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Is it Wise to Buy Extreme Zenith?

erefer
Level 7
Hi there,

I want to build a system with Threadripper and Extreme Zenith but now I'm starting to have second thoughts...
The reason is that I need a rock solid system that works 24/7 with no problems such as random short hangs, freezings or reboots etc.
I don't want to OC the CPU or RAM or anything extreme. I really don't care. Maybe in the future I would use x4 Nvme SSD's (Raid 0) with Asus Hyper Card x16.

But I see there is a ton of problems with this mobo and that's very sad considering the premium price of this board.
Plus (I assume) the support is a joke. I just saw that the last Bios Update was over 4 months ago. That's outrageous for a 500+ euros mobo!

So what do you think? I refer to the owners of this motherboard.
Am I wrong? Should I get the Extreme Zenith?
698 Views
25 REPLIES 25

Saturn7 wrote:
make sure you get 4 sticks of ram not 8.


Do you think if one gets a memory kit of 8 sticks, it would still be unstable?

Saturn7 wrote:

Also when installing windows DO NOT install AI Suite.


What's wrong with it?
Haven't installed it yet, but now you're warning us...

paulmarc wrote:
Do you think if one gets a memory kit of 8 sticks, it would still be unstable?



What's wrong with it?
Haven't installed it yet, but now you're warning us...


ASUS AI Enables HPET and that really screws up windows.
You will get stuttering in games and generally slow the system down by 5 to 10%.

I have this board for about 5 months at this point and it kind of works. I really hate the threadlocker on the M.2 shield, but I just decided to go with both of my SSDs in Dimm.2 slot. The only major advantage for this MB over any other I've seen so far is the included 10G card. If you are not planning to go with 10G network as your daily driver - just pick up any other motherboard.
I had problems with making my memory to work at 2666 but after a while it worked, I forgot to save my settings before the bios upgrade so now I have to do memory and cpu overclock all over again but this is rather my problem. My computer works 24/7 all this time I have not seen any instabilities so far (after you find stable config for your overclock).

Saturn7 wrote:
Also when installing windows DO NOT install AI Suite.
paulmarc wrote:
What's wrong with it?
Haven't installed it yet, but now you're warning us...
Saturn7 wrote:
ASUS AI Enables HPET and that really screws up windows.
You will get stuttering in games and generally slow the system down by 5 to 10%.


IIRC a version of Ai Suite was released that doesn't enable HPET. But as it is something I don't use I can't say it is problematic or not with that version.

@erefer

I'd say I've had a smooth ride with ZE. I've had the board since launch. I used originally F4-3200C14D-16GTZ (2x8GB), I reached ~3333MHz stable at the time with tweaking. Later changed to F4-3200C14Q-32GVK (4x8GB), as UEFI had progressed higher than 3200MHz seemed easier to attain. Max reached was 3466MHz. Perhaps I had got more used to using board, dunno. Both ram kits IIRC are not on QVL, but as they are single sided/rank Samsung B die, which Ryzen/Threadripper favours I've had a good experience with them.

I use WC and this board has been great to allow water loop temp as source for fans/pump. Only CPU_FAN, CPU_OPT and W_PUMP+ header do not allow a differing temperature source. All of the other headers and add on board allows differing source as well as multiple sources. I have experienced the corruption of PWM on this board, but only 3-4 times in many months and hours of usage. Some of these occasions I forced the issue by using multiple apps to access monitoring. As long as I do not do that all is well. My rig can be up continuously for 24hrs+ under heavy load. Another tip is if a situation of multiple apps for monitoring occurs I do a repost, this always mean I will not encounter the PWM corruption.

I use RGB set to static red, I then uninstalled AURA. I believe as it has a profile for RGB based on temperature it will access SuperIO chip. So if you run AURA and say another app that accesses SuperIO chip (ie monitoring tool) you could have PWM issues.

Onboard WiFi has been great. Board even after having had for many months makes me go WOW every time I look at it. I had originally a GTX 1080 and then changed to RX VEGA64, no noted issues. I have 2 SATA SSDs and 2 SATA HDDs connected as well, soon adding a NVMe. I use 4 of the rear IO USBs and have case twin 3.0 and twin 2.0 USB connected to mobo. These get used again without issue.

I throw things like P95, Y-Cruncher, RealBench, HCI Memtest, f@h and Bionic at rig for lengthy runs when change UEFI/settings and been sound. All in all a solid board for me.
Intel Defector :eek: AMD Rebel


R9 5900X - Custom WC - ASUS Crosshair VII Hero WiFi - Ballistix Sport LT 2x16GB 3800MHz C16 - RX 6800 XT - WD SN770 2TB - 2x 870 EVO 4TB


24/7 OC: i5 4690K @ 4.9GHz CPU@1.255v 4.4GHz Cache@1.10v - Archon SB-E X2 - Asus Maximus VII Ranger
Sapphire Fury X (1145/545 ~17.7K GS 3DM FS)

:eek: CPU Validation 5.198GHz@1.314v with 4.4GHz cache + RAM 2400MHz@1T :eek:
Da Music video

Saturn7 wrote:
I've had my system since September. My system is overclocked and stable.

The only problem I had was the BIOS spinning up the fans to 100%. The latest BIOS fixed that problem.

If you want a super stable system just make sure you get 4 sticks of ram not 8.

Also when installing windows DO NOT install AI Suite.


Useful tips/advice here, I'll keep it in mind.
Thank you very much 🙂

This board has been fine for me. I don't know why other people have so many issues but I can say I run my system 24/7 under Linux doing a lot of data crunching, and there have been 0 stability issues. Only thing I had to do was use a more recent version of the Linux kernel since earlier versions don't play too nice with Ryzen. Kernel 4.15 and onward works great

As for RAM I'm using 4x16GB TridentZ CL14, running at 3000MHZ.

Saturn7 wrote:
If you want a super stable system just make sure you get 4 sticks of ram not 8.

I don't have a ton of experience but from my own builds and from reading here and elsewhere, there seems in general to be a stability tradeoff between amount of RAM and speed of RAM. Populating all 8 RAM slots with QVL-specified RAM kits and sticking to JEDEC non-OC RAM speeds, a system should be stable. It may be stable with some RAM overclocks too but no guarantees. Don't combine RAM kits to fill all 8 slots, buy an 8-stick kit that has been tested for the purpose.

R5Eandme wrote:
I don't have a ton of experience but from my own builds and from reading here and elsewhere, there seems in general to be a stability tradeoff between amount of RAM and speed of RAM. Populating all 8 RAM slots with QVL-specified RAM kits and sticking to JEDEC non-OC RAM speeds, a system should be stable. It may be stable with some RAM overclocks too but no guarantees. Don't combine RAM kits to fill all 8 slots, buy an 8-stick kit that has been tested for the purpose.


Interesting... I have 8x8gb in mine, which were purchased at different times, as two sets of 4 dimms, I just followed the manual and inserted the dimms per serial number from the innermost slots to the outermost slots, and I havent seen any issue at all. Two 32gb (4 dimms) sets of G.Skill RGB 3000 cas 15.
..just curious..

irq506 wrote:
Interesting... I have 8x8gb in mine, which were purchased at different times, as two sets of 4 dimms, I just followed the manual and inserted the dimms per serial number from the innermost slots to the outermost slots, and I havent seen any issue at all. Two 32gb (4 dimms) sets of G.Skill RGB 3000 cas 15.


That's great! I just cited that as a general rule. Depending on memory speed and quantity, combining kits can work, it is just discouraged generally to avoid problems. Congratulations on a nice build!

Arne_Saknussemm
Level 40
These are the RAM specs guaranteed by AMD for various combinations of quantity/frequency

As you can see 8 sticks single kit is only guaranteed to 1866MHz for 16GB modules...i.e. if you try and max quantity..

4 sticks of 8GB gets highest frequency...

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