ASUS Launches X99M-WS Micro-ATX Motherboard

[btarunr]

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.



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[Chaitanya]

Even though I avoid Asus products like the plague(due to pathetic after sales support) their WS and Sabertooth range of motherboards look really tempting.

 

[dj-electric]

Even though i avoid people who avoid asus like the plague, i agree with you.
Latest designs on WS and TUF series are great

 

[R-T-B]

Even though i avoid people who avoid asus like the plague, i agree with you.
Latest designs on WS and TUF series are great

Do you avoid people who avoid future ASUS purchases like the plague due to poor warranty support, but consider them overall good, well designed hardware?

 

[dj-electric]

Where i work for a living, we handle support for all types of motherboards, like it should be in any store that sells them. The fact that since Z87 they are in 1\2 ratio with other manifacturers i sell in RMA numbers is just a bonus.

 

[PLAfiller]

The fact that since Z87 they are in 1\2 ratio with other manifacturers i sell in RMA numbers is just a bonus.

You mean they have 50% less RMA's than other manifacturers?

 

[Farmer Boe]

Probably the best looking X99 board currently available.

 

[bogami]

It is hard to say that this WS ! is because does not have 4 PCI-E slots Again the PCI-E slot for M2 input that could be elsewhere .This chipset is 99 and has 40 PCI-E connections available and therefore allows 16x8x8x8. 64 gb RAM max shood be enught for RAM disc not onle for a normal job(6 gb). 16 gb minimum DDR4 set will cower any job(10Gb will be free) for the processor so dont cry more, I would like to see 8 slots but this is only useful for RAM disk, and there will be cheaper to cover the needs of loadeng with 4 SSD in RAID0, PCI-E SSD or M.2.SSD. I would like to see ROG micro ATX

 

[Petey Plane]

Yay, actual heatsinks!!! I'm so tired of the absurd looking, barely functional chunks of metal designed by someone with no actual sense of industrial design surrounding 99% of CPU sockets out there. This design is my ideal for how power circuit cooling should look.

 

[Aibohphobia]

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.

Really? Both the spec page and manual say the slots run a x16 / x8 / x4 lane allocation with the 5820K.

 

[Sabishii Hito]

Micro ATX and 4 DIMM slots very close to the socket, this could be another memory overclocking beast if it has the extra CPU pins.

 

[micropage7]

Yay, actual heatsinks!!! ! I'm so tired of the absurd looking, barely functional chunks of metal designed by someone with no actual sense of industrial design surrounding 99% of CPU sockets out there.

i prefer fins, just fins, maybe with variation. today many boards looks too much with plastic

 

[hyp36rmax]

Price? Is this a paper launch or soft launch?

 

[buildzoid]

Yay heatsinks that actually look like heatsinks.

 

[Petey Plane]

Price? Is this a paper launch or soft launch?

Based on the other WS boards, you can expect it to be at the top for MATX 2011-3 boards. I'd say $275-300. It'll probably be the most expensive MATX, for any socket, period.

It is hard to say that this WS ! is because does not have 4 PCI-E slots Again the PCI-E slot for M2 input that could be elsewhere .This chipset is 99 and has 40 PCI-E connections available and therefore allows 16x8x8x8. 64 gb RAM max shood be enught for RAM disc not onle for a normal job(6 gb). 16 gb minimum DDR4 set will cower any job(10Gb will be free) for the processor so dont cry more, I would like to see 8 slots but this is only useful for RAM disk, and there will be cheaper to cover the needs of loadeng with 4 SSD in RAID0, PCI-E SSD or M.2.SSD. I would like to see ROG micro ATX

It's a Micro ATX board. What do you expect? There is an EATX Asus 2011-3 WS board if you need 8 RAM slots and 4 PCI-16x slots. MATX cases usually only have 4 expansion anyway.

Probably the best looking X99 board currently available.

Agree, this is my ideal board (except for what i'm sure will be a very high price)

 

[bogami]

Based on the other WS boards, you can expect it to be at the top for MATX 2011-3 boards. I'd say $275-300. It'll probably be the most expensive MATX, for any socket, period.



It's a Micro ATX board. What do you expect? There is an EATX Asus 2011-3 WS board if you need 8 RAM slots and 4 PCI-16x slots. MATX cases usually only have 4 expansion anyway.



Agree, this is my ideal board (except for what i'm sure will be a very high price)

You have not understood me well. So what to expect from fools they do not look much under the PC hood (hahahah). Each solid ATX WS has 7 PCI-E slots MATX would in this case have 4. It is nonsense to assume that MATX is bad option . Dual GPU options, of the latest generation are not yet to come by ,professional option also.

 

[Aquinus]

ASUS makes good products if you never need to send it back for repair (which I think is most.) I've seen too many horror stories about ASUS RMA and hardware coming back in piss poor shape. Good thing my P9X79 Deluxe was solid. I would hate to see what kind of condition it would return to me in after RMA.

With that said, I've liked my motherboard and I can't really complain about it. In fact it has exceeded expectations. Same with the 3820.

 

[Vlada011]

Board is good, look nice, but miss one very important thing, M.2 transfer is 50-60% faster than SATA III.
On this board fast M.2 devices as Samsung SM951 can't work on full speed and that's far more important function than USB 3.1. USB 3.1 is important, yes very important, but more for some girl with small PC if she constantly save something with Flash drives and want immediately to pay 100$ for first USB 3.1 Flash.
But ASUS say Ultra Fast M.2 transfer up to 10 GB/s. That's not Ultra fast, that's same speed as SATA Express. Deluxe, Rampage, E WS offer SATA Express up to 10Gb/s and M.2 trasnfer up to 32Gb/s (Ultra Fast)
I don't know why they didn't realize that, this board only need that function ti be complete
X99 motherboard, for now only Sabertooth offer all functions, I think, if I didn't miss something.
On this X99 M WS customers no reason to look anything except normal fast SATA III SSD, nothing else.
Not even Samsung XP941 can't work here on full speed and he is 80-90% slower than SM951 NVMe. I want to remind you that for less than 6 months so fast M.2 device will be barely expensive than SATA III SSD. That mean people will find 256GB M.2 for 200-250$.
That's big flaw of this motherboard. I have impression that they don't want to offer everything on same place before Black Edition Rampage and to force people to upgrade. EVGA Micro 2 have transfer up to 32Gb/s but no PCI-Ex1 slot for Sound Card and gaming today with 700 and 1000e graphic cards with onboard sound is insane. I can't separate from my Sound Card. But again it's much easier if you install USB 5.1 Sound Card because 32Gb/s transfer you can't replace. She support or not support. For now is R5E still best board with one lapse and that's USB 3.1... They could done same with R5E as with X99 E WS/U3.1.

 

[Petey Plane]

You have not understood me well. So what to expect from fools they do not look much under the PC hood (hahahah). Each solid ATX WS has 7 PCI-E slots MATX would in this case have 4. It is nonsense to assume that MATX is bad option . Dual GPU options, of the latest generation are not yet to come by ,professional option also.

I think i get what you are saying, and the Asus MATX WS board is fine for a SLI setup, but MATX cases only have 4 slots, and i think Asus is assuming that most users aren't going to be running 3-4 way SLI, all water cooled setup (although a 3 way setup would be possible, with a custom loop). The 1x PCI is there so the M.2 socket will fit.

Also, i think you were insulting me, but i cant tell

 

[BBQ9]

I really like the look of this board.

 

[RejZoR]

I had Gigabyte boards and was not happy with them at all. Had few ASUS and they were great. So ASUS it is for me.

 

[Vlada011]

Only board I had problem is GIGABYTE too.
But some people are satisfied with them and always choose GIGABYTE boards.
I had MSI, ASUS and EVGA. Most of my boards was ASUS, but I didn't had problem with MSI and EVGA.
All my previous boards even some before 10 years still work in family or PC of my friends.
This board look very nice, X99 M WS but even nicer is when SM951 NVMe work on full speed and that will not be fastest drive in next 2-3 years.
I will keep OS Windows 10 on SM951 256GB, and games on SSD SATA III, SATA Express I don't need at all.

 

[TheBense]

Board is good, look nice, but miss one very important thing, M.2 transfer is 50-60% faster than SATA III.
On this board fast M.2 devices as Samsung SM951 can't work on full speed and that's far more important function than USB 3.1. USB 3.1 is important, yes very important, but more for some girl with small PC if she constantly save something with Flash drives and want immediately to pay 100$ for first USB 3.1 Flash.
But ASUS say Ultra Fast M.2 transfer up to 10 GB/s. That's not Ultra fast, that's same speed as SATA Express. Deluxe, Rampage, E WS offer SATA Express up to 10Gb/s and M.2 trasnfer up to 32Gb/s (Ultra Fast)
I don't know why they didn't realize that, this board only need that function ti be complete
X99 motherboard, for now only Sabertooth offer all functions, I think, if I didn't miss something.
On this X99 M WS customers no reason to look anything except normal fast SATA III SSD, nothing else.
Not even Samsung XP941 can't work here on full speed and he is 80-90% slower than SM951 NVMe. I want to remind you that for less than 6 months so fast M.2 device will be barely expensive than SATA III SSD. That mean people will find 256GB M.2 for 200-250$.
That's big flaw of this motherboard. I have impression that they don't want to offer everything on same place before Black Edition Rampage and to force people to upgrade. EVGA Micro 2 have transfer up to 32Gb/s but no PCI-Ex1 slot for Sound Card and gaming today with 700 and 1000e graphic cards with onboard sound is insane. I can't separate from my Sound Card. But again it's much easier if you install USB 5.1 Sound Card because 32Gb/s transfer you can't replace. She support or not support. For now is R5E still best board with one lapse and that's USB 3.1... They could done same with R5E as with X99 E WS/U3.1.

Then get an ASRock board that suppers the PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 Type3

My PCIe 3.0 x8 RAID controller with SSDs in RAID0 is still faster, and will still be faster.

Fortunately, I can still have both of my single slot, water-cooled GPUs connected in PCIe 3.0 x16, as well as my PCIe 3.0 x8 LSI 9310-8i RAID controller.

 

[Vlada011]

No, Rampage 5 Extreme wait me, I hope I will not wrong.
These days I try to read everything, maybe I miss something.
I made serious mistake because I didn't bought i7-5930K for 380e new fabric sealed.
Same guy had one i7-5930K and two i7-5820K for even 100e less. That's almost as i5-4690K.
And I ask him is it possible to find i7-5960X for 500e, because he had one in October and I didn't know I missed him.
Now he couldn't find and for me in that moment was same, if no 8 core and i7-5930K and i7-5820K are same for single card, both will work on 4.0GHz and that looks like wasting 100e more...
But now I figure out that I need that lanes not for graphic cards, I need that for device as Intel 750 SSD, USB 3.1 Card and Sound Card. All 3 processor was batch J Malay.
And he told me better buy i7-5930K you will sell him for same money after 1-2 years and I didn't listen.
I have no confidence in BIOS of other manufacturer except ASUS at all now.... I don't know why...
ASUS Extreme 5 support transfer up to 32Gb/s...
And I hear after ASUS other brands start to build same as OC Socket and I don't like that. Because of that I would rather go with EVGA, they have own phylosphy or ASUS who first invented OC Socket.

Look why I made mistake, with i7-5930K I could combine without problems...
Look combination and for me would not think about USB 3.1 at all...
I could build similar configuration and on any other X99 board as R5E, X99 E WS, ...

 

[Vlada011]

Waiting is finish...My new motherboard is below these DDR4 kits and processor...

Now when I finish that I expect teaser for Black Edition for 10-12h.