But what are my other choices…? I need a MB that supports CPUs with a lot of PCIe lanes… and TB3. X299 supports up to 48 CPU PCIe lanes & has a lot of built-in features saving slots.
For under $400 I can pick up an i7-9800x and a motherboard for under $500 with:
• 44 PCIe Lanes
• 10GbE Built-in
• Thunderbolt 3 built in
• WiFi 6 built in
What ELSE can I buy that competes at that price-point and provides these amenities…?
I wish the CPUs had UHD 630 built-in… and eventually I’ll be able to get a 48 lane PCIe CPU.
I don’t game and I rarely will even approach the limits of the CPU’s performance.
IF there’re boards that have all of those items above at similar pricing, I’d love to know.
I’m open to 3647 or AMD … but again:
• Over 40 PCIe Lanes
• Built-in 10GbE (SFP+ preferred)
• Built in Thunderbolt 3!
• Built in WiFi 6
• I’d love it to have UHD 630 built-in
• I’d really like some IPMI-like feature …
• 2x M.2 NVMe slots on board please…
• U.2 would also be very nice to add on.
So … what else am I looking at or – do you guys agree that the combo I mentioned for under a grand really covers the best bang-per-buck available via:
I appreciate the suggestion. What I REALLY want … I’m going to stick with this CPU until there’s sufficient justification to upgrade (64 lanes of 4.0 maybe) and in the interim, settle. What I want is the Z390 Xtreme (no water cooling) … but the Designare is the closest I can find as I’m not going to pay DOUBLE the MSRP when I’d actually prefer SFP+ over RJ-45. If you can’t see the price on Amazon – the only place I’ve found it ANYWHERE … the one guy who has it is asking $1100 !! Literally NO ONE has them in stock. Why bother manufacturing a product that’s sold out, right Gigabyte?? Who’s want:
Built-in
Power & Reset buttons
BIOS Reset buttons
10G-baseT LAN
Thunderbolt 3
WiFi 802.11ac
HDMI
My backup choice is Gigabyte’s Z390 Designare, which is also a special snowflake in that out of EVERY SINGLE OTHER MANUFACTURE (MSI, Asrock, Asus, EVGA, Biostar) … this is the ONLY z370 or z390 board with built-in TB3 & WiFi. Who’d … want TB3 built in?
HDMI (fortunately they almost all have it given the UHD 630 ubiquity)
But the hopes of finding a board with an integrated Power & Reset Buttons to use with
the Streacom BC1 are out the question… whereas IF more mfrs made boards with TB3 it might have happened.
I know – and it really is annoying how paltry the options are for CPUs with 40+ PCIe lanes or motherboards with TB3 and 10GbE built-in.
This board is rather pricy (almost $600) but, like I said, the GIGABYTE X299X AORUS Designare 10G has:
• Built-in power & reset buttons
• Supports the i7-9800X
- 8C @ 3.80GHz
- Supports 44 PCIe Lanes (CPUs that support 48 Lanes are $600+ vs $350)
• 980 or 980 Ti (I think I have both cards but really need minimal Graphic power)
I need to use a 10G SFP+ Transceiver to adapt to RJ45 Copper 10GBase-T
I usually use liquid cooling for my CPU, but I’m actually thinking about just using an air cooler that’s quiet and low-profile … I’d rather not ever risk an accident with the PC-3000 express card in … and doubt I’ll ever use more than a fraction of the potency. The real reason I like Liquid AIO is bc of how quiet they are … regardless of the claims that the dB are equal, perhaps they’re lower pitched or something … whatever the case, (possibly an optical illusion or even placebo) …
Anyway, if it does go smoothly getting it all setup I’ll post a couple of pictures.
The Corsair PSU HX1200 is too bulky and droops; it’d make more sense if they offered a way to attach the opposing side via a bracket that screws to the under-side of the Streacom case which can then be screwed to the top holes of the PSU.
I have a friend with a 5-axis shop … maybe we can fabricate something, which would be pretty cool.
Otherwise, there’s still the low profile Corsair AIO as well as the unit from Cooler Master …
But, if past experience is remotely indicative of future success … something will go wrong.
Anyway, thank you all, for all help provided. Here’re pictures of the two compact coolers I mentioned…
Good info – thanks. I’m kind of leaning towards an air-cooler anyway. As long as it’s quiet I’ll be happy with it. Not like there’s any chance of me not seeing if it stopped working one day.
