Skylake+thunderbolt+good bios fan control=?

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fjf
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Skylake+thunderbolt+good bios fan control=?

Post by fjf » Wed Apr 13, 2016 3:17 am

I am goin to finally upgrade my ancient core2duo to skylake, and will be using the silverstone FT05 case. The only way to make that build silent will be with good bios fan control (not using windows). And on top of that I would like to have thunderbolt 3, because I use my computers a long time and in the future it might (?) be useful to have it. That excludes the "cheap" gigabyte options (i.e. GA-z170 ud5-TH, about 200 euro) and AFAIK leaves me no choice but to expend almost twice as much in an Asus z170 premium (about 375 euro). Am I wrong?. Is there a cheaper alternative?.

CA_Steve
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Re: Skylake+thunderbolt+good bios fan control=?

Post by CA_Steve » Wed Apr 13, 2016 7:53 am

A lot of the less expensive Asus boards (including the Z170-A) have an internal Thunderbolt header that can be used with an add-in PCIe card to supply Thunderbolt connector(s). However, at the present time, Asus only has Thunderbolt 2 cards, a single and a dual. They previewed the Thunderbolt 3 card last July, but haven't seen it go live.

CA_Steve
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Re: Skylake+thunderbolt+good bios fan control=?

Post by CA_Steve » Wed Apr 13, 2016 9:01 am

Also, it seems most of the mobo mfgrs have decided USB 3.1 Gen 2 (10Gbps) is the mainstream choice and Thunderbolt is a luxury item. I'd expect to see USB C ports proliferate in the next year as costs drop.

Irrelevant
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Re: Skylake+thunderbolt+good bios fan control=?

Post by Irrelevant » Wed Apr 13, 2016 2:05 pm

Why not use third-party software or hardware for fan control? Unless you're using a truly strange OS, I'd be surprised if there weren't something like Speedfan available that you could get to work with a Gigabyte board, and if not, there are a variety of programmable hardware units that might suit, depending on your OS and/or kludge-tolerance. It's been a few years, but last time I checked, there was a <$100, USB-based unit with a software UI for Linux and BeOS, for example.

Also, CA_Steve's right about Thunderbolt. Unless you think you might run out of expansion slots or you're really into music/video production, TB3-support is unlikely to add much future-proofing to an ATX desktop. In the next five years, USB 3.1's performance is likely to remain more than adequate for most device types, and for everything else, internal expansion cards offer too many economic and performance advantages for me to believe that TB3 will replace them.

quest_for_silence
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Re: Skylake+thunderbolt+good bios fan control=?

Post by quest_for_silence » Wed Apr 13, 2016 9:43 pm

Irrelevant wrote:It's been a few years, but last time I checked, there was a <$100, USB-based unit with a software UI for Linux and BeOS, for example.

To which unit are you referring to?

fjf
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Re: Skylake+thunderbolt+good bios fan control=?

Post by fjf » Thu Apr 14, 2016 7:56 am

Thanks, Steve. I did not know about the possible Asus thunderbolt card. I will go for an Asus motherboard and worry about that later, when it is useful.

I've used in the past one of those fan controllers, and you form a mess of cables with all the thermistores glued all over the place. Not pretty, and not functional. The place for fan control is in the BIOS, using the motherboard sensors. ANd with the 100+ euros that they cost you can afford a better mobo.

Abula
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Re: Skylake+thunderbolt+good bios fan control=?

Post by Abula » Thu Apr 14, 2016 12:05 pm

I agree with steve, its best to get the motherboard you want because of its features, aside from thurbolt, thats a connector that its not that common, and thus will limit you a lot into what you can buy.
fjf wrote:The only way to make that build silent will be with good bios fan control (not using windows).
Take my comments with a grain of salt as my experience is based on a single motherboard, Asus H170 Pro Gaming with bios 0703.

Asus is on the right track with their bios fan control, to what i remember they are calling it Qtunning, it has a lot of the funcionality of fanXpert inside the bios, like test the fans to stablish min max for each slot, even now all headers are true PWM and switchable to voltage controlled, this alone makes it very versitle mobo to work with whatever fan you like into whatever header you have in hand. That said not all is great, while the idea great, the execution isnt. I have issues where the Qtunning stablishes correctly the values for each fan, but the values are not saved nor able to reach manually (this is after Qtunnign ran), this means in some cases that you are left with ultra high restrictions, for example on NF-P14R on the Qtunning was 14% the least, but once i cant use because im stuck at 60%, the Qtunning is suppose to overide the min max of the bios as FanXpert does, but its not how its working. Other cases where it did set the values correctly, sometimes the graph points where acward like higher before lower, etc, changing them malfunction the bios and reset the pc. Also from what i remember you cant stop the fans on the bios, fanXpert can, but pressing silent on bios just uses a preset curve, although to be honest i only tested for maybe 4 hours, and this was not something that i tested a lot, i was more angry into the resets and values not sticking that i gave up, and besides the mobo wasnt meant for bios fan control, but for testbench with FanXpert to test fans, so im still happy with how it turn out.

All in all, i still recommend Asus to most people, i think their FanXpert is the best software in the market, well speedfan is great also (i just havent had good luck with supporting my headers), but for bios fan control.... i dont recommend Asus until they fix the issues that i experience. Atm im more incline to recommend AsRock, and probably my next main motherboard will be AsRock, i ordered a B150 Pro4 to test how the bios works, from what i seen in reviews and other spcr users, seems exactly what i want, but until i test im not sure.

Either way, hope you have better luck than me with Asus bios fan control.

Irrelevant
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Re: Skylake+thunderbolt+good bios fan control=?

Post by Irrelevant » Sun Apr 17, 2016 12:03 pm

quest_for_silence wrote:
Irrelevant wrote:It's been a few years, but last time I checked, there was a <$100, USB-based unit with a software UI for Linux and BeOS, for example.

To which unit are you referring to?
Unfortunately, I can't remember the name for the life of me, but IIRC, it was one of the first such units and the Linux/BeOS software was user-created but with company support. They used to stock it at Performance-PCs, but, alas, I can't find it now.

fjf
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Re: Skylake+thunderbolt+good bios fan control=?

Post by fjf » Wed May 04, 2016 9:58 am

Well, I finally purchased a FT05 with an Asus z170 deluxe, with 2 samsung 951 M2 drives. This thing (coming from an ancient core2duo) is FAST. I got a ninja 4, and with this amazing mobo I keep the two case fans and the CPU fan at around 350-400rpms. During normal use is silent. If I use prime95 I can hear it a little bit, but nothing terrible. CPU temps never go over 55ºC. Without the CPU fan is doable (goes up to 80ºC), but since I cannot hear the CPU fan anyway I decided to keep it running. This is a great case (a bit expensive, but...), and with an asus mobo they make a killer combination, noise-wise. Everything is cool and looks good.

Asus BIOS fan control is great. The way it should be. They got me as a customer.

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Re: Skylake+thunderbolt+good bios fan control=?

Post by CA_Steve » Wed May 04, 2016 1:10 pm

Congrats on your build.

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