The ASUS TUF X299 Mark I Motherboard Review: TUF Refined
by Joe Shields on December 6, 2017 9:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Asus
- TUF
- X299
- Skylake-X
- Kaby Lake-X
Gaming Performance 2017: AoTS Escalation
Ashes of the Singularity is a Real Time Strategy game developed by Oxide Games and Stardock Entertainment. The original AoTS was released back in March of 2016 while the standalone expansion pack, Escalation, was released in November of 2016 adding more structures, maps, and units. We use this specific benchmark as it relies on both a good GPU as well as on the CPU in order to get the most frames per second. This balance is able to better display any system differences in gaming as opposed to a more GPU heavy title where the CPU and system don't matter quite as much. We use the default "Crazy" in-game settings using the DX11 rendering path in both 1080p and 4K UHD resolutions. The benchmark is run four times and the results averaged then plugged into the graph.
Our AOTSe testing continues to be a tight-knit data set with a half frame per second (FPS) separating things in 4K UHD and almost two FPS in the more CPU heavy 1080p results.
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DanNeely - Wednesday, December 6, 2017 - link
Why are you only reporting on non-UEFI post times?takeshi7 - Wednesday, December 6, 2017 - link
TUF motherboards should NOT have any electrolytic caps. The whole reason I bought my TUF motherboard was for the all solid-state caps. Asus please stop with this crap. I don't care about "Nichicon gold" audio capacitors. If I did I would buy one of your other boards like ROG. It doesn't make a big enough difference to justify the shorter lifespan, and anyone who cares about audio will have an external amp/DAC anyways.tphb - Wednesday, December 6, 2017 - link
It looks like a very nice board, but I still don't understand the need for "durable". You're going to put it in a case, right? One that has mounting screws to keep the board straight and one that keeps rocks from randomly flying up to hit the PCI-E mount surround. So why do you need all the extra plastic? It creates heat challenges (that require a fan) for no real benefit.BreakArms - Wednesday, December 6, 2017 - link
The original TUF Sabertooth back with the X58 chipset had a 5 year warranty and their marketing targeted "Military grade" lingo. I built a system for someone because of the long warranty. Today I'm not sure, it's likely that either they've been skimping on the quality and had to reduce their warranty to 3 years to keep from losing too much money or they had to reduce the warranty to 3 years anyway because their previous TUF boards were costing them too much to support.Anyway good job reviewing a board AT, I wish you'd return to regular reviews like this.
Ev3rM0r3 - Wednesday, December 6, 2017 - link
Here in the real world, all that armor on a motherboard is there ONLY for aesthetic reasons. Unless you are mounting it to an open air source but no one is going to do that. It clutters the board and probably adds in a 1/4 of the cost of the entire motherboard. I'd say just include a disk with 3d printable shielding for looks IF I wanted to have it, and then just not put anything on the board. Starting too look like cars with plastic engine covers; those are useless too.Hurr Durr - Wednesday, December 6, 2017 - link
Can these faux-shield things be removed? I doubt having them provides any practical benefit.DanNeely - Wednesday, December 6, 2017 - link
The easiest way is probably an equivalently specced board without them. They're the TUF line's main marketing gimmic.Joe Shields - Friday, December 8, 2017 - link
Yes. But if you do not want them, you can get the less expensive variant without it or a different board.JackNSally - Thursday, December 7, 2017 - link
Honest question. Can you get a higher performance cooler to really push the CPU and therefore the boards VRM's for overclocking features?Joe Shields - Friday, December 8, 2017 - link
The cooler isn't really the issue. We can put this under a custom loop, but the temperature improvement would only yield perhaps another 100 MHz or so. Delidding and going bigger would be a better way to do this.