Creative SoundBlaster 720 review ?

Hello,

I am in the process of trying to design a Dream PC for 2017.

AMD Threadripper is something I would want.
ASRock x399 motherboards is something I would want for the motherboard overheat protection circuitry.
NOCTUA cooler for TR4 socket is probably also something I would want.

Asus motherboard is something I would not want since it does not have any motherboard overheat protection.

There is something that is intrigueing me a bit and making me doubt a bit:

Gigabyte does have a very "feature rich" motherboard and also I had very nice led lights... unfortunately it does not have "motherboard overheat protection" but it does have a warning system. Not sure how that works... will the PC beeper start beeping ?

I do intend to run the PC at night for computations, so a beeping/overheating computer at night is no good. So sticking with ASRock shutdown feature seems better.

However I am also very keen on a good audio solution and the gigabyte seems to have something "brand new" which I have not seen befo

https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard...ng-7-rev-10#kf

It's called "Creative Soundblaster 720".

Apperently some kind of software for onboard audio ?

Not sure if this software can also be run on other systems... perhaps even without onboard audio chips ? Or perhaps on cinema 3 systems.

The ASRock X399 motherboards seem to have "previous generation" Cinema 3.

While gigabyte has this new 720 thing.

Not sure if it's actually better.... I don't care much about the "radar scouting" thingy...

But anyway... I write this posting because I would like to see a review of this 720 thing and also some youtube videos of it would be nice ?!

So if anybody happens to have this motherboard pls do review this new 720 thing.

Also I have some happy news for you and me ! =D:

The Gigaworks S750 has been repaired by a local repair shop. Not sure yet if it will actually work. The costs will be 95 euros or something. Thursday I will collect it and bring it back home ! and then I will try it out and let you know what I think of it ! =D

Who would have thought it would ever come back alive ?! Very curious about that ! =D

Hopefully it will be usefull on a new system too... I may have to purchase again new special cables which can be used for onboard audio connectors to it's subwooofer/electronics... or perhaps not... I may also consider a soundblaster... though latest offerings of creative or 5.1 only... it must be able to handle 7.1 speaker systems, time will tell

Bye,
Skybuck.

On Sun, 27 Aug 2017 06:02:29 -0700 (PDT),
wrote:

https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard...ng-7-rev-10#kf

It's called "Creative Soundblaster 720".

Apperently some kind of software for onboard audio ?


Gigabyte's answer for a gamer's board with more than enough tweak
features included on a new chipset, to a healthy backdrop of quality
and safeguards to a supportive hardware platform, topped off by MB
support of LED lighting strings for an inside, glorious-lit case
build. Where Creative seems a suitable choice, being it's game in the
first place, although that wouldn't necessarily be a setback to what
it delivers in decent musical reproductions. Past that, creative,
IMO, tends to go to the farside of production values -- in other
words, the software is likely to massively to encompass features;-
among features, selectively which you'll enjoy most, may be a
challenge to configure them within potential conflicts. I eventually
gave up Creative for a purer solution to a basic focus on audiophile
reproduction from limited sources, as I wasn't interested in gaming or
extraneous features. As of course specialty boards and general
truisms, although they may be at times costly, in delivering what a
grab-bag "board of effects" isn't intended to do;- whereas for gaming
"immersion" purposes, Creative is out to keep up with changes and
attractions, effectively, to a huge market of online gamers. And they
probably do it well within that context.


Not sure if this software can also be run on other systems... perhaps even without onboard audio chips ? Or perhaps on cinema 3 systems.

The ASRock X399 motherboards seem to have "previous generation" Cinema 3.

While gigabyte has this new 720 thing.

Not sure if it's actually better.... I don't care much about the "radar scouting" thingy...

But anyway... I write this posting because I would like to see a review of this 720 thing and also some youtube videos of it would be nice ?!

So if anybody happens to have this motherboard pls do review this new 720 thing.

Also I have some happy news for you and me ! =D:

The Gigaworks S750 has been repaired by a local repair shop. Not sure yet if it will actually work. The costs will be 95 euros or something. Thursday I will collect it and bring it back home ! and then I will try it out and let you know what I think of it ! =D

Who would have thought it would ever come back alive ?! Very curious about that ! =D

Hopefully it will be usefull on a new system too... I may have to purchase again new special cables which can be used for onboard audio connectors to it's subwooofer/electronics... or perhaps not... I may also consider a soundblaster... though latest offerings of creative or 5.1 only... it must be able to handle 7.1 speaker systems, time will tell

Bye,
Skybuck.

wrote:
Hello,

I am in the process of trying to design a Dream PC for 2017.

AMD Threadripper is something I would want.
ASRock x399 motherboards is something I would want for the motherboard overheat protection circuitry.
NOCTUA cooler for TR4 socket is probably also something I would want.

Asus motherboard is something I would not want since it does not have any motherboard overheat protection.

There is something that is intrigueing me a bit and making me doubt a bit:

Gigabyte does have a very "feature rich" motherboard and also I had very nice led lights... unfortunately it does not have "motherboard overheat protection" but it does have a warning system. Not sure how that works... will the PC beeper start beeping ?

I do intend to run the PC at night for computations, so a beeping/overheating computer at night is no good. So sticking with ASRock shutdown feature seems better.

However I am also very keen on a good audio solution and the gigabyte seems to have something "brand new" which I have not seen befo

https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard...ng-7-rev-10#kf

It's called "Creative Soundblaster 720".

Apperently some kind of software for onboard audio ?

Not sure if this software can also be run on other systems... perhaps even without onboard audio chips ? Or perhaps on cinema 3 systems.

The ASRock X399 motherboards seem to have "previous generation" Cinema 3.

While gigabyte has this new 720 thing.

Not sure if it's actually better.... I don't care much about the "radar scouting" thingy...

But anyway... I write this posting because I would like to see a review of this 720 thing and also some youtube videos of it would be nice ?!

So if anybody happens to have this motherboard pls do review this new 720 thing.

Also I have some happy news for you and me ! =D:

The Gigaworks S750 has been repaired by a local repair shop. Not sure yet if it will actually work. The costs will be 95 euros or something. Thursday I will collect it and bring it back home ! and then I will try it out and let you know what I think of it ! =D

Who would have thought it would ever come back alive ?! Very curious about that ! =D

Hopefully it will be usefull on a new system too... I may have to purchase again new special cables which can be used for onboard audio connectors to it's subwooofer/electronics... or perhaps not... I may also consider a soundblaster... though latest offerings of creative or 5.1 only... it must be able to handle 7.1 speaker systems, time will tell

Bye,
Skybuck.

The Creative thing is just software. You can be assured the feature cannot
be transferred to older motherboards.

http://www.creative.com/oem/products...asterx-720.asp

The total cost of building a ThreadRipper system is very high.

$1000 for processor
$500 for motherboard
$100 for cooler
$560 for RAM, or more (4x16GB)

The CPU has a max 1TB of RAM limit. The motherboards (all of them),
support 8x16GB max. Do they support ECC RAM ? Dunno. The system
needs a minimal amount of RAM just to make it useful. It should
have at least 64GB, so you can run 7ZIP Ultra compression. That's
32 threads times 600MB dictionary. If you oversubscribe and set it
to 64 threads times 600MB, that's 38GB. To hedge your bets, that's
a 64GB setup. To get max DIMM speed, you use one DIMM per channel,
so that is a 4x16GB setup.

You're looking for a bit over $2000, and may need room for an
EATX motherboard. Check the motherboard dimensions, and verity
it'll fit in your computer case.

*******

I didn't see a specific Asrock claim of a fancy thermal protection feature.

Certain protection features are standard on ThreadRipper, or standard
on other processors of this generation.

The CPU has a power limiter. If it's supposed to draw 180W max, then
there is a current flow measurement that keeps track. The CPU performance
can be capped by the power limiter. As a silly example, for CPU-limited
computation, you will get a tiny bit better benchmark, by using two channels
of RAM, instead of four channels of RAM. Turning off the DRAM interfaces
on two channels (by simply not installed DIMMs in the channels), saves
enough power on the power limiter, for the CPU cores to work harder.

The only time the power limiter is going to cut in, is in the middle
of a Chromium build. You probably won't hit 180W when gaming. Or when
transcoding a single video (as not all cores would be working on it).
Doing a 7Z compression, with 2x threads enabled (the highest thread
setting available), will probably cause the processor to hit the 180W limit.

*******

I would look carefully at the VCore regulators on all these boards.

The Asrock has a "heat pipe". Great. However, the second assembly the
pipe connects to, is in a thermal hiding hole and the air cooling
cannot get to it. The main heatsink is under-sized.

One of the competing boards uses this same silly idea. Their solution ?
They hide a 40mm fan neat the I/O connector plate. There is a tiny
vent just above the fan, for air movement. Just imagine what a maintenance
nightmare that's going to be (dust clog, 40mm sleeve bearing fan failure,
just like the old Athlon64 era chipset coolers).

I would concentrate a bit more on the basics, and whether the
basic features work and work well.

I made this mistake on my last motherboard purchase. The VCore
heatsink was sub-sized. While testing on the kitchen table
with the PCB open to the air, I placed my finger on the VCore
heatsink and got burned (when Prime95 was running). That means
the VCore surface temperature was over 65C. I had to
to make a forced-air cooling solution for the thing, as well
as detune the CPU settings a bit. I don't want the power
components to be running that hot all the time, power-limiter
or not.

I don't know how efficient each and every one of these VCore designs
is. (Efficiency is proportional to waste heat.) The MOSFETs are
selected for high current. When you do that, the regulator needs
a buffer chip per phase, to drive the 3000pF capacitive
load of the MOSFET gates (at high frequency). All of this stuff
is do-able, but it costs money. And even if you pay $500 for
a motherboard, the designer objective is "to only spend $10 on a
regulator". They no longer splash out on a good overall design.
And not too many reviewers are going to put their finger on the
VCore heatsink for you.

Paul

Hi Paul and the other guy !

Euhm.

First things first here is there advertisement:

http://www.asrock.com/MB/AMD/Fatal1t...g/index.us.asp

Indeed it does not mention their great feature "overheat protection" which is kinda odd, cause this definetly seperates them from asus and gigabyte.

However I always read manuals to see what it's all about (to make sure) and it's in ASRocks manual which is he

http://www.asrock.com/MB/AMD/Fatal1t....us.asp#Manual

From there you should be able to find it (the pdf). Definetly download it to a junk folder for easy browsing the pdf !

http://asrock.nl/downloadsite/Manual...l%20Gaming.pdf

It's on page 70:

"
MOS Over Temperature Protection
When MOS Over Temperature Protection is enabled, the system automatically
shuts down when the motherboard is overheated.
"

Notice "motherboard overheated" this is something totally different from what you wrote "cpu overheating"... cpus can handle heat well...

Anyway I consider this feature essential for such hot components... my winfast motherboard has this feature too... maybe it's from foxcon not sure.

When googling "MOS Over Temperature Protection" it led me to some patents describing special circuitry for it.

So I suspect ASRock might have licensed it and pays royalties to these inventors

Gigabyte's motherboard might have some "thermal throttling" but I am not sure if and how well that works.

Future more ASRock does advertise somewhere on their website that all of their motherboards are equiped with this "motherboard overheat protection" feature.

Google this and you should find that too.

I also checked out MSI's x399 motherboard but it also does not have this feature.

So they major players seem to be:

Asus
Gigabyte
ASRock
MSI

Only ASRock has this motherboard overheat protection feature.
Only Gigabyte seems to have "thermal throttling" and perhaps a beeping warning ?????? not sure about that last statement of mine.
Asus seems to have nothing ? For me unacceptable.
MSI also seems to have nothing ? Again unacceptable.

There is a further problem with the gigabyte. It does not have OPcache control/disablement feature.

There might be a bug in AMD Threadripper concerning this OPcache.

Not being able to disable it might make the system unusuable for reliable computations. However maybe gigabyte could introduce a bios update to include this feature... not sure about that.

I also share your concerns about the VRM heatsinks running hot.

However on youtuber, some guy with a red beared.. said that these VRM heatsinks run kinda cool when system is not overclocked, but this was for the ASRock motherboard the TAICHI.

I think another guy said the opposite for the Asus motherboard... it's blackplate became very hot. You also noticed this tiny little hidden fan as well as did others. To me this seemed like a clear indication that there might be something wrong with the Asus motherboard. Then again the same guy that said it was hot on the backplate would also leave the fan off... so that is kinda conflicting or perhaps the heat just transfer to backplate. He said he would test that some more.

So for now I would like to see some more youtube videos of any potential heat issues with this new hardware.

My main reason for wanting a "as-much-cores-as-possible-system-from-AMD" is to run webbrowser.

I tend to load multiple webpages at the same time so that they can "pre-load".

I watch one and when I am done I go to the other.

I noticed Firefox was running close to a 100 threads as I was webbrowsing.... so this could explain why Firefox is always so laggy when many tabs are used.

It becomes a "context-switch-hog" potentially. It could also be that it's multi threading implementation is just not so good at the moment and some locking occurs.

So I am hoping threadripper might bring some relief to that !

So a youtube video of how many tabs threadripper can actually handle in firefox without becoming laggy would also be very interesting !

Especially when switching back and forth a lot... after a while firefox will stop using some CPU as no more interaction occurs... so it is important the user keeps switching a bit...

It's kinda weird that reviews don't include "browser benchmarks" ??? Are these reviewers grannies that only open 1 website ? Hmmmmm (LOL sorry all you savy-webbrowsing grannies out there ! )

I am afraid that even 16 core CPU will not be enough for my webbrowsing needs... let alone my computation needs... so I am already sick of reviewers saying that these chips might be overkill for gaming or something... maybe gaming... I don't think so though... my favorite game at this moment is world of warships and it already uses 32 threads... not sure if they all active probably not...

However I am pretty sure... game developers will try and utilize more and more cores in the feature.

If a 1 million core system would exist every unit on the screen would probably be running in real time in it's own thread :P some locking here and there perhaps but still

More and more videos are coming online though about these systems... maybe most people are just watching the "cat out of the tree" waiting for my reviews or just waiting to see if any new problems pop-up.

Hmm that reminds me is there some errata document available for this chip ? or it's predecessor ryzen ?

I also have some doubts about such a hot system, will I shoot myself in the foot again and end up with ditched components in favor of lower heat components ? Hmmmm...

The ryzen 1200 or was it 1300 seems very cool. Still good for gaming... not that much heat and so forth...

If I go with a gfx card... the asus strix looks promosing with the 3 fans on it... but maybe that's a bad thing and maybe it will blow lots of heat over the motherboard... so that might be another "bad heat" product from asus..... hmmm.

I am sure I would have a lot of fun with 4096 cuda cores or something... but not if my system dies or is in jeopardy of overheat hmmm....

I am kind-of an all-or-nothing type of guy, a medium system would probably bore me to death.... hmmmm...

Bye,
Skybuck.

wrote:
Hi Paul and the other guy !

Euhm.

First things first here is there advertisement:

http://www.asrock.com/MB/AMD/Fatal1t...g/index.us.asp

Indeed it does not mention their great feature "overheat protection" which is kinda odd, cause this definetly seperates them from asus and gigabyte.

However I always read manuals to see what it's all about (to make sure) and it's in ASRocks manual which is he

http://www.asrock.com/MB/AMD/Fatal1t....us.asp#Manual

From there you should be able to find it (the pdf). Definetly download it to a junk folder for easy browsing the pdf !

http://asrock.nl/downloadsite/Manual...l%20Gaming.pdf

It's on page 70:

"
MOS Over Temperature Protection
When MOS Over Temperature Protection is enabled, the system automatically
shuts down when the motherboard is overheated.
"

Notice "motherboard overheated" this is something totally different from what you wrote "cpu overheating"... cpus can handle heat well...

Anyway I consider this feature essential for such hot components... my winfast motherboard has this feature too... maybe it's from foxcon not sure.

When googling "MOS Over Temperature Protection" it led me to some patents describing special circuitry for it.

So I suspect ASRock might have licensed it and pays royalties to these inventors

Gigabyte's motherboard might have some "thermal throttling" but I am not sure if and how well that works.

Future more ASRock does advertise somewhere on their website that all of their motherboards are equiped with this "motherboard overheat protection" feature.

Google this and you should find that too.

I also checked out MSI's x399 motherboard but it also does not have this feature.

So they major players seem to be:

Asus
Gigabyte
ASRock
MSI

Only ASRock has this motherboard overheat protection feature.
Only Gigabyte seems to have "thermal throttling" and perhaps a beeping warning ?????? not sure about that last statement of mine.
Asus seems to have nothing ? For me unacceptable.
MSI also seems to have nothing ? Again unacceptable.

There is a further problem with the gigabyte. It does not have OPcache control/disablement feature.

There might be a bug in AMD Threadripper concerning this OPcache.

Not being able to disable it might make the system unusuable for reliable computations. However maybe gigabyte could introduce a bios update to include this feature... not sure about that.

I also share your concerns about the VRM heatsinks running hot.

However on youtuber, some guy with a red beared.. said that these VRM heatsinks run kinda cool when system is not overclocked, but this was for the ASRock motherboard the TAICHI.

I think another guy said the opposite for the Asus motherboard... it's blackplate became very hot. You also noticed this tiny little hidden fan as well as did others. To me this seemed like a clear indication that there might be something wrong with the Asus motherboard. Then again the same guy that said it was hot on the backplate would also leave the fan off... so that is kinda conflicting or perhaps the heat just transfer to backplate. He said he would test that some more.

So for now I would like to see some more youtube videos of any potential heat issues with this new hardware.

My main reason for wanting a "as-much-cores-as-possible-system-from-AMD" is to run webbrowser.

I tend to load multiple webpages at the same time so that they can "pre-load".

I watch one and when I am done I go to the other.

I noticed Firefox was running close to a 100 threads as I was webbrowsing... so this could explain why Firefox is always so laggy when many tabs are used.

It becomes a "context-switch-hog" potentially. It could also be that it's multi threading implementation is just not so good at the moment and some locking occurs.

So I am hoping threadripper might bring some relief to that !

So a youtube video of how many tabs threadripper can actually handle in firefox without becoming laggy would also be very interesting !

Especially when switching back and forth a lot... after a while firefox will stop using some CPU as no more interaction occurs... so it is important the user keeps switching a bit...

It's kinda weird that reviews don't include "browser benchmarks" ??? Are these reviewers grannies that only open 1 website ? Hmmmmm (LOL sorry all you savy-webbrowsing grannies out there ! )

I am afraid that even 16 core CPU will not be enough for my webbrowsing needs... let alone my computation needs... so I am already sick of reviewers saying that these chips might be overkill for gaming or something... maybe gaming... I don't think so though... my favorite game at this moment is world of warships and it already uses 32 threads... not sure if they all active probably not...

However I am pretty sure... game developers will try and utilize more and more cores in the feature.

If a 1 million core system would exist every unit on the screen would probably be running in real time in it's own thread :P some locking here and there perhaps but still

More and more videos are coming online though about these systems... maybe most people are just watching the "cat out of the tree" waiting for my reviews or just waiting to see if any new problems pop-up.

Hmm that reminds me is there some errata document available for this chip ? or it's predecessor ryzen ?

I also have some doubts about such a hot system, will I shoot myself in the foot again and end up with ditched components in favor of lower heat components ? Hmmmm...

The ryzen 1200 or was it 1300 seems very cool. Still good for gaming... not that much heat and so forth...

If I go with a gfx card... the asus strix looks promosing with the 3 fans on it... but maybe that's a bad thing and maybe it will blow lots of heat over the motherboard... so that might be another "bad heat" product from asus.... hmmm.

I am sure I would have a lot of fun with 4096 cuda cores or something... but not if my system dies or is in jeopardy of overheat hmmm....

I am kind-of an all-or-nothing type of guy, a medium system would probably bore me to death.... hmmmm...

Bye,
Skybuck.

It doesn't state what temperature that triggers shutdown.

Or, whether the temperature monitor is connected to the
SuperI/O Hardware Monitor, so you can watch the value in
Speedfan or not.

Since it shuts off the PC, that implies it is wired in
parallel with THERMTRIP (the CPU overheat open collector
signal).

*******

The question remains, whether it's a good idea for VCore
regulator circuits, to run at high temperature or not. The
difference now is, the CPU is power-limited, and unless
the limiter can be disabled, that feature bounds how
far into thermal runaway the MOSFETs could go.

I'm much rather have a properly cooled VCore circuit myself.

Paul

Good question what the shutoff temperature is.

For my winfast it's probably something like 45 to 60 degrees.

Not sure if it can be set beyond that.

I would expect ASRock to have those same values. Not sure if any arbitrary value can be set... I would guess not

Bye,
Skybuck.

This might be usefull, a nice review site:

https://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/83...ew/index3.html

Link was from this site:

http://www.overclock.net/t/1635296/a...tr4-vrm-thread

Can't believe how bad the web has become on my PC.

Today Firefox updated itself and it has turned into slow/sluggish junk (at least for youtube) also the font has changed and layouts kinda weird... not sure if it's youtube that changed or firefox or both .

Also opera seems to have a built in "ad blocker" as least so the website in first link believes.. so viewing it with firefox.

Sorry for posting that link to tweaktown... more like "twitch" town.

It's definetly one of the most annoying websites I have ever visitted... everything on the screen keeps jumping around... even "single screenshot" pages.

It's basically useless unless you can stand the "twitch" town ! LOL.

Bye,
Skybuck.

wrote:
This might be usefull, a nice review site:

https://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/83...ew/index3.html

Link was from this site:

http://www.overclock.net/t/1635296/a...tr4-vrm-thread

Can't believe how bad the web has become on my PC.

Today Firefox updated itself and it has turned into slow/sluggish junk (at least for youtube) also the font has changed and layouts kinda weird... not sure if it's youtube that changed or firefox or both .

Also opera seems to have a built in "ad blocker" as least so the website in first link believes.. so viewing it with firefox.

The advertising is pretty bad on Tweaktown. Obviously they
intend to get rich before they reach 40 years of age, by
building "twitchy" web pages.

*******

"It's controlled by International Rectifier's IR35201 in an
8+0 phase PWM configuration. Each phase uses a 60A IR3555
fully integrated PowIRstage power stage, which contains the
high-side MOSFET, low-side MOSFET, and driver.

http://www.irf.com/product-info/data...pb-ir35201.pdf

I2C/SMBus/PMBus system interface for reporting of
Temperature, Voltage, Current & Power telemetry for
both loops

The IR35201 provides extensive OVP, UVP, OCP,
OTP & CAT_FLT fault protection, and includes
thermistor based temperature sensing or per
phase temperature reporting when using the IR
powIRstage. The controller is designed to work
with either Rdson current sense PowIRstages or
with DCR current sense.

That means the regulator chip stays in contact with
the individual phases (because these are "smart" phases
with integrated buffer-up for capacitance). The regulator
chip has an I2C bus connection, so some other piece of
hardware can query the VCore regulator and determine
what is going on.

The "CAT_FLT" sounds like a catastrophic failure detection,
which could be temperature based, or trip on overcurrent.
Pin 12 in the datasheet is "catflt" and that's likely
how you get a pure hardware-based protection feature.
The "catflt" would be wired in parallel with THERMTRIP.

For once, the temperature sensing is right at the MOSFET,
without needing a $1 thermistor and a tube of epoxy glue.
The motherboard maker must be ecstatic (because they hate
sticking thermistors on stuff). My previous motherboard
had a provision for thermistor-based protection but it
was *missing* because it would be too hard to physically
fit to the motherboard and do a good job. With the above
implementation, each phase has its own temperature sensor inside.
And the main regulator chip "summarizes" all failure conditions
and makes an on-off switch with them.

Paul