looking for stable x99 board

S

stormslayer

Weaksauce
Joined
Apr 26, 2005
Messages
69
Folks:

I had an msi x99 xpower ac. It was "mostly" stable for the past year and a great performer, but there were semi-continual annoyances w/ USB devices and booting. Finally, woke up this week and found the computer dead -- the primary bios is trashed (a hardware issue, unrecoverable) and while it boots fine from secondary, I'm a little tired of this.

I was going to turn around and buy an Asus (either rampage V or TUF) and from reading the forums, there's serious bugginess with the rampage and the hardocp review had issues with the TUF.

Are any of the high-end x99 boards stable? I'm using 64gb ram and running it as a workstation.

Thanks much.
sd
 
honestly I have no idea man, i cant seem to find a single one with raving reviews... I need one as well... Its making me think I will just say screw it and go with a 6700k but i really need a hex core
 
banedox said:
honestly I have no idea man, i cant seem to find a single one with raving reviews... I need one as well... Its making me think I will just say screw it and go with a 6700k but i really need a hex core
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None of the Z170 boards have much for raving reviews either :D :(
 
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I've been using the x99a M-Power board for a few months and haven't had any issues so far (except some memory compatibility problems)
 
stormslayer said:
Wow. I guess I could dust off the x58 platform I have that still works...

sd
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heh, stormslayer, thats what i am running right now my x58 rig my p6t deluxe motherboard has been chugging for so long,,, USB is starting to fail on it
 
I have been running the MSI X99 SLI Krait and it has been rock solid at 4.5Ghz 5820K since I installed it. I am mainly gaming on it and only have 16GB RAM installed. Best of luck with your search.
 
Sorcerer_Tim said:
I have been running the MSI X99 SLI Krait and it has been rock solid at 4.5Ghz 5820K since I installed it. I am mainly gaming on it and only have 16GB RAM installed. Best of luck with your search.
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x58 users unite!

Thanks for all the comments -- the reason I originally went w/ MSI is b/c of the huge number of complaints about the rampage V (which, from looking at the ROG forums, don't seem to have let up).

One additional issue with MSI, though, besides my failed board is that they don't really release new bios's. For my board (the xpower), it's been since March since there was an updated bios.

Ow. I guess I could roll the dice on another MSI xpower -- anyone know if there's a new version? I had a 1.0 original.
 
I've had 3 RVE boards. Each of them worked perfectly with no issues for a couple months.

1st RVE board, worked great, I upgraded processors but dropped the new processor on the corner into the slot and it bent the pins. It worked great for the 3 months that I had it and I never had any crash, other than failed unstable OC from processor.

2nd RVE worked great. Had it for 2 months and never had any crash or bug whatsoever. I upgrade GPU and accidentally broke the PCIe tab off it and me being OCD, I bought a new one with a working tab and sold the RVE board here.

3rd one has been great for the last couple months. No issues whatsoever.

Don't let a few threads on the internet out of literally thousands of RVE boards that asus has sold deter you from buying. Any product has its issue and you really don't know the full story behind each defective thread or review that you'll see.
 
I never had any issues with my Asus Sabertooth when I had it. I wouldn't let the H review scare you away as that was a much earlier bios. It is updated fairly regularly.
 
kirbyrj said:
I never had any issues with my Asus Sabertooth when I had it. I wouldn't let the H review scare you away as that was a much earlier bios. It is updated fairly regularly.
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+1, this year alone there have been at least 4 bios updates that I can recall. Which improved on a lot of things.
 
I'm on my second X99 TUF mobo, the first one was just not stable, it would randomly have boot issues, bios would lose settings, then finally the bios just died, can't even do the EZ flash off a usb. The MSI X99 Gaming 7 that I built for my younger brother who's stationed overseas is still going strong though, and it survived USPS to APO. His 5820k is sitting at 4.5GHz and has yet to have an issue.
 
Asus Rampage IV Gene has been nothing but rock solid here. Dont know if you need mATX, but i'd buy it again if i had to.
 
Ya know I think I might go with the Asrock X99 Fatality board super cheap right now lol
 
i have the msi x99a sli plus since the summer and it's been good. the only issue i've had with it is one xbox 360 usb controller will work on every port except for the usb 3.0 front ports. Funny thing is, my other usb 360 controller works fine on all the ports. weirdest thing and i can't seem to fix it. (still happens after 2 formats, works fine in all my other computers, etc.)
 
I am using the Asus X99-E WS USB3.1 board on the latest BIOS with an intel 750 pcie SSD. The board has been super stable for me thus far (about a month in). It's normally on for 24 - 48 hours at a time without issue. Only when I know I won't be gaming or anything for a few days after work, will I shut it off until I am back :).

I will say, X99 can be very picky when it comes to memory. I went through about 5 x sets of mix and match until I found a good median between overclock, price, 1.2v, 64GB, and stability and that was with the G.Skill RipJaw 4's off newegg. It is the black 64GB kit that runs at cas 15 at 1.2 DDR4 2400. I wanted to keep the bclk from the XMP2.0 profile at 100, so I was limited to 2400 or below.

I did also have good luck with the ADATA cas 13's @ 2133 but ultimately went with the G.Skill's.
 
If you want stable - perhaps consider SuperMicro you can either do E5 V3 or E3 V5 CPU's depending on how many cores you need. That combined with ECC memory and you should be good.
 
Do you overclock? Maybe one of the Asus WS boards would have the stability you're looking for.

Although I've only had it for a short time the Asus x99-A I'm using had been solid so far.
 
lol, I'm in the same boat.. still on x58. Asus Rampage III GENE, Intel Xeon x5670 @ 4GHz, 24GB Corsair Dominator GT DDR3-2000, EVGA 980 GTX SC ACX 2.0, Samsung Evo 840, etc..

I've been shopping for x99 for quite a while since I saw they're doing a refresh with a 10-core Intel i7. I was disappointed that z170 only has 4c/8t support since I do 3D work and lots of multi-core video rendering/encoding. The single core gains are marginal IMO for the same amount of money you can buy the x99 platform for.

I was looking at the MSI x99 GODLIKE board, but I swore to myself years ago I would never buy another MSI product after trying to RMA something with them. Other than that, I may just go with the ASUS workstation line. I've always had good luck with Asus, both quality aspects and customer support aspects.
 
I built the X99 rig in my sig back in August 2014 and it has been rock solid. I run my system 24/7 too.
 
I just refreshed my build to X99 and I had to return 2 boards before I got this ASRock X99 Professional. Granted its oinly been a few weeks, but it's been solid so far.

Tried the Gigabyte G1 Gaming WiFi. It was a dud (had trouble posting for some reason). Then went to the X99 Deluxe and it had the USB descriptor errors which lead to long boot times. At $400, that board shouldn't have those kinds of issues, so it had to go.
 
Curl said:
I just refreshed my build to X99 and I had to return 2 boards before I got this ASRock X99 Professional. Granted its oinly been a few weeks, but it's been solid so far.

Tried the Gigabyte G1 Gaming WiFi. It was a dud (had trouble posting for some reason). Then went to the X99 Deluxe and it had the USB descriptor errors which lead to long boot times. At $400, that board shouldn't have those kinds of issues, so it had to go.
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Those USB descriptor errors are a PITA when booting Linux, hanging for several minutes. Pathetic effort on the manufacturer's part really.
 
josephnunn said:
Those USB descriptor errors are a PITA when booting Linux, hanging for several minutes. Pathetic effort on the manufacturer's part really.
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Totally agree. I was like, at $400, I really don't need these problems...
 
When talking about Stability I look no more than Asus Sabertooth Series and/or WS.. I have built I think 10 of 13 of my machines with sabertooth Motherboards Since X58 onwards, and even my AMD rigs are Sabertooth 990FX.

So in this case X99 Sabertooth or X99-E WS have my votes.
 
It's not that hard to find a stable X99 motherboard. The Rampage V Extreme from our review is actually running in my machine right now. It has been since around the time that article was published. It's been absolutely rock solid for me. My own personal 5960X even overclocks more easily than the 5960X ES I used in the article. Also, UEFI BIOS updates have improved the motherboard as well. I haven't had lockups, crashes or any bullshit with my system since installing that motherboard. I'm quite abusive to my hardware in that it runs 24/7 and goes for weeks or more in between reboots. After I replace it, the same board and CPU combo will be relegated to my Windows 2008 R2 server, where I have no doubt the abuse will continue and it will probably run for years the way each Rampage motherboard I've owned has done.

The Sabertooth X99 was stable for me. Kyle had some issues with it but it ran an earlier UEFI BIOS than it did on my test bench. ASUS made a couple of major changes in the code IIRC. One of those was to increase the default CPU input voltage to 1.90v or so. While overclocking, increasing this value is practically a must on that platform anyway.

The X99A GODLIKE was also fantastic, although it's on the excessively high end of the price spectrum. Aside from that it was an awesome motherboard. It was perfectly stable and easy to work with. The MSI X99 SLI Plus was also a good option which wasn't very expensive. The virtually identical X99-UD4P was yet another good, stable option. The MSI X99S XPower AC was fantastic. I think it says something that Kyle chose to use it instead of using something else.
 
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