Could you make more clear that while all the fan headers will power a PWM fan only the CPU headers actually function in PWM mode?
You can look in the manual and see that all the Chassis headers are +5V on the fourth pin (100% duty cycle) and is using only voltage on the second pin for speed control. Of the Asus X99 boards only the Extreme has PWM control on all headers.
Asus is bragging about the "OC Socket" in their X99 motherboards, but so far it seems like snake oil. Any further comment beyond what was in the Deluxe review?
I know both PWM and DC fans can be controlled, but is there an actual PWM signal on the 4th pin?
The ROG Z97 boards were supposed to be full PWM control too but the Maximus VII Impact manual was updated in October and it still shows +5V on the 4th pin for the chassis headers as well.
Z97-WS can control PWM-fans using PWM signal, since I connect multiple fans to the same chassis header via the splitter which takes power from a Molex plug, and PWM signal from the motherboard, and RPM control works. I would assume X99 motherboards have the same functionality. Must be an error in the user manual.
There is full pwm and dc mode on the headers - user selectable(it is a pwm signal on the pin when pwm mode is set for the header). The manual is wrong and needs correcting.
Awesome, that's great to hear. I got both a EVGA and Gigabyte X99 board recently and I was disappointed to find both had only PWM on the CPU header. I'll look forward to possibly switching back to Asus in the future.
What's with the Gigabyte board's horrible score in the 2nd Rightmark Audio test? There're a pair of **'s on the graphic implying a footnote explanation; but I can't find one.
I would be interested in that too... it though seems like malfunctioned product judging by values presented. It would be also nice to see comparison with dedicated sound cards both synthetically and on ear test. I have yet to hear an integrated audio that doesn't sound terrible if you try to play it on a higher range amplifier (Hi-Fi/audiophile) and speakers (with appropriate cables). But that can hardly be evaluated objectively, we all hear a bit different.
Probably an awesome board for $200, but I agree with the conclusion: just not worth it for $250+ when $300-$350 gets you a way nicer board. We're already talking supercar-class with the X99 platform as it is so why penny pinch when building a $1000+ PC. If you're building a Ferrari, build a Ferrari.
Just did a built with an X99-A myself. With the prices available to me the X99 Deluxe is ~60% more expensive than the X99-A and seems to only offer a lot of crap that i dont need in comparison? How does it make my desktop PC more "Ferrari" by having WiFi, extra ethernet ports or more storage options, especially when i have no need of them?
I disagree, it supports X16 X16 for sli and plus X8 for tri and solution: I have this board and with the Asus app it overclocked my cpu to 4.6 all cores stable.. and it had x4 for m.2 so that's great in the future... I picked it overs cause of the Asus name and features that I needed..
Out of curiosity, could you provide some details on that 4.6 OC? Is it "stable" or Prime95 stable, and what voltage did you need? I am on air, and have only managed 4.3@1.175V with my 5820k, and only in combination with setting a Turbo Boost TDP limit (otherwise i cannot run Prime95 succesfully)
Sup sir, well the application did it's thing and increase the vcore to 1.3 and I ran prime95.. with that said I took it back to 4.4 cause the antech 650 wasn't cooling it to the level I want... I run simulations for a hobby of the universe so can't have the pc crash on me cause of heat
I did a build with this board for my brother and was able to overclock the 5820K to 4700 using the 5 way optimization. I used the Corsair H100i for cooling the cpu. This board is the best price point for those that do not need wifi, extra lan port and other extra features that are in the deluxe version. I agree with you that the deluxe version adds more features that a lot of people have no need for. I have a z87-pro board and never use the wifi.
No. Look at the pictures; 6 blue (3.0) and 4 black (2.0) USB ports.
Until Intel goes all USB3 on it chipset, most boards with many ports are either going to do a mix of both types, fake it with hub chips, or both. And since the Skylake Leaks indicate we'll probably still be mixed USB (or hub) on higher end boards (midrange will probably be able to go all 3.0); it's probably going to be 2017 until USB3.x becomes ubiquitous.
You said this board doesn't implement Multicore Turbo but its specs does says Intel Turbo boost supported. Could you elaborate more on this. Does this means it will get turbo boosted for single core only? 8 cores active can not get turbo boosted?
This most likely means turbo boost is behaving as Intel said it should, more cores active, lower the frequency (for 5960x and all cores its usually 3-3.2ghz). Multicore turbo usually gets you highest turbo frequency for all cores (so it would leave it 3.5ghz@16threads if temperatures allow it).
Great article. I was ready to buy one until I saw the post times. 20+ seconds is horrible. My two year old Surface and one year laptop with Haswell post in 2-3 seconds and their CPUs are much slower. And my 5+ year old system is twice as fast posting. I thought EFI BIOS were supposed to be significantly faster and I expected newer machines to be faster. Have manufacturers explained the severe slowness? Are these new motherboards any faster with Windows 8?
POST is the time spend *before* the boot loader starts your OS. In general, the more stuff that needs to be started up, the longer it will take to POST; however, I suspect that an additional factor vs Z97 boards which post in half the time is that more effort has been put into optimizing performance for the mass market product than for something that's mostly used in servers/etc where it's a much less important factor.
I am aware that POST time is pre-OS, and all the times I stated are POST only. The OS loads in around 10 seconds so most of my systems boot faster than the X99 motherboards POST. Do you think these boards would POST faster with Windows 8? I thought systems that were Windows 8 aware were able to skip part of POST or at least do something differently.
I also agree that POST and boot times in servers tends not to be that important but I don't think these boards are for servers, which don't need the ability to run with multiple graphics cards or to overclock. Do you not think that 20+ second POST times are extremely long for computers nowadays?
No. Your OS has nothing, and can have nothing, to do with POST time because your OS doesn't get involved until the POST is complete. It doesn't matter if you're running Windows 8. or Windows 7, or Windows 3.11, or Linux, or BSD, or BeOS.
What Win8 does is to only partially shutdown by default when you turn it off. It closes down everything in userspace and then hibernates the kernel. Then when you power on, after the computer POSTs, and after the boot loader starts win8, win8 just unhibernates the kernel and restarts userland; which is faster than starting the OS from scratch. This also only helps if you're someone who turns his computer off on a regular basis instead of just leaving it up until the next patch tuesday; because in that case the patches require restarting the kernel.
These boards aren't going into servers; but 99% of consumer boards are LGA1150; which is where the OEMs put their effort. LGA2011 is an entry level server product; and 99% of the chipsets for them go into servers where it doesn't matter.
X99 is too small a market to justify any sort of performance tuning; the boards are already a lot more expensive than z97 because the tiny number of boards that are sold means there's not much to spread the engineering costs for the board layout over. If you wanted to lift the base price of the boards another $100+ each it might be possible to optimize the startup times down to the same 10s ballpark of z97. You'll probably never see desktop boards get down to the 1-3s range of thin laptops/tablets because the latter have so much less stuff to enable, and everything that they need to turn on and since everything is soldiered and non-replacable they can encode all the settings into the firmware instead of having to detect the components and determine how to configure them every time they're powered on.
"In terms of performance the system does not implement Multicore Turbo, meaning that stock performance is down compared to some other products but a simple click on the TPU switch avoids this with a small 3.9 GHz overclock" .I can syncronise all cores for turbo in BIOS and when CPU is under load all 8cores works on 3,5GHZ in stock config without OC.
Very simply go to Adavnce mode in BIOS.Then Ai tweaker menu.You will see there CPU core ratio select from auto to "sync all cores".And thats it from this point all eight cores always work under load at 3,5GHZ instead of standard Intel turbo. Dont forget set under CPU settings C states from auto to "enabled".This will downclock CPU when idle.You dont want have always in idle all cores at 3,5GHZ:-)
And what is best when you have sync all cores you can under Windows on Ai suite set higher ratio to all ocres too and have overclocked all cores together.My CPU is stable at 3,7GHZ all cores synced with stock voltages.I can go further and higher but at higher freq 3,8+ i need put voltages higher which i dont want.Iam good with small moderate OC at 3,7GHZ for all cores with stock voltages and low temps.
Hey! I just recently bought a Asus x99-A/3.1 and im wondering if i can connect a thunderbolt ex II card onto it? from what i can read at the Asus homepage it is not compatible... Thanks in advance!
I´ve used this card in my new rig for a couple of months now together with i75820, and have Antec Kuhler watercooling, using it together with the new ASUS STRIX GTX980ti 6GB Gaming, and both gaming and other more demanding tasks, as photo editing etc, runs exceptionally smooth. I can´t really see the point in shelling out for a deluxe-version for maybe 100$ more, thinking that it will seriously outperform this card in most processes. Overclocking this is a joy, watercooling should certainly be used in that case. Highly recommended!
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37 Comments
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Aibohphobia - Monday, December 22, 2014 - link
Could you make more clear that while all the fan headers will power a PWM fan only the CPU headers actually function in PWM mode?You can look in the manual and see that all the Chassis headers are +5V on the fourth pin (100% duty cycle) and is using only voltage on the second pin for speed control. Of the Asus X99 boards only the Extreme has PWM control on all headers.
GeorgeH - Monday, December 22, 2014 - link
Asus is bragging about the "OC Socket" in their X99 motherboards, but so far it seems like snake oil. Any further comment beyond what was in the Deluxe review?Rajinder Gill - Monday, December 22, 2014 - link
The manual needs updating. Full PWM and DC control is offered on all CPU and chassis fan headers on the ASUS X99 series.-Raja
Aibohphobia - Monday, December 22, 2014 - link
I know both PWM and DC fans can be controlled, but is there an actual PWM signal on the 4th pin?The ROG Z97 boards were supposed to be full PWM control too but the Maximus VII Impact manual was updated in October and it still shows +5V on the 4th pin for the chassis headers as well.
vred - Monday, December 22, 2014 - link
Z97-WS can control PWM-fans using PWM signal, since I connect multiple fans to the same chassis header via the splitter which takes power from a Molex plug, and PWM signal from the motherboard, and RPM control works. I would assume X99 motherboards have the same functionality. Must be an error in the user manual.Rajinder Gill - Tuesday, December 23, 2014 - link
There is full pwm and dc mode on the headers - user selectable(it is a pwm signal on the pin when pwm mode is set for the header). The manual is wrong and needs correcting.Aibohphobia - Tuesday, December 23, 2014 - link
Awesome, that's great to hear. I got both a EVGA and Gigabyte X99 board recently and I was disappointed to find both had only PWM on the CPU header. I'll look forward to possibly switching back to Asus in the future.Grayfenix - Friday, January 9, 2015 - link
That is incorrect. All fan headers are capable of pwm. Switching back and forth in bios now.DanNeely - Monday, December 22, 2014 - link
What's with the Gigabyte board's horrible score in the 2nd Rightmark Audio test? There're a pair of **'s on the graphic implying a footnote explanation; but I can't find one.HollyDOL - Tuesday, December 23, 2014 - link
I would be interested in that too... it though seems like malfunctioned product judging by values presented.It would be also nice to see comparison with dedicated sound cards both synthetically and on ear test. I have yet to hear an integrated audio that doesn't sound terrible if you try to play it on a higher range amplifier (Hi-Fi/audiophile) and speakers (with appropriate cables). But that can hardly be evaluated objectively, we all hear a bit different.
Samus - Tuesday, December 23, 2014 - link
Probably an awesome board for $200, but I agree with the conclusion: just not worth it for $250+ when $300-$350 gets you a way nicer board. We're already talking supercar-class with the X99 platform as it is so why penny pinch when building a $1000+ PC. If you're building a Ferrari, build a Ferrari.ziphnor - Tuesday, December 23, 2014 - link
Just did a built with an X99-A myself. With the prices available to me the X99 Deluxe is ~60% more expensive than the X99-A and seems to only offer a lot of crap that i dont need in comparison? How does it make my desktop PC more "Ferrari" by having WiFi, extra ethernet ports or more storage options, especially when i have no need of them?SuperVeloce - Tuesday, December 23, 2014 - link
I agree. This is a spot on board for something like 5820k and single gpu setup.dcoca - Tuesday, December 23, 2014 - link
I disagree, it supports X16 X16 for sli and plus X8 for tri and solution: I have this board and with the Asus app it overclocked my cpu to 4.6 all cores stable.. and it had x4 for m.2 so that's great in the future... I picked it overs cause of the Asus name and features that I needed..dcoca - Tuesday, December 23, 2014 - link
That should of read AMD solution...ziphnor - Friday, December 26, 2014 - link
Out of curiosity, could you provide some details on that 4.6 OC? Is it "stable" or Prime95 stable, and what voltage did you need? I am on air, and have only managed 4.3@1.175V with my 5820k, and only in combination with setting a Turbo Boost TDP limit (otherwise i cannot run Prime95 succesfully)dcoca - Friday, January 9, 2015 - link
Sup sir, well the application did it's thing and increase the vcore to 1.3 and I ran prime95.. with that said I took it back to 4.4 cause the antech 650 wasn't cooling it to the level I want... I run simulations for a hobby of the universe so can't have the pc crash on me cause of heatR3MF - Tuesday, December 23, 2014 - link
agreed, what i did with the MSI X99 SLI-pluspaesan - Wednesday, December 24, 2014 - link
I did a build with this board for my brother and was able to overclock the 5820K to 4700 using the 5 way optimization. I used the Corsair H100i for cooling the cpu. This board is the best price point for those that do not need wifi, extra lan port and other extra features that are in the deluxe version. I agree with you that the deluxe version adds more features that a lot of people have no need for. I have a z87-pro board and never use the wifi.R3fug388 - Tuesday, December 23, 2014 - link
The bottom of the first page, where you mention the 4 USB 2.0 on the back panel. Is that a typo? Is it supposed to be USB 3.0?DanNeely - Tuesday, December 23, 2014 - link
No. Look at the pictures; 6 blue (3.0) and 4 black (2.0) USB ports.Until Intel goes all USB3 on it chipset, most boards with many ports are either going to do a mix of both types, fake it with hub chips, or both. And since the Skylake Leaks indicate we'll probably still be mixed USB (or hub) on higher end boards (midrange will probably be able to go all 3.0); it's probably going to be 2017 until USB3.x becomes ubiquitous.
kenshinco - Tuesday, December 23, 2014 - link
You said this board doesn't implement Multicore Turbo but its specs does says Intel Turbo boost supported. Could you elaborate more on this.Does this means it will get turbo boosted for single core only? 8 cores active can not get turbo boosted?
SuperVeloce - Wednesday, December 24, 2014 - link
This most likely means turbo boost is behaving as Intel said it should, more cores active, lower the frequency (for 5960x and all cores its usually 3-3.2ghz). Multicore turbo usually gets you highest turbo frequency for all cores (so it would leave it 3.5ghz@16threads if temperatures allow it).dcoca - Friday, January 9, 2015 - link
I have this board and Multicore is there in the bios with the opt for all cores or per core...EricCC - Wednesday, December 24, 2014 - link
Great article. I was ready to buy one until I saw the post times. 20+ seconds is horrible. My two year old Surface and one year laptop with Haswell post in 2-3 seconds and their CPUs are much slower. And my 5+ year old system is twice as fast posting.I thought EFI BIOS were supposed to be significantly faster and I expected newer machines to be faster. Have manufacturers explained the severe slowness?
Are these new motherboards any faster with Windows 8?
EricCC - Wednesday, December 24, 2014 - link
i should have said, any faster POSTING with Windows 8?DanNeely - Wednesday, December 24, 2014 - link
POST is the time spend *before* the boot loader starts your OS. In general, the more stuff that needs to be started up, the longer it will take to POST; however, I suspect that an additional factor vs Z97 boards which post in half the time is that more effort has been put into optimizing performance for the mass market product than for something that's mostly used in servers/etc where it's a much less important factor.EricCC - Thursday, December 25, 2014 - link
I am aware that POST time is pre-OS, and all the times I stated are POST only. The OS loads in around 10 seconds so most of my systems boot faster than the X99 motherboards POST. Do you think these boards would POST faster with Windows 8? I thought systems that were Windows 8 aware were able to skip part of POST or at least do something differently.I also agree that POST and boot times in servers tends not to be that important but I don't think these boards are for servers, which don't need the ability to run with multiple graphics cards or to overclock.
Do you not think that 20+ second POST times are extremely long for computers nowadays?
DanNeely - Thursday, December 25, 2014 - link
No. Your OS has nothing, and can have nothing, to do with POST time because your OS doesn't get involved until the POST is complete. It doesn't matter if you're running Windows 8. or Windows 7, or Windows 3.11, or Linux, or BSD, or BeOS.What Win8 does is to only partially shutdown by default when you turn it off. It closes down everything in userspace and then hibernates the kernel. Then when you power on, after the computer POSTs, and after the boot loader starts win8, win8 just unhibernates the kernel and restarts userland; which is faster than starting the OS from scratch. This also only helps if you're someone who turns his computer off on a regular basis instead of just leaving it up until the next patch tuesday; because in that case the patches require restarting the kernel.
These boards aren't going into servers; but 99% of consumer boards are LGA1150; which is where the OEMs put their effort. LGA2011 is an entry level server product; and 99% of the chipsets for them go into servers where it doesn't matter.
X99 is too small a market to justify any sort of performance tuning; the boards are already a lot more expensive than z97 because the tiny number of boards that are sold means there's not much to spread the engineering costs for the board layout over. If you wanted to lift the base price of the boards another $100+ each it might be possible to optimize the startup times down to the same 10s ballpark of z97. You'll probably never see desktop boards get down to the 1-3s range of thin laptops/tablets because the latter have so much less stuff to enable, and everything that they need to turn on and since everything is soldiered and non-replacable they can encode all the settings into the firmware instead of having to detect the components and determine how to configure them every time they're powered on.
ziphnor - Friday, December 26, 2014 - link
The X99-A BIOS is full of options that allow faster POST (like not looking for other drives than the boot drive etc). So it can probably be tweaked.stambous - Friday, December 26, 2014 - link
"In terms of performance the system does not implement Multicore Turbo, meaning that stock performance is down compared to some other products but a simple click on the TPU switch avoids this with a small 3.9 GHz overclock".I can syncronise all cores for turbo in BIOS and when CPU is under load all 8cores works on 3,5GHZ in stock config without OC.
kenshinco - Monday, December 29, 2014 - link
...and how did you do it? What settings did you set?stambous - Friday, January 2, 2015 - link
Very simply go to Adavnce mode in BIOS.Then Ai tweaker menu.You will see there CPU core ratio select from auto to "sync all cores".And thats it from this point all eight cores always work under load at 3,5GHZ instead of standard Intel turbo.Dont forget set under CPU settings C states from auto to "enabled".This will downclock CPU when idle.You dont want have always in idle all cores at 3,5GHZ:-)
stambous - Friday, January 2, 2015 - link
And what is best when you have sync all cores you can under Windows on Ai suite set higher ratio to all ocres too and have overclocked all cores together.My CPU is stable at 3,7GHZ all cores synced with stock voltages.I can go further and higher but at higher freq 3,8+ i need put voltages higher which i dont want.Iam good with small moderate OC at 3,7GHZ for all cores with stock voltages and low temps.microline - Saturday, July 4, 2015 - link
Will this board support Windows r2 Server OS?Endre18 - Monday, July 20, 2015 - link
Hey!I just recently bought a Asus x99-A/3.1 and im wondering if i can connect a thunderbolt ex II card onto it?
from what i can read at the Asus homepage it is not compatible...
Thanks in advance!
Equinox--- - Thursday, August 20, 2015 - link
I´ve used this card in my new rig for a couple of months now together with i75820, and have Antec Kuhler watercooling, using it together with the new ASUS STRIX GTX980ti 6GB Gaming, and both gaming and other more demanding tasks, as photo editing etc, runs exceptionally smooth. I can´t really see the point in shelling out for a deluxe-version for maybe 100$ more, thinking that it will seriously outperform this card in most processes. Overclocking this is a joy, watercooling should certainly be used in that case.Highly recommended!