Phily
@Jacob, do you happen to have the measurements of each motherboard?
 
EDIT: Am I reading this right that these motherboards will only support the i9-7920X (12 cores 24 threads)?

no, you can get a quad core i5 all the way up to the 12c/24t i9 and i imagine at some point it will support the 18 core also

I am asking WHEN?!?!

Iamrogue
I am asking WHEN?!?!

Some sort of pre-order would definitely calm the nerves even if shipping date is over a month away...

FINALLY! A current Gen mATX board from you guys! Cant wait for the release, will be picking one up for sure!

Bruno747
Give it a year or two, and you will be buying a xxx K D that is unlocked (K) and factory delidded (d) for another 30-40 dollars.

Now that would be something.  I'd be on board with that but scared of crushing my CPU with the WB.

Phily
Please forgive my ignorance, but does anyone have any thoughts on why the memory support for the Dark is 64GB and the FTW-K is 128GB?  Seems to be to be a drastic difference for two gaming motherboards.

I believe they did that for the focus on high OCs.  The more RAM slots and higher amount of RAM can destabilize high OCs.

Phily

GTXJackBauer

Phily
Please forgive my ignorance, but does anyone have any thoughts on why the memory support for the Dark is 64GB and the FTW-K is 128GB?  Seems to be to be a drastic difference for two gaming motherboards.

I believe they did that for the focus on high OCs.  The more RAM slots and higher amount of RAM can destabilize high OCs.

Interesting.  I was not aware that the higher amount of RAM can destabilize high OCs.a  Thanks for the info.  So, based on that info, to get better OC's go with the Dark?


Yes.

Phily

GTXJackBauer

Phily
Please forgive my ignorance, but does anyone have any thoughts on why the memory support for the Dark is 64GB and the FTW-K is 128GB?  Seems to be to be a drastic difference for two gaming motherboards.

I believe they did that for the focus on high OCs.  The more RAM slots and higher amount of RAM can destabilize high OCs.

Interesting.  I was not aware that the higher amount of RAM can destabilize high OCs.a  Thanks for the info.  So, based on that info, to get better OC's go with the Dark?

You could also simply not populate all the Dimm slots on FTW-K.  Use just a single stick in each of the 4 channels.  It won't be quite as optimal as the Dark due to the extra circuitry needed for 8 slots vs 4, but should be better than just filling all 8 slots.  Also don't exceed 64GB (the Dark's limit) if you're going for very high mem speeds.
 
One of the biggest limiting factors for the very high memory clocks will be the memory controller.  Intel's rated speed is 2400 or 2666 on these new chips I believe, so anything over that will depend a lot on the memory controller itself.

bdary

Phily

GTXJackBauer

Phily
Please forgive my ignorance, but does anyone have any thoughts on why the memory support for the Dark is 64GB and the FTW-K is 128GB?  Seems to be to be a drastic difference for two gaming motherboards.

I believe they did that for the focus on high OCs.  The more RAM slots and higher amount of RAM can destabilize high OCs.

Interesting.  I was not aware that the higher amount of RAM can destabilize high OCs.a  Thanks for the info.  So, based on that info, to get better OC's go with the Dark?

You could also simply not populate all the Dimm slots on FTW-K.  Use just a single stick in each of the 4 channels.  It won't be quite as optimal as the Dark due to the extra circuitry needed for 8 slots vs 4, but should be better than just filling all 8 slots.  Also don't exceed 64GB (the Dark's limit) if you're going for very high mem speeds.
 
One of the biggest limiting factors for the very high memory clocks will be the memory controller.  Intel's rated speed is 2400 or 2666 on these new chips I believe, so anything over that will depend a lot on the memory controller itself.

 

quadlatte

Phily

GTXJackBauer

Phily
Please forgive my ignorance, but does anyone have any thoughts on why the memory support for the Dark is 64GB and the FTW-K is 128GB?  Seems to be to be a drastic difference for two gaming motherboards.

I believe they did that for the focus on high OCs.  The more RAM slots and higher amount of RAM can destabilize high OCs.

Interesting.  I was not aware that the higher amount of RAM can destabilize high OCs.a  Thanks for the info.  So, based on that info, to get better OC's go with the Dark?

The extra traces required for 8 dim slots could cause crosstalk and latency as you crank the speeds. Also intel memory controllers have always been fussy with more than one dimm per channel when running higher than stock speed. So for a max oc board one slot per channel makes sense.

Thank you both for the information.

Sajin

quadlatte
So kabylake x get dual channel ram and 16 pcie lanes and skylake x get quad channel and 28 lanes and the big dog 12+ get 44 pcie lanes. Bit confusing intel.

The 10 core 7900x gets 44 pci-e lanes as well.

That's best option from Intel, but price is high.
I think performance of i9-7900X will be 80-90% better than i7-5820K.

The more I am seeing the more I start leaning towards x399 and ThreadRipper.  I'm guessing there's a snowball's chance in hell that EVGA will produce an x399 motherboard.  
 
I like that AMD forced Intel's hand by them announcing HCC CPUs before they were ready.  Who knows how long it will take 12-18 core CPUs to come out from Intel.  

Darthbaggins
I doubt it will be very long for them to hit from Intel, really all they did was push up Intel's production time frame

Right, and slightly step up their game and reduce prices a bit.  I really wonder if Intel would have just released 7900x without a minor price decrease from where the 6950x is, in the absence of AMD.

willdearborn

Darthbaggins
Normally it's anything above the base 6/12 gets over 28 lanes, I know that was the case with my 5930k.

They strip away PCIe lanes more and more each generation. With the Sandy Bridge-e / Ivy Bridge-e generation and before all of the chips even the lowest had the full compliment of PCIe lanes. Then with Haswell-e / Broadwell-e they cut the lanes on the lowest chip only. Now with Skylake-x even the mid range chip gets striped down lanes so that to get the full amount of lanes you have to spend $1000. As we need more lanes they take them away. Intel is out of control and I will seriously be considering Threadripper because of this.

While applications keep adding the need for more PCIe lanes... such as M.2, Intel Optane, etc.  I guess for most folks it isn't an issue, however, it looks like they are trying to create price zones.

Phily
I have a question for those that understand/know the intricacies of these three boards (and the new x299 processors).  For someone who will do basic/minimal overclocking, do you see any major advantage to purchase the DARK or FTW-K over the Micro?  I am really liking the smaller form factors and want to build an mATX rig, however, I am torn, because I am really liking the Dark.  With that said, if there is no major advantage to get it over the Micro (for my situation), then I might just stick with the Micro.   I will be purchasing the i9-7920X.

The Dark is supposedly only going to squeeze another 200-300Mhz out of an overclock.  This of course is only speculation at this point.  You are going to get more ports with the bigger boards.  You will only be able to do 2 way SLI at most.  I really don't see a huge advantage in your situation to going with a bigger board.

Cutting PCI-E lanes is bad, but now is much better situation than with X99, now PCH is stronger than Z170, it's Gen 3 24 PCI-E lanes.
For M.2, PCI-E SSD, Sound Card, USB 3.1,... everything go on PCH. Problem is because no at least 32 PCI-E lanes (16+16) for at least 2 GPU.
No need for 44, but 28 is not enough.
But 44+28 is Intel, AMD is 60+4. With Intel i9-7900X Intel customers are in great position, only he cost 999$,
that's not gaming price, gaming price is 400-500 MAX. 
 
Intel made mistakes with paste and because 8 core CPU have less PCI-E lanes than i7-5930K.
Manufacturers always made some mistakes to reject customers who pay attention what they buy.
If AMD reach success Intel no choice than to drop price of 10 cores CPU and make from him something more than budget variant.
I read here people want Intel with 18 cores, to pay 1999$. There is change that he is only 30% faster than AMD Threadripper worth 849$.
That mean people pay 1000% for difference.
 
I decide, if I find i9-7900X for low price without warranty, as I bought i7-5820K, I would go on X299 no matter on AMDs performance and I would use advantages of Intel platforms and enjoy in them.