G.Skill announces gold-plated "Royal" RAM with a crystalline light bar for RGB
71 replies, posted
For real, if you managed to kill any of the SMD LEDs used on these boards, I would like to know your secrets. Short of a bad chip these fuckers are going to keep on trucking. Keyboard LEDs I can understand being concerned about as these are normally through-hole LEDs to fit into the switches, and I've managed to fuck the connections on my W key up killing the light on that. But on components? You're not providing any kind of mechanical stresses to break them, and the currents are mad low.
RGB adds almost no cost to a part, and you can turn the lights off.
I don't see why people hate RGB so much. Just turn it off.
Sometimes there is no option.
I use black nail polish for leds that cannot be turned off.
Maybe I should clarify- I'm not saying LEDs will innately break, I'm just saying that they can break and thats reason to replace an otherwise functioning part.
Through experience with keyboards though.
why replace it if you don't care about the LEDs, a broken LED doesn't break the rest of the product
This just isn't true. Sure, in some cases the difference is maybe 5-10 dollars but it's there. It really depends on what component the RGB is on. I've already posted an example where RGB adds ~60 dollars to the price of a keyboard that is otherwise identical to it's non RGB brother.
I use electrical tape, or failing that a couple pieces of paper I've colored black with a sharpie and some tape. Though I only really do that for those obnoxious blue LED's that burn your eyes out.
That's not from the part itself, but rather marketing them at a higher price as a more "luxurious" or w/e option.
Honestly, I like ASUS stuff, but the whole ROG branding is so utterly abhorrent to me that I refuse to buy anything in their ROG line on principle. Way to bring back that embarrassing early-to-mid-2000s "EXCELLENCE ELITE PROUD GAMER" trash in the most obnoxious way possible, and now it's plastered friggin' everywhere. It's a shame, because I hear ROG stuff are genuinely good components (and again, I don't mind RGB or even a little flair), but I absolutely would not want to be caught dead with something like that. And no, plastering some 20-year-old nobody of a "champion" decked out in branded clothes all over your marketing material with garbage like "THE CHOICE OF GODS" doesn't make it any more legit or professional to me.
They're current-limited by design, you need current limiting to make LEDs work in the first place. So it doesn't matter.
Not to mention, it's exceedingly rare for an LED to fail short instead of open.
There's a difference between adding cost the component and the company that makes said component using it as a marketing gimmick to bump the MSRP. LEDs add fractions of a cent to the BOM for any given part, but the new PCB designs and printing along with the new microcontrollers to support that LED would likely add a cent or so to said BOM. The massive price bumps the consumers are lumped with are just entirely because marketing guys know people will pay for that.
A shorted LED shouldn't cause any damage to the component, as they are generally placed on parallel traces to the actual functional components, and likely have their own super low current power rails if the component is sensitive enough to require that.
Heatsinks that barely function and can cool the VRM. We need to go back to proper heatsinks with fins, not just a block of 'cool' looking metal which can't dissipate heat properly.
do you have any actual facts and statistics to back that statement up?
Have a look at the Intel X299 motherboards, HEDT CPUs were being massively throttled, not because they were hitting their thermal limits but because the VRM was hitting its thermal limit. EVGA then brought out a motherboard with proper finstacks on the VRM and the issue was solved.
I'm not going to make some BS up.
can you cite some sources
dude all I'm asking is for you to cite some numbers here, I don't know you so how am I supposed to trust what you're saying without any proof.
Those things can be effective heatsinks but they aren't in this case. If you look at the image, the heatsinks aren't even directly contacting the VRM. There might be a thermal pad between but it's not contacting the full surface.
What really IS a knick-knack are those M.2 SSD heatsinks. Those things legitimately overheat SSDs and should never, ever be used.
You could have just searched X299 VRM and it's pretty obvious that fins give a massive surface area advantage over a solid chuck of metal.
Stuff from Der8auer and Steve Burke:
https://youtu.be/f7BqAjC4ZCc
ASUS Rampage VI Extreme VRM Thermals with Intel i9
https://www.gamersnexus.net/hwreviews/3162-evga-x299-dark-motherboard-vrm-thermal-review (actual fin cooling results)
Sorry if I come across passive aggressive, I just legit though tit was basic understanding, didn't expect that comeback.
god damn do they make good motherboard though.
I never thought I'd have to see people argue that more surface area on a heat-sink = more area for heat exchange = more cooling capability, but here we are.
people are stupid
Where did I make that argument???
all I asked was to see the data supporting his argument and he provided it.
today i learned that asking for sources for an argument is the same as arguing the opposite :thinking:
You couldn't put two and two together that high performance power electronics perform significantly better when they have more surface area to dissipate heat into the air than a solid block of metal which, under the best conditions, is essentially just hoarding all of that heat with minimal dissipation, and acting surprised that such an arrangement could possibly cause any problems.
It's basic math, my dude.
You literally said this in response to:
i dont know much about the physics behind it so I asked him to back up what he was saying.
that's not the same as arguing the other side, and you know it
Which parts do you two not know about?
For heat sink area, read HP's report about it, from '86.
For performance benefits to keeping DRAM cool, check out the DRAM refresh tutorial from the University of Utah. At temperatures higher than 85C, retention time is halved, meaning memory must be refreshed more often.
Physics of cooling requires that in order to dissipate more heat, you'll need more surface area to dissipate the heat into the surrounding air (Thermal Conductance has meters^2 as a factor in any thermal equation). Take for example this MSI ROG mobo:
https://dlcdnimgs.asus.com/websites/global/products/5QleWlDkArjGYpzg/img/performance/rog_performance_3_main_mobile.png
See how the heatsink for the VRM (voltage regulators for the CPU, right above the CPU socket) is just a metallic block with few fins maybe a couple of slots? That has poor heat dissipation ability due to the lack of surface area. (Heck even Linus Tech Tips did a video on this when they tried to DIY a heatsink). Now the below mobo, this is proper heatsinking for mobos. Note all the fins on the heatsink, that's alot of surface area. And material choice comes into play yes, but copper vs aluminum doesn't really matter if you don't have the surface area to back it:
https://hothardware.com/articleimages/Item1982/Asus-Rampage.jpg
Regarding the comment that those older motherboards look cheap and have mish mashed colours - the colouring is very intentional. Standard PCI-e (2x - 8x) were generally white, 1x was black, while blue slots were your dedicated 16x slots as those particular high end boards (X38 for the time frame given) had dual 16x PCI-e lanes since SLI / Crossfire were huge at the time. The switch to polymer capcitors was a BIG deal back then too, and using very obviously identifiable (red / blue capped) capacitors was a way to show that you had seriously high quality components on your board. RAM slots were two different colours to make it clear how your two channels were configured, and typically I/O or storage expansion on the board was coloured blue or something unique to the board designer to make them stand out. All of these things were remarkably well standardised for a few years there by many board builders, and you could glean so much from the capabilities or outfitting of any given board pretty much at a moments glance.
Anyway, point I'm making is that sure, by TODAY'S super clean modern standards those old boards could be misconstrued as looking gaudy, but for the most part they were extremely well designed and everything had it's purpose, was clearly defined and worked to the best of its ability. I only just put my Gigabyte X38-DQ6 and Q6600 to rest as of last year, and I dearly miss that board. Everything just WORKED, the cooling capabilities of the board were fantastic... I just loved it.
But I do agree, all of this fancy lighting nonsense can just be turned off on newer boards anyway, so that doesn't really bother me. But I wish the heatsinks and such would be a little more sensibly developed and not all shrouded and covered and reduced in size. You can fit a remarkable amount of heatsink on a board and not foul anything up even for aftermarket parts, and since basically everyone dabbles in overclocking, it's always good to have your cooling totally sorted.
I'm a bit neutral on all of this, but I just wanted to give my own opinion on those old boards
Oh yeah I understand the colouring and all that actually followed a standard to give you at a glance hints as to the board capabilities (it'd be nice to be able to identify x16 PCI-e quicker on newer boards, along with memory channels tbh). I was just never a big fan of how bright and garish the colouring was My first custom build was done when higher end boards still did all this stuff, I still have that board sitting around with the CPU installed actually, and it just looks messy to me.
It wouldn't be too hard to come up with proper colour schemes to identify things with modern styling, but you would lose that manufacturer independent side to it all.
The modern VRM and north bridge heatsink solutions are pretty shocking to be honest. If they really wanted to keep it looking stylish, it wouldn't be too hard to create a proper finned heatsink and plate it or anodise it or whatever to make it not so obviously copper coloured.
The bright coloring was most likely chosen for the same reason a lot of flags use clashing colors or bright complementary ones.
Visibility. While its easy for us, as PC builders, to see what a modern motherboard looks like and glean from it. A new person is less likely to get that; ergo having bright colors that from a distance or even, a very shitty 2000-ish jpeg, that are easily identifiable are easier to read.
might be a hot take, but compared to the ones below the 2007 variant looks like some retro garbage to me IMO.
Although I will defo agree that the RGB fad and the fact that it makes a lot more expensive is pretty shit
There's no point in needlessly pressuring people for sources on things you can easily Google though.
It's common knowledge, so it just means he has to google it for you, and what's the point in having him do that?
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