Aurora R7, Intel 9th Gen CPUs installed

@Zen_Tek , thank you for the pictures. As we can all see, the CPU stepping ID is "A" and the motherboard model is R7.

@Anonymous , is your 9900K CPU stepping ID "C" ?

I try to time big electronic purchases for after Thanksgiving, that way I can take advantage of black Friday sales and also tell my wife it's a present for her.  For example, last Christmas she got a new and bigger screen TV for her living room...  The old TV went on the wall in my office.  

REPLYING TO: 

Means no R7 owner should go after that 9900KF deal on Newegg or there goes that $420.

Yeah, unless we hear anything to the contrary from Dell, I think that's probably the same for the other 9th gen K class processors on the R7.  I'd be curious as to the results of a locked i5-9600 or i7-9700 on an R7. 

9900KF seems like it may be a good option for people with no need for Intel onboard graphics.. some people are reporting that the 9900KF overclocks better than the 9900K.

REPLYING TO: 

On your chart, the other locked CPUID signatures were listed as not found, so there at least is that uncertainty remaining. All of the unlocked 9th gen on the chart had different CPUID signatures than 8th gen. 

I think we are on the same page especially with your mention of 9400/9400F [V.1] and 9400/9400F [V.2].

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/9th-gen-core-cpus-r0-stepping,38932.html

The reason I went digging for more information was my very own i5-9400 that baffles me: the CPUID (906EC) is not the same as @Zen_Tek's i5-9400F (CPUID 906EA). Giving up on digging more for CPUIDs, I started looking at revision versions and they are generally U0, P0 and R0 across 8th and 9th Gen Cores.

Here's where things get tricky. For example, my own 9400 is P0 revision and early this year, there was a U0 revision. If you look at screenshot of the 9400F, the revision is U0. Some processors start their life as a P0 or R0 revision and move forward from there while some earlier CPUs like 9400 and 9400F starts with U0. If I were to draw a relationship between CPUID and revision, it would be:

906EA - U0

906EC - P0

906ED - R0

Back to our processor list

9400 - U0 + P0

9400F - U0 + P0 (unconfirmed)

9600K - P0

9700 - R0

9700K - P0

9900 - P0

9900K - P0

I believe that the U0 --> P0 line is one that R7 owners are held back from crossing while R8 and XPS 8930 users could.

Going for the U0 CPUs gets you 9th gen except for 1 thing: the IHS is not soldered to the CPU die. Since those parts are locked anyways, there's less to lose. In fact I see it as a gain if you dare to go into delidding as pTIM is much easier to delid. 

One of the drawbacks of delidding though is voiding the warranty.  On the flip side, an advantage to soldering is its more tamper resistant.  I read on another forum about someone who had purchased an unlocked 8th gen CPU on amazon, and received cheaper and locked CPU, to which someone had affixed the IHS from the unlocked CPU. The problem with Intel's seals, at least on some of their top of the line CPUs, is that they are apparently easy to remove without damaging the seal (so its not hard for some people to return them in "new, unopened" condition without amazon noticing the product has been swapped).  This is apparently a not too uncommon scenario.  So anyway, just pointing out that it never hurts to verify that you receive what you purchased within the 30 day return period. 

I didn't know the r7 shipped with the 8086, but I did see a bios update to support it though. What GPU are you running? Did you upgrade your ram? Any problems at all? FPS games so on?

My current CPU is i5 8400. I was thinking about getting a ES of the 8086. Or something in the lower 9000 series. Seen a few screenshots of the 9400 working in the r7. However checking the differences between the 8086 vs the 9400. The 8086 is a better proc according to some gaming video's I watched comparing the two. 

I just bought a brand new r7 still in the box, figured ide start off with something a little better than my i5. It came with a 1080 for a great price. I figure investing another 100 bucks into a 8086 is the best way to go. Good friends in the right places help. 

Currently:

R7 with core i5 8400, GTX 1080 gpu, the rest was base.

So far I picked up a m.2 NVMe 970 evo 500gb, I figured either a 8700k or 8086(basically cherry picked 8700k) with a little extra ram would give me that little extra futureproofing. 

@tarmour51 :

 I was thinking about getting an engineering sample of the 8086

 I figure investing another 100 bucks into a 8086 is the best way to go. Good friends in the right places help. 

I hope your friend isn't trying to sell you an engineering sample. If your friend works for Intel, that's a quick way of getting terminated.

@tarmour51 wrote:

I would think going with the 8086 over the 9400 would be the way to go. 8086 would be faster. And is probably even supported. LOL

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8086K is an 8th gen and was sold stock with the R7, I saw that option when I purchased mine.   And, that is what I have in mine.  Yes, it is the highest option available for the R7 from the available CPUs compatible with the current BIOs. 

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@tarmour51 wrote:

I didn't know the r7 shipped with the 8086, but I did see a bios update to support it though. What GPU are you running? Did you upgrade your ram? Any problems at all? FPS games so on?

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I have 64gb of HyperX Fury 2933, that I purchased from Amazon and an Titan Xp in my system.  The only issues I have encountered really are dealing with AWCC and OC controls.  After I got my fan profiles, LEDs, desktop sensors, etc., the way I want I'm afraid to touch any of the Dellware now.  I did change up some of the cooling hardware to address thermals though. 

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@GTS81 wrote:

 

I hope your friend isn't trying to sell you an engineering sample. If your friend works for Intel, that's a quick way of getting terminated.

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I just looked at the eBay sold history and was surprised at how much the boxed retail are going for, like almost $100 more than I paid.  I should have kept mine NISB and flipped it LOL... if only this z370 supported a 9th gen that would have been the way to go. 

Or you can save some $$$ by not upgrading the R7 now and go straight to the custom build.