Our buddy Roman ‘der8auer’ Hartung managed to cause quite a stir last week when he described the new motherboard VRM designs for the new Skylake-X platform as a disaster. Today he published an ‘Update’ video that gives more information about his findings and also some reasons why other tech media have had trouble replicating the issues that he has raised.

First a recap. His testing showed dangerously high temperatures under load that were causing the Core i7 7800X processor to throttle down. He also detailed how 8-pin connectors for the CPU were in his opinion insufficient to power the new Intel HEDT chips. The upshot was a bold statement that he literally could not recommend any of the current lineup of X299 motherboards.

Today Roman explains that the best way to observe throttling is watch power consumption. This is because CPU-Z does not always report lower clocks which can happen in an instant, too quickly for CPU-Z to report and detect. X99 systems can experience two kinds of throttling; CPU throttling and VRM throttling, both of which can happen when the CPU VRM overheats during full load.

In relation to X299 boards needing either 8+4-pin CPU power delivery, Roman concedes that in most non-subzero scenarios an 8-pin power delivery will most likely suffice. He also talks about how VCCIN throttling may be an issue on certain boards. In conclusion, it seems that we are not out of the woods yet with this platform, which is still being explored in terms of power delivery and VRM design issues.

Watch the updated video from Roman here on the der8auer YouTube channel.