Huananzhi X99-TF Motherboard Review
Huananzhi X99-TF Motherboard Review - Today, we're looking at the gaming x99-tf motherboard, which goes on aliexpress for just a little over 100 us dollars shipped, and you can couple this with the very popular xeons, the x99 xeons that are going very cheap as well. This here is the 12 core. It'S the e5 2678 v3 and this goes for around 85 ships. So for a little under 200 you can get the motherboard and the cpu and that's 12 cores 24 threads.
Now the 2678. You can unlock this to its full turbo multiplier on all cores or threads, which makes it a very good value proposition, especially with a motherboard like this that supports both ddr3 and ddr4 memory. That'S right, you read it. The cpu will support both these configurations, but keep in mind the retail xeons won't support ddr3 memory.
It'S only the specialized models that don't come up on intel's website that were made for oem partners like hp will support the ddr3. Now the good thing about supporting this ddr3 memory on a board like this is that ddr3 registered memory is so cheap, so you can get a cheap 32 4x8 gigabyte kit, layout or 4 by 16 gigabyte sticks and have a very good bare bones. Combo for cheap. Now this board in particular, i'm going to tell you guys straight away what i like about it before we even get into the testing, and that is the fact that it's got ultra and also hyper m.2 support, meaning the top.
One here looks like it'll support, sata and both nvme and then the one below that is just nvme, then below that you've got m.2. Wi-Fi support then, on the back. You'Ve also got eight usb slots, which is always good to have, and you've got an optical out which usually comes with higher end boards, as well as an integrated io shield.
So it's good to see that they've added those two features on in the box. You get the manual which is all written in chinese, so there is no english and then you've got this kit here. If you want to mount a snowman, cpu cooler, for instance, you'll - be able to do that because they've included the bracket for that. Then you get two sata cables and a driver installation cd - it's packed pretty well, so it shouldn't get damaged in shipping. And the last thing is these two little fans on the heatsink itself and speaking of that heatsink and vrm.
Let'S start running some tests to see how hot it gets with a 12 core, if you're in the market, for a micro, atx motherboard that has the aesthetics but also supports the latest 10th gen intel processors. Then this is the motherboard for you, the b460m azroc steel legend with nahimic audio and also base frequency boost technology. You can get more out of your non-overclockable cpus than you ever could on b460 motherboards links in description below to find out more so after spending.
Some quality time with this motherboard, we had the numbers right here and i'll pull them up for you. The temperatures went up to 68 degrees on the pcb, and then the heatsink itself was going to 57 degrees, and the noise was really not bad at all. On these two little fans on the heatsink i'll, let you guys take a quick from about listen centimeters away.
This was a 22 degree ambient and upon pulling the heatsink off i'll, just show you guys the weight, as well as the details of this vrm, which i couldn't read properly. So it's just a simple six phase vrm, but it looks like they're doubling the mosfets as well as the caps to give you. I guess what you'd call a 12 phase in essence and to be fair, this is one of the most impressive budget boards.
I'Ve seen off aliexpress where we saw the wattage being pulled directly from the cpu at about 120 watts just a little bit over and the from the wall figures confirm this producing about 222 watts versus the idle consumption of 100 watts and 35 watt direct draw on The cpu moving through the usb 3 speeds, the m.2 speeds and the nik the one gigabit per second nick.
All these speeds were fine, as well as the onboard audio, which was surprisingly very decent for a board of this price, where the crosstalk was minus 89 decibels. At full volume and 0 to 10 hertz was a 2.5 decibel roll-off and then on the main frequency response curve. It was slightly shaky, so not the best onboard audio scene, but certainly far from the worst and then the distortion levels pretty much mirrored what the frequency response curve was showing with lower level frequencies.
Having the most distortion, however, the volume levels were a little bit low on this motherboard, so if you're going to pair them with a headphone and not get a dedicated amp or dac solution, i would recommend just doing so with easy to power headphones, something like the Kph-30I'S would go perfect with his motherboard and you would save a lot of money and, lastly, the mic import was actually surprisingly decent with no noise suppression, though, if you lowered the volume 250 with plus 30 db, the noise pretty much went away.
So this would be the recommended level this or lower for using a microphone, and so now the hardware numbers coming out of this motherboard are actually quite impressive and we'll talk, lastly, about the bios and some other things that i like and don't like. First of all, the bus, it's pretty basic. It reminds me of the x58 blasters where you couldn't use a mouse, but you had all your features there.
You could choose your boot menu. You can enable csm disable secure boot. All that stuff is baked into this bios. However, there is no real sense of overclocking, though i have heard people loading up, custom overclocked biases into these motherboards, where they would do well with the six core say a 5820k. If you could get this custom bias, it would do a decent job. In my opinion, just make sure you do keep the cpu direct draw under about 150 watts.
I'D say after that, this vrm would start feeling a lot of pressure, though two more things that i really like about this board. First of all, they use this six layer pcb which, for a board of this price, a hundred bucks, it's actually pretty decent for me personally, i like six layers and thicker four layers feels really flimsy, especially on a full size, atx board, good thing that they've used Six layers, the next thing is you've, got three 16x slots, pcie slots, so that's full slots, and this is actually more pcie usage than a lot of boards coming out today, even from intel z490 line. So it's actually really impressive to see that and then you've got the additional two pcie 1x slots.
So this board has a lot of input and output going for it and ultimately the looks of the board too. The clean white and black aesthetic actually does look pretty good they've, even added in the light blue led to bling it up. We'Ve also got the bios debug led readout and the power and reset switches. If you want to use this as a testbed, so ultimately to give it to you guys straight with this motherboard.
I'm actually very impressed with the value you are getting, and one and z they're really from here on in if they keep making boards like this they're Going to be making a uh very, i guess enthusiastic customer out of me where i'm going to be keen to see what they've got around the corner. So this board just hits the mark uh.
If you do buy it off aliexpress, i believe you're not going to get a little cmos battery, so you'll have to go out and buy your own one. They i get them for around 20 cents, so they're very cheap and i think a motherboard like this. The best thing is, you can get the 12 core for very cheap. It'S a ring, bus cpu. It'S got all the latest instruction sets and it also couples really nicely with cheap 32 gigabyte kit or 64 gigabyte kit of ddr3 registered memory.
So if you guys are looking to get into the world of 4k video editing on the cheap, then this combo right here is one that will really kick it for you and i'll probably have a build coming out in a month putting together just that a 64 Gigabyte ddr3 ecc registered build with this 12 core and this motherboard, because the value this whole combo represents is extremely good, and so that's about it with this motherboard do.
Let us know in the comments section below have you tried a budget aliexpress motherboard? If so, which, and what and what was your experience and also don't forget to smash that like button for us and if you're, enjoying that content hit, that sub button ring that bell and we'll go on with the question of the day here, which comes from leandro Martin peralta and they asked will that motherboard fit in a mini itx case and they're, referring to the 4th gen hp motherboards in this video i'll put the link up here and basically, the 4th gen hp.
Motherboards are, unfortunately, micro, atx and a lot of those oem boards, even though they look pretty small they're. Actually, micro atx, not mini itx. If you want to get cheap, oem mini itx motherboards, they usually come in the flavors of those really small, pcs and you'll notice, because they're just much smaller than a regular desktop pc. So, even though the pc that i pulled it out of is a small form factor, it's still a micro, atx small form factor, so you got to go for the real small ones. Anyhow, i hope that answers that question and i will catch you guys in another tech.