monstrous Rampage or Deluxe boards you’re not going to have the identical stage of USB assist from the relatively sparse again panel. Surprisingly there are solely a handful of sockets – a pair of USB 2.zero, 4 USB three.1 Gen 1, and one USB three.1 Gen 2 Type-A and one Type-C. You’ll need a chassis with a number of ports on the entrance panel to utilize the varied further headers on the board itself or you are going to run out of USB ports relatively rapidly.
Asus’ SupremeFX audio may be very a lot in attendance too, with a completely shielded design, retaining it separate from the doubtless noisy elements on the primary board. It’s additionally been designed to be able to driving the best gaming headsets from the entrance panel of your case with a pair of devoted op-amps.
But it’s the efficiency of the board which is what we’re actually right here for, and sadly that’s a little bit of a blended bag. In a little bit of a switcheroo in contrast with the Coffee Lake motherboards it’s the MSI X299 Gaming M7 ACK which is the one pushing Intel’s Core i9 silicon to its fullest. The MSI board runs the i9 7900X at four.3GHz out of the field, whereas the Asus STRIX sticks to the 4GHz commonplace.
That means its CPU efficiency is a bit off by comparability as are its 3DMark index scores. On the gaming entrance, nevertheless, it’s a bit extra random. The Asus manages barely higher Hitman and Civilization VI body charges than the Gaming M7, however with Total War it’s a good distance behind the MSI. That stated it manages to run lots cooler and with out chowing down on a lot uncooked energy too.
The improved thermal and energy efficiency of the board doesn’t imply you’re going to get extra out of the STRIX within the overclocking stakes – our i9 7900X resolutely refuses to go sooner than four.7GHz – however as soon as there it does outperform the MSI board fairly significantly. It’s clearly sooner within the Cinebench CPU stakes and hoses the MSI within the Civilization VI benchmark too.
So, with the intention to get probably the most out of the STRIX you’re going to wish to tweak your CPU to get there. But contemplating it’s fairly a bit cheaper than the $366 (£348) that’s not an excessive amount of of a concession to make. You won’t just like the considered instantly straining your costly new Core i9 CPU, however given the decrease temperatures of the Asus STRIX board I wouldn’t fear overmuch about overclocking taking an excessive amount of of a toll on the Skylake-X silicon.
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