ASRock announced its latest high-end socket LGA2011v3 motherboard for enthusiast PC/workstation builds, the X99 WS-E. Built in the EATX form-factor, this board is driven by Intel X99 Express chipset, and can run the company's Core i7 "Haswell-E" HEDT, and Xeon E5-2600 series "Haswell-EP" processors, out of the box. The board draws power from a 24-pin ATX, an 8-pin EPS, and two optional 4-pin Molex connectors. It offers a 12-phase CPU VRM, and a 4-phase memory VRM. The CPU socket is wired to eight DDR4 DIMM slots, which can seat up to 128 GB of quad-channel memory.

Expansion slots include seven PCI-Express 3.0 x16. The board features two PLX PEX-8747 bridge chips, which take in two x16 links from the CPU, and turn them into a total of four Gen 3.0 x16 slots that run at x16 bandwidth all the time. A third PCIe 3.0 x8 slot from the CPU is directly wired out. Both these PEX-8747 chips have bypass slots, so if you have just two VGA cards and want direct paths between them and the CPU, you can have it your way. Storage includes a total of 10 SATA 6 Gb/s ports driven by the PCH, from which two convert to a single SATA-Express connector, two additional 6 Gb/s ports from a Marvell-made controller, and an M.2 (physical PCIe 2.0 x4) slot.Other connectivity includes two gigabit Ethernet connections, driven by Intel I210AT controllers that support teaming, eight USB 3.0 ports (four at the rear panel, and four by headers), one eSATA 6 Gb/s, and ASRock Purity 2 onboard audio (Realtek ALC1150 CODEC with 115 dBA SNR, Ti Burr-Brown NE5532 headphones amplifier, Nichicon audio-grade electrolytic capacitors, EMI shielding, and PCB ground-layer isolation). The board's VRM uses 60A solid chokes, dual-N MOSFETs, and 12K hours rated solid-state capacitors. Other features include dual-BIOS (manual switching between the two EEPROMs), POST LED display, and a feature-rich UEFI setup program. ASRock didn't announce pricing.