Monday, July 27th 2015
ASUS Launches X99M-WS Micro-ATX Motherboard
ASUS formally launched the X99M-WS, a socket LGA2011v3 motherboard based on Intel X99 Express chipset, which it first showcased back in June, at Computex 2015. ASUS claims that this workstation-class motherboard is the most feature-rich X99-based product in the micro-ATX form-factor. The board supports Core i7 "Haswell-E" processors, in addition to certain Xeon E5 v3 series models. The board draws power from a combination of 24-pin ATX, two 8-pin EPS, and 6-pin PCIe power connectors. It uses an 8-phase VRM to condition power for the CPU, and 2+2 phase VRM for the memory. The board features four DDR4 DIMM slots, supporting up to 64 GB of quad-channel DDR4 memory.
Expansion slots on the X99M-WS include three PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots (permanent x16/x16/x8 or x8/x8/x8 when i7-5820 is used), and one PCIe x1. Storage connectivity includes eight SATA 6 Gb/s, and one M.2 32 Gb/s slot. Networking is care of two gigabit Ethernet interfaces (both driven by Intel I210 controllers), and one 802.11 ac + Bluetooth 4.0 WLAN interface. USB connectivity includes two USB 3.1 ports (both type-A), six USB 3.0 ports, and a number of USB 2.0/1.1 ports. 8-channel ASUS CrystalSound 2 audio, and an optional PIKE SAS module, make for the rest of it.
Expansion slots on the X99M-WS include three PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots (permanent x16/x16/x8 or x8/x8/x8 when i7-5820 is used), and one PCIe x1. Storage connectivity includes eight SATA 6 Gb/s, and one M.2 32 Gb/s slot. Networking is care of two gigabit Ethernet interfaces (both driven by Intel I210 controllers), and one 802.11 ac + Bluetooth 4.0 WLAN interface. USB connectivity includes two USB 3.1 ports (both type-A), six USB 3.0 ports, and a number of USB 2.0/1.1 ports. 8-channel ASUS CrystalSound 2 audio, and an optional PIKE SAS module, make for the rest of it.