Friday, August 15th 2014
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ASRock Shows Off Its X99 WS LGA2011 Motherboard
With two more weeks left to the official launch of Haswell-E and the X99 chipset, ASRock decided to reveal another one of its X99-based boards, the 'workstation level' X99 WS. Seen below, the upcoming LGA2011 motherboard makes use of the Super Alloy technology (extra large aluminum alloy heatsinks, premium alloy chokes, dual-stack MOSFET, 12K platinum capacitors) and features eight DDR4 slots allowing up to 128 GB of RAM, ten SATA 6.0 Gbps ports, one Ultra M.2 (PCIe 3.0 x4) connector and no less than six PCIe x16 slots (SLI and CrossFire are supported).
The X99 WS also has dual Intel Gigabit Ethernet, Purity Sound 2 7.1 channel audio, one eSATA port, four USB 3.0 connectors, and a debut LED. Unfortunately ASRock hasn't shared any info regarding the board's price tag.
The X99 WS also has dual Intel Gigabit Ethernet, Purity Sound 2 7.1 channel audio, one eSATA port, four USB 3.0 connectors, and a debut LED. Unfortunately ASRock hasn't shared any info regarding the board's price tag.
15 Comments on ASRock Shows Off Its X99 WS LGA2011 Motherboard
ASRock also needs to get with the times and ditch Molex power connectors in favour of PCIe ones. PWM fan connectors are also way overdue.
The colors aren't bad, however I don't like the gold caps against the color of the rest of the board.
A PCIe power connector is superior in all ways to a Molex power connector in this application because it provides the same voltage required but allows higher current and is easier to connect.
You are right, it's a small amount that is needed, but many boards skimp on this. Tried and tested by the gurus pushing the records.
Also, DP connectivity uses 3.3V, it's not just idle. So when you build big Eyefinity systems...
it takes less hardware, and board heat, switching down from 5V to 3.3V instead of 12V down to 3.3V.
Also ,when connecting many VGAs, the number of available PCIe power plugs can be an issue, where MOLEX connectors aren't used so much, making them the better choice for those that build high-end multi-GPU systems.
Put couple RAID cards inside and off you go... but I'm still not impressed by X99 thing. Will wait for tests, but I doubt we'll see some real progress CPU-wise.