ASUS X99-E WS Motherboard Pictured and Priced

[Cristian_25H]

Among ASUS' soon-to-be-released line of X99-based motherboards workstation users will be able to find one product made specifically for them, the X99-E WS. This new ATX board offers support for both Core i7 5xxx Series and Xeon E5 processors and includes no less than seven PCI-Express x16 slots for SLI or CrossFireX setups.

The X99-E WS also has eight DDR4 memory slots, one SATA Express connector, eight SATA 6.0 Gbps ports, dual Gigabit Ethernet, Crystal Sound 2 7.1-channel audio, ten USB 3.0 and two eSATA ports, a Q-Code logger button, 12K solid capacitors, and ProCool power connectors. ASUS' motherboard is said to have a MSRP of $519 but it can be found listed at $499.



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[Breit]

Not enough features for 500 bucks... (read: way too expensive!)

 

[NutZInTheHead]

Not enough features for 500 bucks... (read: way too expensive!)

The point of this board is not to have too many features but to deliver exceptional quality far beyond any other ASUS board including the ROG brand. After all this is a workstation board.

 

[utengineer]

Not enough features for 500 bucks... (read: way too expensive!)

7 PCIE on new socket. I'll give them $600.

 

[Durvelle27]

 

[The Von Matrices]

Not enough features for 500 bucks... (read: way too expensive!)

Lower the price? Yes, that would be nice, but low prices were never the intention of the X99 platform in the first place.

If it was kept a $500, what features would you actually want that this board does not have? Wi-Fi and Thunderbolt are the only two I can think of and they won't actually be used by most of the buyers.

 

[Breit]

10GigE would be nice...

The problem is not the price itself, it is what you get for that!
And I really doubt that the ROG board for X99 will be lower quality... (but perhaps it will cost even more?!)

 

[Maban]

Considering the cheapest single port 10GbE NIC on Newegg is $215 I don't really see that happening. These WS boards really should be considered to be in the same class as the ROG boards. They are very similar in potential.

14 USB3 ports is a little excessive. I don't really see much need for more than the native six ports.

 

[Assimilator]

14 USB3 ports is a little excessive. I don't really see much need for more than the native six ports.

For a workstation-class product at this price point, a plethora of extra controllers isn't excessive.

Anyway, Z77 had 4 native USB3 ports, Z87 had 6, Z97 still has 6, X99 still has 6. We should really be at at least 8 or even better, 10 USB 3 native ports. I'm hoping Skylake will resolve this, but given that Intel's no longer innovating, just iterating (thanks AMD for blowing goats), I'm not holding my breath.

 

[Breit]

Considering the cheapest single port 10GbE NIC on Newegg is $215 I don't really see that happening. These WS boards really should be considered to be in the same class as the ROG boards. They are very similar in potential.

14 USB3 ports is a little excessive. I don't really see much need for more than the native six ports.

Remember the SuperMicro X9DRH-7TF? Sure it is last-gen S2011, but it is definitely Workstation, has dual-socket 2011 for Intel XEON IVB-E (v2) CPUs and also has dual-port Intel x540 10GigE!! And the best part: It costs ~650€ around here...
There even is the SuperMicro X9SRH-7TF for ~460€ with support for only one CPU and dual-port Intel x540.
So I guess ~500€ is not too much for a board with only one socket AND 10GigE?!

Thunderbolt implementation as a standard feature is also long overdue in the PC space at least for the high end.