The MSI MEG Z390 ACE Motherboard Review: The Answer To Your USB 3.1 Needs
by Gavin Bonshor on December 17, 2018 12:30 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Intel
- Killer
- MSI
- Coffee Lake
- i7-8700K
- Z390
- ACE
- Z390 ACE
Gaming Performance
AoTS Escalation
Ashes of the Singularity is a Real-Time Strategy game developed by Oxide Games and Stardock Entertainment. The original AoTS was released back in March of 2016 while the standalone expansion pack, Escalation, was released in November of 2016 adding more structures, maps, and units. We use this specific benchmark as it relies on both a good GPU as well as on the CPU in order to get the most frames per second. This balance is able to better display any systematic differences in gaming as opposed to a more GPU heavy title where the CPU and system don't matter quite as much. We use the default "Crazy" in-game settings using the DX11 rendering path in both 1080p and 4K UHD resolutions. The benchmark is run four times and the results averaged then plugged into the graph.
Rise of the Tomb Raider
Rise of the Tomb Raider is a third-person action-adventure game that features similar gameplay found in 2013's Tomb Raider. Players control Lara Croft through various environments, battling enemies, and completing puzzle platforming sections, while using improvised weapons and gadgets in order to progress through the story.
One of the unique aspects of this benchmark is that it’s actually the average of 3 sub-benchmarks that fly through different environments, which keeps the benchmark from being too weighted towards a GPU’s performance characteristics under any one scene.
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rsandru - Monday, December 17, 2018 - link
We're almost in 2019, can we move on beyond those 16 + 4 PCI-E lanes for the CPU please?I just want my GPU and M.2 storage connected directly to the CPU and not sharing bandwidth and latency with a million USB, SATA or audio ports and other traffic on the DMI uplink...
DanNeely - Monday, December 17, 2018 - link
I'd not hold my breath. Adding more PCIe lanes to the CPU would drive up die sizes and board costs for the >90% of systems that don't have a GPU.The only way I could see that happen is if Intel takes the CPU on Chipset stacking concept they showed at manufacturing day beyond the mobile demo to the desktop. Even then, I'd expect what they'd do is 16PCIe + ~8 configurable HSIO lanes so that entry level desktops could have 3-5x USB3, a 4/2 lane PCIe SSD and onboard wifi; either without needing a separate chip; or only with a tiny superbare bone chip to handle all the ultra-legacy and low bandwidth connections needed to control assorted chips on the board behind the scenes.
With that being a new manufacturing process though, I wouldn't expect to see it in the next year or two on the high volume mainstream desktop platform. Far more likely would be for it to launch as a premium option for top end laptop makers in the next year or two that trickles down over the to the rest of the market 2 or 4 years later.
DigitalFreak - Monday, December 17, 2018 - link
I agree, but the Intel/AMD response would be that you should look at HEDT / Threadripper if you need more CPU PCI-E lanes.Ryzen CPUs actually have 32 PCI-E lanes on the CPU, but the socket AM4 is only designed to for 16 GPU + 4 NVME + 4 to the SB. The other 8 aren't used. No idea why they didn't design AM4 to use all of them, unless it was for backwards compatibility with the pre-Ryzen CPUs.
DanNeely - Monday, December 17, 2018 - link
The problem is that both companies big socket platforms are a lot more expensive; and 90% of it is for things that are irrelevant to the average enthusiast; while both companies mainstream sockets fall a little bit short. Intel's by forcing SSDs into the DMI bottleneck; AMD's just in that their current chipset is a more or less obsolete piece of junk (eg only supporting PCIe 2.0). A combination of AMD's 20 non chipset lanes and a chipset approaching what Intel's are capable of would cover most of the gap between the mainstream platforms and enthusiast goals without going the budget busting route of the big sockets.Dunno that AMD's ever spoken about the unused 8 lanes. Could be cost reasons (would've made boards more expensive for legacy platforms); or even just to limit forward compatibility/confusion issues like the garbage fire Intel created when they had an LGA20xx generation that could have 16, 28, or 44 PCIe lanes and board makers either had to add a lot of extra complexity, have large chunks non-operational if using a low lane count chip, or ignore the potential of a number of lanes on the higher end chips.
namechamps - Monday, December 17, 2018 - link
It is backward compatibility. At this point one would think manufacturers would break that backwards compatibility (i.e. 2nd and 3rd m.2 slots not available for non-Ryzen processors).philehidiot - Monday, December 17, 2018 - link
So, please clarify this for someone who is not a computer scientist and is mildly drunk... if I buy a new Ryzen CPU, thinking I'm going to get 24 PCI-E lanes, I will in truth only be able to access 16, same as Intel? Or is it that I'd be able to access 24 whilst the CPU is designed for 32?DanNeely - Monday, December 17, 2018 - link
You can effectively use 20 lanes. The last 4 are used to connect the chipset on any but the lowest end boards which the CPU operate in SoC mode (and which probably will ignore the last 4 lanes entirely to save costs).tvanpeer - Monday, December 17, 2018 - link
Sure you can: get an AMD CPU.shaolin95 - Monday, December 24, 2018 - link
Sure and then get a performance hit. No thanksThe_Assimilator - Monday, December 17, 2018 - link
Congratulations, you're among a tiny minority of users. If you really want or need that feature, pony up the cash to step up to the HEDT segment.