Haswell - Early Look

[HU16E]

More information should be showing up from now until the official release due sometime this June. Sad to see no PCI slot on the sample board and no DVI port. Seems rather dumb to continue with PS/2 combo port and skip a PCI slot. Should have tweakable bclk so let's hope it works better than it does on X79. Rumor of this being the last replaceable CPU platform may not have been accurate. Looks like another successor to Haswell-Broadwell, Skylake, is already in the works. If Haswell was going to be the last mainstream platform, I had considered maybe one last hoorah with it for testing and running thru it's paces. Not so sure now. X99 is out for me. Cost will be too much for what litttle it would offer over what I already have on X79. Another sad rumor is Intel may skip Ivy-E! So much for ever getting reliable PCI-E 3.0 out of it. So far, I can get AMD graphics to work PCI-E 3.0, but not nVidia GTX's.

Anyway, back to Haswell. Chipset is called Z87. Intel's Haswell CPU will be the 'Tic', with the later release of Broadwell, being the 'Toc'. Would also be nice if MSI adds the PLX PEX 8747 chip, which adds 16 PCIe lanes to the high end offerings. I'm sick and tired of running out of PCI-E lanes on the boards.

Has to be a better location for that battery than sitting right under a second double slot width graphics card!  

Will the final releases have true 'offset' feature? They better have, or the MSI user community is going to be seriously upset. Let's also hope that a too hasty release doesn't take place before the platform is truly ready for us end users. Had a belly full of seeing UEFI/BIOS problems on other platforms.

 

[HU16E]

Just to clarify, some of the comments were only meant as 'constructive' criticism. After all, this 'is' an early 'sample' mainboard.

 

[asdf1221]

Sad to see no PCI slot on the sample board and no DVI port. Seems rather dumb to continue with PS/2 combo port and skip a PCI slot.

The PS/2 ports should also be taken out. Enough with the legacy features already.

So much for ever getting reliable PCI-E 3.0 out of it. So far, I can get AMD graphics to work PCI-E 3.0, but not nVidia GTX's.

That's a problem with either the software side of the clock generator or the GPU and its BIOS/drivers. It's unrelated to the SB-E processors. IB-E processors aren't going to fix the problem.

Will the final releases have true 'offset' feature? They better have, or the MSI user community is going to be seriously upset.

The current mobo prototype seems to be using external drivers for the transistors. Maybe MSI ditched DrMOS for some reason, which is a pity. The PWM connector does not seem compatible with the offerings from UPI so maybe it's ditched for a PWM from International Rectifier/Chil. This would allow manipulation of the voltage offset. Unfortunately the PWM is not soldered to the prototype and the image doesn't show the pin-out clearly so I'm not sure.


Now about how the board looks to me... all I have to say is that I like how the PCB looks plain and simple without all those cheesy colors and shapes all around it. Too bad that this is not going to stay on the end products.

 

[HU16E]

Unfortunately, marketing of 'glitz' and 'bling' sells more product. I kind of like the blue/black scheme, but simple and reliable is fine too. I will have to study up more, but the Ivy-E was supposed to be 'certified' for PCI-E 3.0, as the Sandy-E is not. It in combination with the X79 chipset, I was under the impression the hit or miss with PCI-E 3.0 was going to be finally over.

Agree concerning the PS/2, but I sure do like those Creative PCI Elite Pro sound cards.

Added: A bit off topic, but it is worth talking about.

That's a problem with either the software side of the clock generator or the GPU and its BIOS/drivers. It's unrelated to the SB-E processors. IB-E processors aren't going to fix the problem.

Surely if it is something MSI engineers could resolve, I would have thought by now they would have done so.

Clock generator. Well who is responsible for that. MSI or Intel? Looks like more studying for me! :rolleyes_anim:

 

[asdf1221]

Surely if it is something MSI engineers could resolve, I would have thought by now they would have done so.

Maybe they have from their part but NVIDIA hasn't. Maybe they haven't and NVIDIA isn't to blame. The thing is that they keep throwing the ball around and the end-user is the sucker here.

The "PCIe Gen3 on SB-E" thing is not so much of a problem rather than some sort of misconception. I don't know if certifying CPUs for PCIe Gen3 costs money and Intel didn't choose to certify desktop oriented SB-E processors cause of that (Xeon SB-EP processors are Gen 3 certified) or if the lack of certification on them was part of the Ivy Bridge marketing scheme. One thing is certain, the Gen 3 fiasco has nothing to do with the processor capabilities.

In the end, the only way this is going to be universally resolved is by spreading the word until there is enough demand for a proper fix. All it takes is two steps, NVIDIA removing the Gen3 lockout for x79 on their drivers and the motherboard makers updating the corresponding BIOSes with proper PCIe timings.

Seriously, the NVIDIA drivers literally check if the system is x79 based and disable PCIe 3.0 if it is.

Some motherboards are even worse. Their engineers fixed the timings for some processors only but not for the rest. So you end up using your Radeon HD 7970 with a board from Gigabyte that uses PCIe 3.0 when paired with your 3820 and 2.0 when paired with your 3970x... but when you try the same GPU and processors on your ASUS board then the 3820 runs at PCIe 2.0 speeds but the 3970x runs at 3.0.

Where's quality control? Out of the window. 

 

[HU16E]

I tried the PCI-E 3.0 'Force Enable' patch, but it didn't work for me.    Might have to try it again.

The MSI AMD graphics card I tested runs PCI-E 3.0 with no sweat on both my MSI X79's, but I am not an AMD fan at all. Sold the graphics card. Both have GTX 680's in SLI. It's mainly just upsetting is all, PCI-E 3.0 doesn't really offer much in the performance boost department anyway.

 

[asdf1221]

I tried the PCI-E 3.0 'Force Enable' patch, but it didn't work for me.    Might have to try it again.

The MSI AMD graphics card I tested runs PCI-E 3.0 with no sweat on both my MSI X79's, but I am not an AMD fan at all. Sold the graphics card.

The patch doesn't seem to always work. Even if it does, if the timings on the BIOS are loose then it might not make a difference. But yeah, retrying it with the latest driver might work if you're lucky.

If only hardware vendors cared enough for their users... but nope, they make a patch hackfix and let the users screw themselves.

 

[HU16E]

Well, thanks for your input, but we better get back on topic.
My closing thoughts on the matter. Maybe I should send this dog to visit the office the idiot works in that came up with the idea to disable the PCI-E 3.0 function. With luck, the office window will be open.  :lol_anim: 

Even my mainstream Z68 G3's with an Ivy will run GTX's at PCI-E 3.0 for crying out loud! 

 

[neoroy]

Yup I saw this mobo on other website, I guess this is only prototype/sample like Froggy said before. Theme colour is so simple and heatsinks on Dr.mosfet are for low profile. I can't wait to see their final Z87 mainboard Will they gonna keep the Blue theme colour of MSI? or not like Mpower or Z77 Gaming? Le's see it soon
Anyway thx for the information, Froggy

 

[HU16E]

Bernhard has a thread over at the AUTS Section with some more information on the new Z78 platform;

https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=167564.new#new

 

[neoroy]

Bernhard has a thread over at the AUTS Section with some more information on the new Z78 platform;

https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=167564.new#new

Nice  :grin: let me see it ... thx Froggy