It's nice to see that these motherboards support Xeon CPUs. Though, does anybody know if Haswell-E Xeons are overclockable? Probably not, but it is nice to know that you can upgrade your machine with 8-Core Xeon in a few years cheaply when big data centers start getting rid of them while upgrading to something new (similar to what is happening to Nehalem/Westmere Xeons now).
Usually some of the 16xx series have some leeway, but the larger 26xx are definitely locked down. I've managed 107 MHz BCLK from an E5 2697 v3, but YMMV.
That's probably because the 5960x runs at 3.0-3.5ghz stock while the 4790k runs 4.0-4.4ghz stock so if it is single threaded MHz limited, then the 4790k can run 14%-47% faster than the 5960x can at stock settings.
Minimum frame rate results are always tricky. If the system software initiates something critical in the foreground and causes a single frame to falter, then the whole minimum frame rate is reduced. That's why I'm not always too keen on reporting them, but have them included for completeness.
The single thread speed is also another aspect, also depending on the cache orientation of the CPU, it might cause a frame or two to load faster/slower than others, again causing that one frame drop.
Given that this is more common across the Haswell-E line, compared to Haswell, it might be something that fundamental.
I had always thought MSI was a top tier vendor of MB and GPU's but after my gtx 8800 "malfunctioned," back when they were the best available, and then my z87 mpower MSI MB headers fall apart, and OC's at higher voltages compared to my z87 gigabyte ud5h and is hotter at the same voltages. It made me think about it, and MSI is very similar in marketing style as XFX. They are both usually heavy on rebates, and very cheap for the amount of product you get. But they lack quality. None of my XFX cards perform as well as their Asus/EVGA/Gigabyte counterparts. I now put them in the same tier as ECS and Biostar. The MSI board OC'd performance being less seemed more of the same, and I was expecting as much. Until something drastically changes, I'll only use Asus/Gigabyte/Asrock.
That's unfortunate.. however you do have to keep in mind that these are sensitive electronic components. I've had boards fail by all the major companies. It happens.. I had 3 dead boards in the Genie Rog Asus series all out of the first batch that came in (7 in total) did it stop me from using Asus? No.. again it happens. Had loose heatsinks dead chipset fans, a capacitor that fell off.. ugh.. Still if I dropped all the companies where that had happened I'd not have any companies to turn to lol.
Msi is doing a lot of good things these days and their easily right up there with Gigabyte and Asus.
For review time, these are the samples we were sourced. Not every model is available for review, depending on how the manufacturer wants to focus on different titles. We asked MSI what their most popular/consumer focused board would be in terms of numbers, and they seem really pleased internally with the SLI Plus.
The only people who buy "Gaming" boards are the gullible who like bling and think that the KillerNIC is something desirable to have, rather than the liability it actually is.
Unless the "Gaming" board happens to be cheaper, which happens a lot because I don't think they sell that great. Damn Killer NICs, just give me Intel and be done with it. Killer started off as nothing but marketing and since they've were bought out by Qualcomm they're just remarked Qualcomm parts with tweaked drivers. MSI's "Gaming" line is a really cynical take on the whole affair, it's just their regular boards with red highlights and (only on some models) a few small IC changes.
Sounds like the Asus X99-A is the one for me. It keeps all the good stuff about the X99-Deluxe and saves $125. I don't need so many SATA or USB ports, I don't need wifi or dual GbE. I get the pile of fan headers and great sound, BIOS, and overclocking. Now I just need to know where the sweet spot is for memory count, speed, and timings. I suspect that's next on Ian's list.
Great roundup review. ASUS is falling lately. Did you guys heard about the burnt motherboard that their X99 had? I wonder how many people have this issue.
i have the MSI x99s sli plus and its great. its beautiful and feels premium. http://imgur.com/Q7u6qjD not sure why the article say its not for overclockers. i overclocked my i7 5820k to 4.6ghz easily and its running stable. i don't need so many extra ports or wifi. at $230, its a great value for such an awesome board.
Ian never said the MSI board wouldn't overclock, just that an unidentified bug causes its overclocked performance to be significantly lower than the other boards. based upon the results, putting your same CPU in the other boards would make it perform CPU 4.5% faster; alternatively, you would have to clock your CPU to 4.8GHz in the MSI board to match the 4.6GHz overclocks in the other boards.
This review had the opposite result. The MSI board was able to perform even better than the others overclocked. It's disappointing but sometimes we just get bad boards.
The bit-tech review has the CPU in the MSI board overclocked higher than the other boards, which would reasonably would make it perform better. The problem that Ian experienced is not that the board couldn't overclock the CPU; it's that at the same clock speed, the MSI board is significantly slower than its competitors, and the bit-tech results do not replicate Ian's circumstances since they have different overclocks on each CPU on each board.
Very unfair to MSI to select top of the line boards for the other manufacturers and a bottom of the stack from MSI. The SLI Plus is a value edition at best so spare me an explanation.
"Due to the way the motherboard manufacturers were sampling for X99, we were unable to align several motherboards of a similar price." If you had actually read the article you may have not come across as a love struck fanboy.
Apparently you failed to notice (no doubt because you didn't read the article) that the MSI was gicven a "Recommended" award. Explanation: you are a tool.
Once again Asus is on top. Their bios is the best designed with the best features. It's why my x58 board is an asus rampage formula. I'm gonna stay with x58 tho rather get a 55" LG oled TV
For the price of the ASUS board plus a 5820K CPU you could have any of the other boards plus a 5930K CPU, which would negate any performance advantage of the ASUS board. The ASUS board is only worth considering if price is no object, which from my experience seems to describe most LGA2011 buyers.
Or u can save up for alittle while longer and get the Asus board AND the 5930k AND be faster yet again. Round and round we go. Although it's much easier to chg a CPU rather than a whole motherboard.
Point is No matter what better is better....but not necessarily at the same price point. Tho I don't think $500 is a lot of money for enthusiasts to spend on PC parts. Especially essential ones. Being a flagship motherboard it's not exactly geared toward budget builders anyway....ie ppl concerned with performance per dollar. They want the best....period.
Personally I don't think $500 is a lot of money myself for a part i probably won't be replacing anytime soon.
On the Intel Motherboards, there was an onboard speaker. It was useful for hearing problems with Ram, Gpu, overheat, Fan fail... I don't see any speaker on these motherboards...
"This means that with a 40 PCIe lane CPU, a user has to choose between tri-GPU (x16/x16/x8) + M.2 x2 from the chipset, or 2x GPU (x16/x16) + M.2 x4. 5820K users will get M.2 x4 in any configuration (x16/x8, x8/x8/x8)."
Do I understand this to mean that the same M.2 slot will switch between PCIe 2.0 PCH lanes and PCIe 3.0 CPU lanes depending on whether the last PCIe slot is used, and that 5820K users will always get PCIe 3.0 M.2 because the last PCIEe slot is not available for use at all?
Further from this; using a 5820k can i only use two PCIe slots if I want to maintain the first slot with 16x for the GPU, or are some of the slots run from the PCH and thus not affected by this.
I quite like the idea of a single GPU system (with 3.0 16x), a PCIe USB TypeC expansion card (with 3.0 4x), and possibly a third PCIe slot for a sound card. Is that possible with this board?
X79 supports 4-12 core processors rather than 4-6, that you have listed. I.E. For example the Asus Sabertooth X79 supports the 8-core Xeon E5-2640 v2 and the 10-core Xeon E5-2650L v2 as well as the 12-core Xeon E5-2697 v2.
Granted, consumers won't be running those Xeons, but the point stands, that you're not only limited to 4-6 cores on x79.
It's ironic because ALL Sandy-Bridge-E processors were actually 8-core processors, with 2 cores disabled, which helped with cooling due to the larger die meeting with the heat spreader. Ivy Bridge-E however Intel reduced the core count down to 6.
Except for the 3820K, that is a native quad core die. In moving to Ivy/22nm the base die for LGA 2011 went from 4 core to 6 core, and so for Ivy E all the CPU's were based on just the low end 6 core die, vs Sandy where they needed to use the 8 core die to get 6 cores.
I really hope you guys get an ASUS X99-E WS in to run through its paces. Some nice boards here, but just not in the same league feature and layout-wise.
I have seen similar comments about this. The SOC Force LN2 board in that article is typically a limited run for extreme overclockers at GIGABYTE sponsored events. At this point we're not even sure exactly what ASUS or GIGABYTE is doing with the extra pins, or if they're doing different things with them. I have the standard SOC Force motherboard here, the one that end-users can buy, and it is using the standard X99 socket.
After reading the following: http://www.legitreviews.com/intel-x99-motherboard-... Is it worth recommendation from Anadtech? Almost 1 month has passed without Asus solving the problem. What's good about this M/B unable to certain hours operations(^^)
BTW, MSI M/B also has an issue. http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&... Both of these M/B happened to be recommended by Anand over the other two: AsRock & Giga. What does it mean? I personally likes AsRock X99 WS which seems Asus X99-E WS w/o PLX.
Is there a reason the motherboards with moulded shapes over the various I/O ports don't include the I/O shield built-in? I hate adding those damned things; seems unnecessary if your motherboard is shaped around the ports already.
Also, it seems really lazy to not check what changing the MSI load line calibration setting would actually do if changed. "This is quite odd. It would seem the efficiency of the MSI motherboard when overclocked is somehow stunted..." vdroop is supposed to be part of the Intel specification and load line calibration defeats it, right? So, it looks like there is your answer. Auto isn't the optimal setting.
Also, if you tested these motherboards in the order you reviewed the overclocking results in, you may have fatigued the chip which explains why the results kept getting worse.
My ten X99 ultra Workstations will have the upcoming Maxwell based Nvidia Quadro and Tesla cards? I'm also evaluating Firepro W9100 card too. I don't know if there will be Maxwell based Titan Black (II or whatever name)?
Five builds will have Xeon E5-2680 v3 (more like due to price/performance) or Xeon E5-2690 v3 Five builds will have i7-5760X CPUs
I never used Asrock WS boards earlier, but have many Asus WS boards (X79/Z97). So, what do you think of Asrock WS over Asus X99-E WS in the given configuration above?
Yeah, all Xeon workstations will have Intel P3700 NVMe storage solution. Also, I'm pondering on Synology DiskStation DS2413+ for 48TB NAS solution using WD Red Pro HDDs for those planned ten X99 builds.
Hence, what do you think about those two boards?
3) Did you observe any PCI-e 3.0 limitations/bottleneck on those two boards? Asus X99-E board has 16-four lanes solution? Please clarify on this count.
HELLO PLEASE HELP ME I have one , and i install O.S windows server 2012R2 ,and install all drivers correctly EXCEPT LAN driver , any one can help me in this BIG Problem. THANKS
If you want to build the next gen PC, go for this one. => Yes And the game later then 2015 soon will required DDR4 ?? To get better performance ? => I dunno and not so sure. These X99 already overkill
So if I have the GA-X99-UD4 Motherboard with the I7 5820k Chip and then two way sli(2x980gtx) will the x16x8 rather then x16x16 i would get with a higher i7 core actually make any difference in performance? Also, does that extra card make any performance difference running at only x8? Thanks!!
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62 Comments
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nathanddrews - Thursday, September 25, 2014 - link
So which system will serve as the new 2015 gaming review platform? Also, OC + GTX 980 OC Quad-SLI? ;-)techxx - Thursday, September 25, 2014 - link
Why are these things so damn expensive? I was hoping for a Mini-ITX for low $100s.Flunk - Thursday, September 25, 2014 - link
X99 is the workstation/enthusiate platform. You're not likely to see any mini-ITX boards at all, certainly not for $100. Maybe you're thinking of Z97?techxx - Thursday, September 25, 2014 - link
Was right about to correct my post. Yup.Ian Cutress - Thursday, September 25, 2014 - link
We recently reviewed three Z97 mini-ITX at $140 :) http://anandtech.com/show/8276/z97-miniitx-review-...BubbaJoe TBoneMalone - Thursday, September 25, 2014 - link
ASUS Shadowcat x99 mini-itx with usb 3.1 in the works -> http://rog.asus.com/325712014/asus-gaming-motherbo...korben44 - Thursday, September 25, 2014 - link
Sorry, but that Shadowcat is not X99... X99 CPUs do not have onboard graphics chips...editorsorgtfo - Sunday, May 17, 2015 - link
ASRock X99E-ITX/ac but at around 300.just4U - Thursday, September 25, 2014 - link
I'd like to see what they have on the go for MATX.y2kBug - Thursday, September 25, 2014 - link
It's nice to see that these motherboards support Xeon CPUs. Though, does anybody know if Haswell-E Xeons are overclockable? Probably not, but it is nice to know that you can upgrade your machine with 8-Core Xeon in a few years cheaply when big data centers start getting rid of them while upgrading to something new (similar to what is happening to Nehalem/Westmere Xeons now).Ian Cutress - Friday, September 26, 2014 - link
Usually some of the 16xx series have some leeway, but the larger 26xx are definitely locked down. I've managed 107 MHz BCLK from an E5 2697 v3, but YMMV.halcyon - Thursday, September 25, 2014 - link
Is this correct:http://i.imgur.com/3AgxLfs.png
bebimbap - Thursday, September 25, 2014 - link
That's probably because the 5960x runs at 3.0-3.5ghz stock while the 4790k runs 4.0-4.4ghz stockso if it is single threaded MHz limited, then the 4790k can run 14%-47% faster than the 5960x can at stock settings.
Ian Cutress - Friday, September 26, 2014 - link
Minimum frame rate results are always tricky. If the system software initiates something critical in the foreground and causes a single frame to falter, then the whole minimum frame rate is reduced. That's why I'm not always too keen on reporting them, but have them included for completeness.The single thread speed is also another aspect, also depending on the cache orientation of the CPU, it might cause a frame or two to load faster/slower than others, again causing that one frame drop.
Given that this is more common across the Haswell-E line, compared to Haswell, it might be something that fundamental.
bebimbap - Thursday, September 25, 2014 - link
I had always thought MSI was a top tier vendor of MB and GPU's but after my gtx 8800 "malfunctioned," back when they were the best available, and then my z87 mpower MSI MB headers fall apart, and OC's at higher voltages compared to my z87 gigabyte ud5h and is hotter at the same voltages. It made me think about it, and MSI is very similar in marketing style as XFX. They are both usually heavy on rebates, and very cheap for the amount of product you get. But they lack quality. None of my XFX cards perform as well as their Asus/EVGA/Gigabyte counterparts. I now put them in the same tier as ECS and Biostar.The MSI board OC'd performance being less seemed more of the same, and I was expecting as much. Until something drastically changes, I'll only use Asus/Gigabyte/Asrock.
just4U - Thursday, September 25, 2014 - link
That's unfortunate.. however you do have to keep in mind that these are sensitive electronic components. I've had boards fail by all the major companies. It happens.. I had 3 dead boards in the Genie Rog Asus series all out of the first batch that came in (7 in total) did it stop me from using Asus? No.. again it happens. Had loose heatsinks dead chipset fans, a capacitor that fell off.. ugh.. Still if I dropped all the companies where that had happened I'd not have any companies to turn to lol.Msi is doing a lot of good things these days and their easily right up there with Gigabyte and Asus.
CFTheDragon - Thursday, September 25, 2014 - link
Why is there not the MSI X99 Gaming in the review? Is anyone really going to buy the normal version and not the Gaming one for a X99 build?Ian Cutress - Friday, September 26, 2014 - link
For review time, these are the samples we were sourced. Not every model is available for review, depending on how the manufacturer wants to focus on different titles. We asked MSI what their most popular/consumer focused board would be in terms of numbers, and they seem really pleased internally with the SLI Plus.The_Assimilator - Friday, September 26, 2014 - link
The only people who buy "Gaming" boards are the gullible who like bling and think that the KillerNIC is something desirable to have, rather than the liability it actually is.Flunk - Friday, September 26, 2014 - link
Unless the "Gaming" board happens to be cheaper, which happens a lot because I don't think they sell that great. Damn Killer NICs, just give me Intel and be done with it. Killer started off as nothing but marketing and since they've were bought out by Qualcomm they're just remarked Qualcomm parts with tweaked drivers. MSI's "Gaming" line is a really cynical take on the whole affair, it's just their regular boards with red highlights and (only on some models) a few small IC changes.biostud - Thursday, September 25, 2014 - link
ASUS also has the X99-A at launch, at least here in Europe.isa - Thursday, September 25, 2014 - link
Ian, thanks for a great job overall on this article. I especially appreciated your clarity on how the PCIe and M.2 configs work.SanX - Thursday, September 25, 2014 - link
+1SanX - Friday, September 26, 2014 - link
Ian is on Liquid Nitrogen.The Monster-review :-)
icrf - Thursday, September 25, 2014 - link
Sounds like the Asus X99-A is the one for me. It keeps all the good stuff about the X99-Deluxe and saves $125. I don't need so many SATA or USB ports, I don't need wifi or dual GbE. I get the pile of fan headers and great sound, BIOS, and overclocking. Now I just need to know where the sweet spot is for memory count, speed, and timings. I suspect that's next on Ian's list.Eyeshield21 - Thursday, September 25, 2014 - link
Great roundup review. ASUS is falling lately. Did you guys heard about the burnt motherboard that their X99 had? I wonder how many people have this issue.The Von Matrices - Friday, September 26, 2014 - link
So somehow you have determined it is a great roundup without even reading the first page?The_Assimilator - Friday, September 26, 2014 - link
This is a really poor anti-ASUS shill comment.xunknownx - Thursday, September 25, 2014 - link
i have the MSI x99s sli plus and its great. its beautiful and feels premium. http://imgur.com/Q7u6qjDnot sure why the article say its not for overclockers. i overclocked my i7 5820k to 4.6ghz easily and its running stable. i don't need so many extra ports or wifi. at $230, its a great value for such an awesome board.
jay401 - Thursday, September 25, 2014 - link
Because then you won't spend twice the price for a more expensive board.The Von Matrices - Friday, September 26, 2014 - link
Ian never said the MSI board wouldn't overclock, just that an unidentified bug causes its overclocked performance to be significantly lower than the other boards. based upon the results, putting your same CPU in the other boards would make it perform CPU 4.5% faster; alternatively, you would have to clock your CPU to 4.8GHz in the MSI board to match the 4.6GHz overclocks in the other boards.woj666 - Friday, September 26, 2014 - link
This review had the opposite result. The MSI board was able to perform even better than the others overclocked. It's disappointing but sometimes we just get bad boards.http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2014/09/09/x99-mo...
The Von Matrices - Saturday, September 27, 2014 - link
The bit-tech review has the CPU in the MSI board overclocked higher than the other boards, which would reasonably would make it perform better. The problem that Ian experienced is not that the board couldn't overclock the CPU; it's that at the same clock speed, the MSI board is significantly slower than its competitors, and the bit-tech results do not replicate Ian's circumstances since they have different overclocks on each CPU on each board.just4U - Thursday, September 25, 2014 - link
From the article "I have had failures in the past (Bluetooth adaptor shorting out, DRAM or PCIe slots not working, PSU going BANG… twice) "----
I was half-cut trying to install ram at 4am.. in near darkness, the combination turned into a epic fail..
owcraftsman - Thursday, September 25, 2014 - link
Very unfair to MSI to select top of the line boards for the other manufacturers and a bottom of the stack from MSI. The SLI Plus is a value edition at best so spare me an explanation.bigboxes - Friday, September 26, 2014 - link
"Due to the way the motherboard manufacturers were sampling for X99, we were unable to align several motherboards of a similar price." If you had actually read the article you may have not come across as a love struck fanboy.The_Assimilator - Friday, September 26, 2014 - link
Apparently you failed to notice (no doubt because you didn't read the article) that the MSI was gicven a "Recommended" award. Explanation: you are a tool.Laststop311 - Friday, September 26, 2014 - link
Once again Asus is on top. Their bios is the best designed with the best features. It's why my x58 board is an asus rampage formula. I'm gonna stay with x58 tho rather get a 55" LG oled TVThe Von Matrices - Saturday, September 27, 2014 - link
For the price of the ASUS board plus a 5820K CPU you could have any of the other boards plus a 5930K CPU, which would negate any performance advantage of the ASUS board. The ASUS board is only worth considering if price is no object, which from my experience seems to describe most LGA2011 buyers.Dadunn1700 - Tuesday, August 25, 2015 - link
Or u can save up for alittle while longer and get the Asus board AND the 5930k AND be faster yet again. Round and round we go. Although it's much easier to chg a CPU rather than a whole motherboard.Point is No matter what better is better....but not necessarily at the same price point. Tho I don't think $500 is a lot of money for enthusiasts to spend on PC parts. Especially essential ones. Being a flagship motherboard it's not exactly geared toward budget builders anyway....ie ppl concerned with performance per dollar. They want the best....period.
Personally I don't think $500 is a lot of money myself for a part i probably won't be replacing anytime soon.
StephaneP - Friday, September 26, 2014 - link
On the Intel Motherboards, there was an onboard speaker. It was useful for hearing problems with Ram, Gpu, overheat, Fan fail...I don't see any speaker on these motherboards...
R3MF - Friday, September 26, 2014 - link
Re: the MSI X99S SLI Plus -"This means that with a 40 PCIe lane CPU, a user has to choose between tri-GPU (x16/x16/x8) + M.2 x2 from the chipset, or 2x GPU (x16/x16) + M.2 x4. 5820K users will get M.2 x4 in any configuration (x16/x8, x8/x8/x8)."
Do I understand this to mean that the same M.2 slot will switch between PCIe 2.0 PCH lanes and PCIe 3.0 CPU lanes depending on whether the last PCIe slot is used, and that 5820K users will always get PCIe 3.0 M.2 because the last PCIEe slot is not available for use at all?
Further from this; using a 5820k can i only use two PCIe slots if I want to maintain the first slot with 16x for the GPU, or are some of the slots run from the PCH and thus not affected by this.
I quite like the idea of a single GPU system (with 3.0 16x), a PCIe USB TypeC expansion card (with 3.0 4x), and possibly a third PCIe slot for a sound card. Is that possible with this board?
Thanks, great article.
Infn - Friday, September 26, 2014 - link
So purely performance-wise I still don't have much reason to upgrade from my 4.5ghz 3930K on X79. Is there anything on the horizon that will?woj666 - Friday, September 26, 2014 - link
Nope. You hit a great sweet spot with that system. Keep upgrading your GPU and you'll last a long time.StevoLincolnite - Friday, September 26, 2014 - link
Might want to update this article.X79 supports 4-12 core processors rather than 4-6, that you have listed.
I.E. For example the Asus Sabertooth X79 supports the 8-core Xeon E5-2640 v2 and the 10-core Xeon E5-2650L v2 as well as the 12-core Xeon E5-2697 v2.
Granted, consumers won't be running those Xeons, but the point stands, that you're not only limited to 4-6 cores on x79.
It's ironic because ALL Sandy-Bridge-E processors were actually 8-core processors, with 2 cores disabled, which helped with cooling due to the larger die meeting with the heat spreader.
Ivy Bridge-E however Intel reduced the core count down to 6.
extide - Saturday, September 27, 2014 - link
Except for the 3820K, that is a native quad core die. In moving to Ivy/22nm the base die for LGA 2011 went from 4 core to 6 core, and so for Ivy E all the CPU's were based on just the low end 6 core die, vs Sandy where they needed to use the 8 core die to get 6 cores.ludikraut - Friday, September 26, 2014 - link
I really hope you guys get an ASUS X99-E WS in to run through its paces. Some nice boards here, but just not in the same league feature and layout-wise.l8r)
Ian Cutress - Sunday, September 28, 2014 - link
I've made a note :) Going to try and clear the backlog so we can get some others in!Etern205 - Friday, September 26, 2014 - link
Sorry for the derail of this article, but has anyone notice Gigabyte also using some type of OC socket just like the Asus.http://www.legitreviews.com/gigabyte-ga-x99-soc-fo...
Ian Cutress - Sunday, September 28, 2014 - link
I have seen similar comments about this. The SOC Force LN2 board in that article is typically a limited run for extreme overclockers at GIGABYTE sponsored events. At this point we're not even sure exactly what ASUS or GIGABYTE is doing with the extra pins, or if they're doing different things with them. I have the standard SOC Force motherboard here, the one that end-users can buy, and it is using the standard X99 socket.gostan - Friday, September 26, 2014 - link
feel like I'm transported back to 2001good job AT!
xunknownx - Saturday, September 27, 2014 - link
what settings on povray is being used in this article? i would love to compare my results against theirs.todo1 - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
X79 supports TRIPLE CHANNEL DDR3, not quad!I don't how it is even possible to make such a mistake?!?
tyaiyama - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
After reading the following:http://www.legitreviews.com/intel-x99-motherboard-...
Is it worth recommendation from Anadtech? Almost 1 month has passed without Asus solving the problem. What's good about this M/B unable to certain hours operations(^^)
tyaiyama - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
BTW, MSI M/B also has an issue.http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&...
Both of these M/B happened to be recommended by Anand over the other two: AsRock & Giga. What does it mean? I personally likes AsRock X99 WS which seems Asus X99-E WS w/o PLX.
Haravikk - Thursday, October 2, 2014 - link
Is there a reason the motherboards with moulded shapes over the various I/O ports don't include the I/O shield built-in? I hate adding those damned things; seems unnecessary if your motherboard is shaped around the ports already.Oxford Guy - Saturday, October 4, 2014 - link
Power phases?Also, it seems really lazy to not check what changing the MSI load line calibration setting would actually do if changed. "This is quite odd. It would seem the efficiency of the MSI motherboard when overclocked is somehow stunted..." vdroop is supposed to be part of the Intel specification and load line calibration defeats it, right? So, it looks like there is your answer. Auto isn't the optimal setting.
Also, if you tested these motherboards in the order you reviewed the overclocking results in, you may have fatigued the chip which explains why the results kept getting worse.
woj666 - Monday, October 6, 2014 - link
Agreed, it seems very obvious that that Load Line Calibration setting of "auto" on this MSI board is in fact quite aggressive and applying vboost as described here http://www.anandtech.com/show/2404/5 and here http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/24019-load-lin...The OC section of this article is not comparing apples to apples as the default LLC settings are not the same for the different boards.
akula2 - Tuesday, October 14, 2014 - link
It was a great review, appreciate it very much.1) why Asus X99-E WS is missing out of action?
2) Asus X99-E WS ($510) or Asrock X99 WS ($310)?
My ten X99 ultra Workstations will have the upcoming Maxwell based Nvidia Quadro and Tesla cards? I'm also evaluating Firepro W9100 card too. I don't know if there will be Maxwell based Titan Black (II or whatever name)?
Five builds will have Xeon E5-2680 v3 (more like due to price/performance) or Xeon E5-2690 v3
Five builds will have i7-5760X CPUs
I never used Asrock WS boards earlier, but have many Asus WS boards (X79/Z97). So, what do you think of Asrock WS over Asus X99-E WS in the given configuration above?
Yeah, all Xeon workstations will have Intel P3700 NVMe storage solution. Also, I'm pondering on Synology DiskStation DS2413+ for 48TB NAS solution using WD Red Pro HDDs for those planned ten X99 builds.
Hence, what do you think about those two boards?
3) Did you observe any PCI-e 3.0 limitations/bottleneck on those two boards? Asus X99-E board has 16-four lanes solution? Please clarify on this count.
Thank you
eng.michael - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
HELLOPLEASE HELP ME
I have one , and i install O.S windows server 2012R2 ,and install all drivers correctly EXCEPT LAN driver , any one can help me in this BIG Problem.
THANKS
hunterx2210 - Monday, August 10, 2015 - link
If you want to build the next gen PC, go for this one. => YesAnd the game later then 2015 soon will required DDR4 ?? To get better performance ? => I dunno and not so sure. These X99 already overkill
Grimmy347 - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link
So if I have the GA-X99-UD4 Motherboard with the I7 5820k Chip and then two way sli(2x980gtx) will the x16x8 rather then x16x16 i would get with a higher i7 core actually make any difference in performance? Also, does that extra card make any performance difference running at only x8? Thanks!!