ASUS today introduced a new model of motherboard WS X299 PRO, which as it indicates. Also, it is a model designed for Workstations. The new X299 board has the same LGA-2066 socket that we would find on the other boards of this chipset. Users of this motherboard can install from the powerful 18-core Skylake-X processors to even more humble four-core Kaby Lake-X architecture processors. Although account must be taken of the dual-channel memory limitations of the latter with only four of the eight DIMMs available to them.
ASUS unveils new WS X299 PRO motherboard
The new motherboard has four PCIe 3.0 x16 slots, though the fourth slot is just below the third slot preventing four-way multi-GPU systems from being installed unless we use single-slot graphics cards. Also, they have added an open PCIe 3.0 x4 slot as an optional slot. The motherboard has two M.2 slots with an included heatsink, 6 SATA 3 ports and one U.2 port as storage options.
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Regarding power, the new workstation motherboard has an 8-phase power design that connects through two 8-pin EPS connectors. Also, while we observe throughout the motherboard the use of Dark Caps and Nichicon capacitors for the audio. The CPU power zone has a heatsink attached to a heat pipe to a second heatsink. That cools the phases of the memories.
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The audio of the motherboard will be run by a Realtek A1220S. While the network seems to have a dual Gigabit network. In general, it appears that the board has dropped quite a lot regarding power and performance compared to its predecessor’s chipset X99 and X79. So we should expect a lower price in the environment of between 300 to 400 € for this new model.