[gtz]

Now here me out, when this launched I laughed and decided to hold on to my 6950X and X99 Godlike. Too expensive and felt like a side grade. So I ended going Threadripper, the 2920X and Asus Prime Deluxe suited me well. Then with the 3900X and 3950X on AM4 it was hard to recommend either x299 or x399 (trx4 priced itself out).

But all that was 3-4 years ago, when X299 was stupid expensive and just a year ago CPU the 3900X went as low as 369 on some retailers. Supply sucks at the moment and getting your hands on a shiny 5900X/5950X are slim to none and new 3900X/3950X are running close to retail.

I bring this up because a client approached me wanting a multi threaded beast capable of shortening his rendering and audio production time. He was on a all time high and really wanted a 5900X. He was coming from a X99/5820K system I built a long time ago (that was actually my original X99 setup I sold back then). So I recommended a used 3900X due to the shortage of the 5900X, he then even offered to pay extra for the 5900x (I even started a wanted thread here). Long story short somebody offered a great deal on a 10920X and X299 motherboard locally. I said that deal is a lot better than getting ripped off on a 5900X and properly overclocked well perform well in gaming and production. I am impressed with his 10920X, overclocks easily to 4.9 on a 360mm AIO. His system roars, that is also with a crappy kit of ram. A 4X8GB kit of 2666 (which was fine for the 5820K since the mem controller on that sucked), I managed to run 2933. This is in my opinion at those speeds better than the 3900X. Positioning the 10920X in between the 3900X and 5900X in performance.

So then I started looking on ebay and to my surprise the 7000 series skylake X is dirt cheap and how the market is currently don't know why it is not recommended more often. Just for kicks and giggles decided to buy to a X299 setup on ebay today and compare it to my 3950X test bench. Before anybody says x299 is a dead platform so is AM4 at this point. I got a 7940X 14 core, Asus Strix X299, and a Team group DDR4 3600 (crappy timings) 4X8GB for a grand total of 625 after taxes and shipping. I will be using this as my daily driver.

Obviously if you don't need the cores I will always recommend the 10600KF (currently 230 at BandH) or the 3600. 5600X or 5800X if you need top tier performance.

But I was surprised to see how cheap skylake X has gotten. I can't wait to see how far I can push the 7940X. I know this gen used crappy paste but I am going to see how far I can push it like it is if not I have a vice grips ready do delid this puppy.

 

[o1dschoo1]

Now here me out, when this launched I laughed and decided to hold on to my 6950X and X99 Godlike. Too expensive and felt like a side grade. So I ended going Threadripper, the 2920X and Asus Prime Deluxe suited me well. Then with the 3900X and 3950X on AM4 it was hard to recommend either x299 or x399 (trx4 priced itself out).

But all that was 3-4 years ago, when CPU ran retail or 100 minus retail (3900X went as low as 369 on some retailers). Supply sucks at the moment and getting your hands on a shiny 5900X/5950X are slim to none.

I bring this up because a client approached me wanting a multi threaded beast capable of shortening his rendering and audio production time. He was on a all time high and really wanted a 5900X. He was coming from a X99/5820K system I built a long time ago (that was actually my original X99 setup I sold back then). So I recommended a used 3900X due to the shortage of the 5900X, he then even offered to pay extra for the 5900x (I even started a wanted thread here). Long story short somebody offered a great deal on a 10920X and X299 motherboard locally. I said that deal is a lot better than getting ripped off on a 5900X and properly overclocked well perform well in gaming and production. I am impressed with his 10920X, overclocks easily to 4.9 on a 360mm AIO. His system roars, that is also with a crappy kit of ram. A 4X8GB kit of 2666 (which was fine for the 5820K since the mem controller on that sucked), I managed to run 2933. This is in my opinion at those speeds better than the 3900X. Positioning the 10920X in between the 3900X and 5900X in performance.

So then I started looking on ebay and to my surprise the 7000 series skylake X is dirt cheap and how the market is currently don't know why it is not recommended more often. Just for kicks and giggles decided to buy to a X299 setup on ebay todayq and compare it to my 3950X test bench. Before anybody says x299 is a dead platform so is AM4 at this point. I got a 7940X 14 core, Asus Strix X299, and a Team group DDR4 3600 (crappy timings) 4X8GB for a grand total of 625 after taxes and shipping.

Obviously if you don't need the cores I will always recommend the 10600KF (currently 230 at BandH) or the 3600. 5600X or 5800X if you need top tier performance.

But I was surprised to see how cheap skylake X has gotten. I can't want to see how far I can push the 7940X. I know this gen used crappy paste but I am going to see how far I can push it like it is if not I have a vice grips ready do delid this puppy.

K so I'll explain why. 10900k beats out the 10900x in gaming by 10 fps stock for stock with turbo enabled while overclocking higher while ryzen 5000 smokes the x299 CPUs core for core in production while keeping up in gaming.
That being said x299 is dirt cheap if you look around on forums. I paid 450 for my x299 deluxe and a 7900x and 350 for my rampage apex and a 7800x for my media pc. I'm gonna use the apex in my main and swap the deluxe to my media pc.
That being said I enjoy memory overclocking so quad channel memory 10 cores and a slight hit in fps to have a platform I'd enjoy alot more is worth to me.
Also x299 has a pcie lanes advantage so if you must have intel and want to run multiple nvme drives and multiple gpus for workstation stuff x299 is your only go.

 

[o1dschoo1]

Now here me out, when this launched I laughed and decided to hold on to my 6950X and X99 Godlike. Too expensive and felt like a side grade. So I ended going Threadripper, the 2920X and Asus Prime Deluxe suited me well. Then with the 3900X and 3950X on AM4 it was hard to recommend either x299 or x399 (trx4 priced itself out).

But all that was 3-4 years ago, when X299 was stupid expensive and just a year ago CPU the 3900X went as low as 369 on some retailers. Supply sucks at the moment and getting your hands on a shiny 5900X/5950X are slim to none and new 3900X/3950X are running close to retail.

I bring this up because a client approached me wanting a multi threaded beast capable of shortening his rendering and audio production time. He was on a all time high and really wanted a 5900X. He was coming from a X99/5820K system I built a long time ago (that was actually my original X99 setup I sold back then). So I recommended a used 3900X due to the shortage of the 5900X, he then even offered to pay extra for the 5900x (I even started a wanted thread here). Long story short somebody offered a great deal on a 10920X and X299 motherboard locally. I said that deal is a lot better than getting ripped off on a 5900X and properly overclocked well perform well in gaming and production. I am impressed with his 10920X, overclocks easily to 4.9 on a 360mm AIO. His system roars, that is also with a crappy kit of ram. A 4X8GB kit of 2666 (which was fine for the 5820K since the mem controller on that sucked), I managed to run 2933. This is in my opinion at those speeds better than the 3900X. Positioning the 10920X in between the 3900X and 5900X in performance.

So then I started looking on ebay and to my surprise the 7000 series skylake X is dirt cheap and how the market is currently don't know why it is not recommended more often. Just for kicks and giggles decided to buy to a X299 setup on ebay today and compare it to my 3950X test bench. Before anybody says x299 is a dead platform so is AM4 at this point. I got a 7940X 14 core, Asus Strix X299, and a Team group DDR4 3600 (crappy timings) 4X8GB for a grand total of 625 after taxes and shipping.

Obviously if you don't need the cores I will always recommend the 10600KF (currently 230 at BandH) or the 3600. 5600X or 5800X if you need top tier performance.

But I was surprised to see how cheap skylake X has gotten. I can't wait to see how far I can push the 7940X. I know this gen used crappy paste but I am going to see how far I can push it like it is if not I have a vice grips ready do delid this puppy.

Do not and I repeat do not vice grips the ihs to remove it. The substrate will crack. Buy the delid tool and be careful.. there's smds all around the core but one side so you gotta get it right.
Delided and custom loop that 7940x will probably do 4.7-4.8

 

[gtz]

Do not and I repeat do not vice grips the ihs to remove it. The substrate will crack. Buy the delid tool and be careful.. there's smds all around the core but one side so you gotta get it right.
Delided and custom loop that 7940x will probably do 4.7-4.8

Will keep this in mind, I delidded the 4770K and 7700k with vice grips in the past. It will be on a custom loop, just finished ordering the block.

 

[o1dschoo1]

Will keep this in mind, I delidded the 4770K and 7700k with vice grips in the past. It will be on a custom loop, just finished ordering the block.

The pcb on skylake x is alot thinner than ivy and haswell. Trust me nicked the substrate on my 7900x trying exactly what you said and mine was delided in the past. I bout crapped myself but it still works

 

[gtz]

K so I'll explain why. 10900k beats out the 10900x in gaming by 10 fps stock for stock with turbo enabled while overclocking higher while ryzen 5000 smokes the x299 CPUs core for core in production while keeping up in gaming.
That being said x299 is dirt cheap if you look around on forums. I paid 450 for my x299 deluxe and a 7900x and 350 for my rampage apex and a 7800x for my media pc. I'm gonna use the apex in my main and swap the deluxe to my media pc.
That being said I enjoy memory overclocking so quad channel memory 10 cores and a slight hit in fps to have a platform I'd enjoy alot more is worth to me.
Also x299 has a pcie lanes advantage so if you must have intel and want to run multiple nvme drives and multiple gpus for workstation stuff x299 is your only go.

Was not really comparing retail pricing or a 10900X. As I mentioned in the post of pure gaming is involved the best deal right now is the 10600KF that BandH is running at 230. If you want extra cores then the 10850K is good at around 400 (I managed to snag one for black Friday for 370).

But the post was for gaming and production, and for my clients needs his 10920X at 4.9 is a clear winner. Which cost him 400, and is in between a 3900X and 5900X.

But I agree I never realized how cheap x299 dropped up until this week. Never really gave it a thought since I was soured all those years back. But a 7940X for 340 is crazy, if you do production and gaming it is a the chip to get.

 

[gtz]

The pcb on skylake x is alot thinner than ivy and haswell. Trust me nicked the substrate on my 7900x trying exactly what you said and mine was delided in the past. I bout crapped myself but it still works

Reminds back in 2015 I managed to get my hands on the elusive 2696V3 (Haswell-E 18 core with the errata bug and BCLK overclock could hit 4.0 on the cores) my daughter (1 year old at the time) grabs it from my desk and chunks it hard on my ceramic tile floors. Huge nick in the corner but luckily still worked.

 

[o1dschoo1]

Was not really comparing retail pricing or a 10900X. As I mentioned in the post of pure gaming is involved the best deal right now is the 10600KF that BandH is running at 230. If you want extra cores then the 10850K is good at around 400 (I managed to snag one for black Friday for 370).

But the post was for gaming and production, and for my clients needs his 10920X at 4.9 is a clear winner. Which cost him 400, and is in between a 3900X and 5900X.

But I agree I never realized how cheap x299 dropped up until this week. Never really gave it a thought since I was soured all those years back. But a 7940X for 340 is crazy, if you do production and gaming it is a the chip to get.

Easily if you don't mind used parts. Alot of people for production won't do that though . It's a severely underated platform in my opinion and honestly my 7900x at 4.7 is more than fast enough for gaming.

 

[amder]

Its an okay platform. Motherboards seem very overpriced for me in Canada, I did find a EVGA X299 Micro for $180 new which was fair for what it is. I did delid my 7740x and apply liquid metal, its running at 5GHz. You for sure want a delid tool with these chips as the smd/transistors are super close to the edge of the IHS. I believe the i5 7640x and i7 7740x are the exception to that and could be "carefully" done with a good razor blade, but for how much it costs for a delid kit just buy one.

 

[Section31]

Great post. I regret moving to ryzen after spending so much on x299. In the end all i needed was an Heatkiller Mo-Ra3 420 setup i did this year, upgrade to an optimus sig v2 and redo the custom loop like i am doing now.

I only moved to ryzen because of the heat generated by intel x299.

 

[o1dschoo1]

Great post. I regret moving to ryzen after spending so much on x299. In the end all i needed was an Heatkiller Mo-Ra3 420 setup i did this year, upgrade to an optimus sig v2 and redo the custom loop like i am doing now.

I only moved to ryzen because of the heat generated by intel x299.

If you can keep it cool x299 is where it's at.

 

[Section31]

If you can keep it cool x299 is where it's at.

Yup. I thought by going away to ryzen, i could reduce the heat and save on cooling. Guess what I still ended up buying more cooling but this time was right investment. Not sideway projects though I learned a lot from it and have the build done in way I will no longer need much changes except hardware in 2023.

 

[D-EJ915]

Issue with X299 was (and still is) that it's not really much faster than X99 and the original motherboards were very RGB-ified and lacking in VRM and cooling so they sucked. Those things combined with high price, poor quality TIM under IHS and the 8700k coming out right after really killed the popularity of X299 among enthusiasts.

 

[Section31]

Issue with X299 was (and still is) that it's not really much faster than X99 and the original motherboards were very RGB-ified and lacking in VRM and cooling so they sucked. Those things combined with high price, poor quality TIM under IHS and the 8700k coming out right after really killed the popularity of X299 among enthusiasts.

They fixed that in the 2nd release sadly. I had one of the best deal x299 first gen boards too, the X299 Apex and even bought an heatkiller VRM block for it.

 

[gtz]

Issue with X299 was (and still is) that it's not really much faster than X99 and the original motherboards were very RGB-ified and lacking in VRM and cooling so they sucked. Those things combined with high price, poor quality TIM under IHS and the 8700k coming out right after really killed the popularity of X299 among enthusiasts.

Initially yes, when it launched it was a laughing stock. Originally it's top tier CPU was the 7900X. That is why I stuck with the 6950X for an extra year and a half. Like mentioned earlier they offered very little when released and once the 7980xe released it was super expensive. Pure gaming I will always recommend the 10600KF (super cheap at the moment), like you mentioned the 8700K. But for production it this point in time Skylake X makes sense, especially at it's price point. My go to for client builds that need production has been the 3900X and 3950X. Especially just a few months ago before the 5000 series release the 3900X went new stupid cheap.

But at this point in time both the 3950X/3900X go for retail and the 5900X/5950X are non existent. I purchased the 7940X for 340, not only is this CPU slightly better in gaming than the 3900X, it will also match the 3900X or edge it in production.

Like others mentioned yes these CPUs are hot, drawing 200w + but that never bothered me. This build will be water cooled.

Now yes the motherboard selection was not good. Whoever thought it would be ok to split the VRM in half and stick it in the back is beyond me, especially an underpowered one. Motherboard manufactures assumed the 7800X and 7820X were going to be popular but like you said the 8700K was the clear choice.

But like o1dschoo1 mentioned people are scared of used even if they trust me. Like the 10920X build, that dude did not want a 3900X even. The 10920x build took some convincing.

 

[Jedi Mind Trick]

Any boards to look for/look out for specifically? Looking for something to play around with and didn't realize I could get a 7940X for so cheap.

 

[o1dschoo1]

Any boards to look for/look out for specifically? Looking for something to play around with and didn't realize I could get a 7940X for so cheap.

Ok board wise x299 rampage vi apex, x299 dark or x299 deluxe should be your go to. You can get them used on eBay for around 200-250. Beyond that post a wanted thread here. I picked up my 7900x and a x299 deluxe for 450 shipped.

Honestly it's a fun platform to tinker with and the gaming performance is there if and if you overclock the mesh and cores. Memory controllers top out at 4k quad channel usually..

 

[8051]

It's strange that quad channel DDR4 never seemed to make a diff. in gaming performance -- even in open world titles.

 

[o1dschoo1]

It's strange that quad channel DDR4 never seemed to make a diff. in gaming performance -- even in open world titles.

I'll tell you why lol cause dual channel ddr4 can top what quad channel ddr3 can do. Simply not memory limited anymore. That got me thinking... Wonder what my bdie kit can do if I pull two sticks.

 

[o1dschoo1]

Now here me out, when this launched I laughed and decided to hold on to my 6950X and X99 Godlike. Too expensive and felt like a side grade. So I ended going Threadripper, the 2920X and Asus Prime Deluxe suited me well. Then with the 3900X and 3950X on AM4 it was hard to recommend either x299 or x399 (trx4 priced itself out).

But all that was 3-4 years ago, when X299 was stupid expensive and just a year ago CPU the 3900X went as low as 369 on some retailers. Supply sucks at the moment and getting your hands on a shiny 5900X/5950X are slim to none and new 3900X/3950X are running close to retail.

I bring this up because a client approached me wanting a multi threaded beast capable of shortening his rendering and audio production time. He was on a all time high and really wanted a 5900X. He was coming from a X99/5820K system I built a long time ago (that was actually my original X99 setup I sold back then). So I recommended a used 3900X due to the shortage of the 5900X, he then even offered to pay extra for the 5900x (I even started a wanted thread here). Long story short somebody offered a great deal on a 10920X and X299 motherboard locally. I said that deal is a lot better than getting ripped off on a 5900X and properly overclocked well perform well in gaming and production. I am impressed with his 10920X, overclocks easily to 4.9 on a 360mm AIO. His system roars, that is also with a crappy kit of ram. A 4X8GB kit of 2666 (which was fine for the 5820K since the mem controller on that sucked), I managed to run 2933. This is in my opinion at those speeds better than the 3900X. Positioning the 10920X in between the 3900X and 5900X in performance.

So then I started looking on ebay and to my surprise the 7000 series skylake X is dirt cheap and how the market is currently don't know why it is not recommended more often. Just for kicks and giggles decided to buy to a X299 setup on ebay today and compare it to my 3950X test bench. Before anybody says x299 is a dead platform so is AM4 at this point. I got a 7940X 14 core, Asus Strix X299, and a Team group DDR4 3600 (crappy timings) 4X8GB for a grand total of 625 after taxes and shipping. I will be using this as my daily driver.

Obviously if you don't need the cores I will always recommend the 10600KF (currently 230 at BandH) or the 3600. 5600X or 5800X if you need top tier performance.

But I was surprised to see how cheap skylake X has gotten. I can't wait to see how far I can push the 7940X. I know this gen used crappy paste but I am going to see how far I can push it like it is if not I have a vice grips ready do delid this puppy.

Delid direct die cool it with liquid metal.