2700x upgrade sanity check

I’m near Toronto in the Waterloo area - same city where Blackberry has their HQ haha

I only have Amazon, Canada Computers, and Newegg near me.

might just be for the used market then

my understanding is that there’s a bunch of system integrators and IT companies in toronto that just throw away good parts, and if you just ask around you can find gread deals on anything other than GPUs

Used market makes sense. For new there isn’t much unless you are in Toronto, and even then its still somewhat limited. I have seen more computer stores in BC, not Ontario.

I’m also in Canada and built a similar system at Zen+ launch.

I originally wanted the Taichi X470 but availability was delayed and pricing was about the same as the C7HWIFI or more for the Ultimate… so I went with the C7HWIFI. The 2X NVMe @ PCIE x4 (RAIDable) is unique to the C7H.

I have a better impression of Asrock’s linux and BIOS support and release frequency, but Asus seems to have ultimately the best memory support. On the other hand their quality control seems to be really terrible especially considering the price point so I strongly recommend buying from a place that has a very good RMA policy. I got mine from Newegg and luckily RMAs are free (within 30 days, including return shipping) for defective items.

Also, read the fine print on the MIR for the Asrock… dirty. I think it has to be postmarked within 10 days of your purchase, which leaves barely any time for testing. And if you cut the UPC (which is needed for the MIR) stores won’t take it back even for RMAs. Potentially a big hassle.

For RAM I got GSKILL F4-3200C14D-32GTZ. Works at 3200 with DOCP. Only con is price… The 2x8GB kits should be cheaper.

Maybe you meant Crucial (Micron) MX300? I prefer Micron/Crucial SSDs since the fiasco a few years back with Samsung not honoring SSD warranties in Canada. I don’t know if that’s gotten resolved yet. You can find the Micron 1100 2TB 2.5" SSD on sale as low as $350 if you’re looking for tons of fast storage.

It was the Corsair MP500 I was thinking about. Just messed up the product number.

What I like about the Asus board is being able to run two NVMe SSDs off the CPU for the best performance.

So what I was maybe thinking about doing was eventually running two GPUs. Top slot would be the high end next gen Nvidia gpu (GTX 1180?) that would be passed through to a Windows VM. 2nd slot would be my RX 560 for Linux which should be fine for basic stuff at PCIe 4x. Then have two SSDS, one for each OS, connected to the CPU.

At the very least the CHVII board gives me the flexibility to do crazy things like that. So I think I will pull the trigger on everything in my most recent Amazon cart screenshot.

2c.

The Taichi series may have an awesome VRM, but in terms of BIOS support, compared to the crosshair they’re a LONG way behind.

I bought an X470 Taichi and am reasonably happy with it (it was a lot cheaper than the crosshair VII), but the ASUS BIOS is just miles ahead.

Asus does make a good BIOS.

I did end up getting the CHVII. Everything in the screenshot above should be here Wednesday.

Asrock is easy to get from Newegg in Canada. Sure the price seems higher then expected but that is due to rebates. They offer a $45.00 rebate on the Taichi. Beware that you have 7 days only to apply for rebate. That is not to say you should buy an Asrock board. Asus is a fine board. Asus is also more water cooling friendly.

The best ram for Ryzen is Team Group Dark Pro, 3200 at very tight timings and guaranteed ‘B’ die. I would not pair Corsair ram with Ryzen. You could also go for Nighthawks (also 'B" die) by Team Group which have looser timing or go for their 3800 or 4000 speed and dial them down to tighten the timings. I have 64G of Nighthawks, 4x 16G sticks, rated 3200 16-18-18, running at 2933 16-16-16 on Threadripper. Pushing to get the higher speed showed no benefit over the tighter timing and rock solid stability.

In terms of settings and features, yes probably the best. In terms of stability, at least at release, not so much. It’s like they expect early adopters to pay top dollar and also be beta testers. My experience with my first C7H was really frustrating.

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this was literally the entire 1st gen ryzen ecosystem to be fair

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Well, he is talking about the VII. So that is second gen.

ASRock also makes their customers beta testers but at least it is optional. You can download the beta BIOS, you can also just wait until they come out with something more stable. Not sure how that is handled over at Asus.

he doesn’t specify, and since the x470 VII is practically copy-pasted other than some SoC vrm tweaks, and from what I understand the chipset implementations are interchangeable other than the ID codes, I’d be willing to bet most of the uefi dev that went into 3xx carried over.

that said though if they couldn’t get it stable at release again that’s pretty bad

Yeah he did.

The C6H is now stable after 1-2 years. The C7H is barely getting more stable and there are still kinks to work out.

For example, reports of: network adapters that vanish on reboots, slow boot times, LLC is acknowledged to be broken / do nothing in some situations, crashes caused by interference between some hardware monitoring software / rgb software, settings that work in some cases and not in others (eg when doing manual OC vs auto multiplier), etc etc etc

The general advice on OCN is that the C7H is for bleeding edge tweakers and if you want stability, wait about a year or get the C6H, etc. Others report that everything worked perfectly out of the box for them and it’s the best board they’ve had.

Check OCN, Asus/ROG forums, and highly polarized reviews on retailer sites if you want to read about all kinds of problems people have. Or perfect reviews if things work well. Overall it looks like the hardware engineering is top notch, but the software side is lagging. And contacting support is an exercise in frustration. QA might be an issue as well since RMAs do fix some issues.

To be fair, part of the problem might simply be due to complexity and the sheer number of features offered by this board.

Still, many note how shocking it is to buy top of the line board and get a far worse experience than a budget board. The frustration is more with Asus than the board itself.

But when it finally works and you forget how much you paid for it… it’s golden.

To be clear, I’m now happy with my (second) C7H. I just recommend buying from a retailer with a very good return/RMA policy, and having the time to set up and test.

that’s goofy as heck to be honest. Wonder what their dev cycle looks like, they must be rebasing on a new reference implementation every minor refresh to have that happen

@noenken ah yeah missed that

Build posted in the op looks pretty sollid to me.
Asus Crosshair 7 Hero is pretty much the best X470 board on the market.
Maybe not the best value for money, but definitelly the best quality board overall.
So i could highlly recommend it.
The Asrock X470 Taichi like mentioned allready is also a pretty good choice.
Allthough Asrock could still improve on their biosses a bit.

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I swapped the memory to Corsair Dominator Platnium 3000 Samsung B-die. Otherwise its the same as the OP.

Parts should be here in a couple of days as soon as Amazon decides to ship it.

The Gigabyte Gaming 7 actually has a sensible VRM that can radiate passively and still remain cool. And is cheaper than the Crosshair at $300CAD.

The only reason you would get a Crosshair is overclocking.

Well if you expect decent company support for your motherboard,
then you will be pretty much dissapointed with every brand out there.
In that regars they all pretty much suck.

Allthough some issues that people might complain about with certain motherboards,
are caused by bios or software related issues.
But those are generally fixed with bios and software updates over time.
On a new platform every board will have some niggles here and there.
But remember that also allot of the issues that users are complaining about,
are cause by human error.

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Also probably worth noting that I think when people compare boards like this they are splitting hairs. At least to a certain extent.