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ASUS M5A99FX Pro R2.0 Motherboard Reviewed


Bosco

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I bought this motherboard for myself last week Tuesday. I'm quite happy with the purchase. Just sad that a mid-range board is $220 ...

 

Waco, will you be messing around with the board some more?

 

I've got a Phenom II 565 X2, running at 4.0Ghz, 1.5v. Prime95 runs 100%. I've got a CM Hyper Evo 212. Coolermaster Blade Fans all around. Any higher than 4.0Ghz and Prime95 does not run for longer than 2 minutes, even with the CPU at 1.525v

 

I'm thinking of pairing the board with a FX-6350. I'm sure I can also get a decent overclock with this CPU.

 

I love the AI+ charger feature. I've got my Samsung Note 8 charging off it, and it pretty much charges as fast as the OEM power adapter.

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I have this board for my home rig, overall not bad. I have used this board on a dozen systems for customers no issues.

 

I have done 131 systems this year for AMD though work using the M5A97 R2.0 which is a step down from the board Waco reviewed, have not had one single issue with that board either. I love Asus :)

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Good review Waco, for the price this seems like a decent mb. Didn't notice what temps you were getting on the cpu when oc'ed ?

Just approaching throttling with Prime95 for extended periods (so 62 C if I recall correctly). I was paying attention to the CPU speeds more than the CPU temps so I don't recall the exact number reported by the board.

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Good review Waco, for the price this seems like a decent mb. Didn't notice what temps you were getting on the cpu when oc'ed ?

Just approaching throttling with Prime95 for extended periods (so 62 C if I recall correctly). I was paying attention to the CPU speeds more than the CPU temps so I don't recall the exact number reported by the board.

 

 

Have you perhaps made any attempt on disabling throttling?

 

I've changed all CPU power related options, in the Digi+ area, to maximum. Temps are 46C at highest, 1.5vCPU. Using the Asus Probe II software for temperature monitoring.

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Yup. All throttling related options were disabled. The CPU just can't stay cool enough to not throttle in Prime95 for extended periods.

 

Big difference between running an X2 and an 8350. :cheers:

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I was actually using the H100i (which is slightly better) at full blast for the overclocking tests. The 8350 just pumps out too much heat to stay 100% stable in terms of clocks for long runs.

 

With full watercooling you could keep it cooler and more stable at high clocks but they really pump out a massive amount of heat when you crank up the clocks and voltage.

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Arg... using an H100i and you are still getting those crazy temps. 62C is very high, even on the 8350.

 

What is your ambient temperature? Are you using the Asus monitoring software? Do you think the H100i is not a sufficient water cooler?

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Ambient was around 22 C. I used both CoreTemp and the ASUS software suite to monitor temps. Coretemp reported around 15-20 C lower than the ASUS suite did for the CPU temp but this isn't unheard of since the core sensors are so off (I was getting a 5 C idle temp in a 22 C room at 4.7 GHz...right! :lol:).

 

The 8350 just uses a TON of power when full loaded and that's doubly true when overclocked and overvolted. The H100i is fine for moderate overclocks but if you want to dissipate well over 200 (see FX-9590) watts without getting hot you're going to need some very serious cooling.

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