Features and Motherboard Layout
Features
Courtesy of ASUS
- Ultimate micro-ATX graphics power – Accommodates dual PCI Express 3.0 graphics cards at x16 speed
- 3×3 (3T3R) 802.11ac Wi-Fi – Fastest onboard Wi-Fi up to 1300Mb/s
- The latest 10Gb/s USB 3.1 – Built into the board-twice as fast USB 3.0
- 5-Way Optimization by Dual Intelligent Processors 5 – One click, total system optimization
- Supreme Power Solution – Premium components deliver industry-leading power efficiency
Motherboard Layout
The ASUS X99-M WS motherboard features a two-toned black color design with chrome accented heat sink and heat pipes, giving the board a clean and modern appearance. The CPU VRMs are cooled by heat pipe-connected black-colored heat sinks, with the Intel X99 chipset cooled by a stand-alone heat sink.
The back of the X99-E WS board has small chips all around the backside of it, with the largest exposed chip being the ASUS EPU chipset located beneath PCIe slot 3. The exposed VRM circuitry along the left side of the CPU socket, as well as the circuitry to the upper right of the socket backplate, could pose issues when using a cooler requiring a backplate.
The X99-M WS motherboard features the following ports integrated into its rear panel assembly: a dual-purpose PS/2 port, four USB 3.0 ports tied to the Intel Z170 controller, two USB 3.1 Type-A ports tied to ASMedia controller, two USB 2.0 ports, two RJ-45 ports tied to the Intel GigE controllers (I218-LM port is the right side port, the I210-AT port is the left side port port), three antennae ports tied to the Atheros 802.11ac WiFi controller, BIOS FlashBack button, an optical audio port, and five analogue audio ports. The lower USB 2.0 port located just PS/2 port can be used in conjunction with the USB BIOS Flashback function.
The USB BIOS Flashback button can be used to re-flash the BIOS without having to boot the system into the UEFI BIOS interface or DOS. Simply plug in a USB drive containing the proper BIOS file in the root of the drive into the lower USB 3.0 port located to the left of the audio port upright and press the button for 3 seconds until the integrated LED begins to flash. As the BIOS is updated, the LED flashing frequency increases. Once the LED goes out, the flash operation is completed and the board can be booted. Note that if the BIOS Flashback LED flashes for 5 seconds and then glows solid, it means that something went wrong with the flashback operation. Check the USB drive for the the BIOS file in the root and make sure that the BIOS file is named correctly. BIOS Flashback looks for a specific filename and file format when attempting to replace the on-board BIOS. According to the user manual, the BIOS file in the root of the flash drive must be named X99MWS.CAP for the BIOS Flashback applet to successfully re-flash the board's BIOS.
The X99-M WS motherboard has a total of four PCI-Express device ports, three PCIe x16 slots and a PCIe x1 slot. For the PCIe x16 slots, the board supports full x16 bandwidth with a single or dual cards, and x16 / x16 / x8 with a three cards seated in the board. If using an LGA2011-v3 CPU with only 28 PCIe lanes, PCIe bandwidth is reduced to x16 / x8 in dual card configuration and x16 / x8 / x4 in tri-card configuration.
The integrated PCIe M.2 slot is seated just below the PCIe x1 slot, in between the primary and secondary PCIe x16 slots. The M.2 port accepts up PCIe type M.2 SSDs up to 80mm in length, but operates at a maximum bandwidth of PCIe x2.
ASUS integrate the latest revision of their workstation line audio solution into the X99-M WS motherboard, dubbed Crystal Sound 2. The audio subsystem was designed on an isolated PCB to minimize line-noise and distortion from other integrated components. The front panel audio and S/PDIF output headers are located in the lower left corner of the audio PCB, to the left of the audio chipset.
In the upper left quadrant of the board (and along the outer edge of the tertiary PCIe x16 slot) are the front panel audio header, the S/PDIF output header, a serial port header, and the 2-digit diagnostic LED. The 2-digit diagnostic display can be used for debugging system issues during system initialization. The displayed debug codes can be decoded using the table from the motherboard manual.
The trusted module port header, the clear CMOS button, a USB 2.0 port header, and temperature sensor header are located along the lower outside edge of the third PCIe x16 slot.
A temperature sensor header, a USB 2.0 header, chassis fan and temperature headers, front panel control header, DirectKey header, chassis intrusion header, and chassis fan control and CPU overvolt jumpers are located in the lower left corner of the board. The DirectKey header can be connected to a case button, triggering direct board boot in to the UEFI BIOS on next reboot. The chassis fan control jumper sets the on-board chassis fan headers for DC fan operation (pins 1/2 jumpered) or PWM fan operation (pins 2/3 jumpered). The CPU overvolt jumper increases the maximum CPU voltage when enabled (pins 2/3 jumpered).
The Intel X99 chipset is covered by a large low-profile, blushed-aluminum heat sink with the ASUS corporate logo on its surface.
ASUS designed the X99-M WS board with a total of eight SATA 6 Gb/s ports, all controlled by the Intel X99 chipset.
The four integrated DDR4 memory slots are located directly above and below the CPU socket with support for up to 64GB of memory across all slots. Quad Channel memory mode is enabled with memory modules seated in all on-board slots. Note that memory speeds above 2133MHz are considered overclocked speeds and are outside of the official Intel stock memory speed specifications.
To the lower left of the lower set of DIMM slots are the X99-controlled USB 3.0 header, the CMOS battery, a chassis fan header, and the EPU and EZ XMP switch. The EPU switch enables BIOS controlled power consumption optimization. The EZ XMP switch allows you to activate the memory XMP speed and setting specifications when enabled, overriding any current active BIOS settings.
To the right of the lower set of DIMM slots are the TPU switch, the MemOK!, power and reset buttons, a chassis fan header, and the debug header (VRM_TEST_SW100). The debug header is used for board validation during factory testing. The MemOK! button can be used to reset memory-related BIOS settings to defaults, useful when the system doesn't boot because of memory options set over-aggressively. The TPU switch enables BIOS assisted overclocking with two modes available. In mode 1, only the CPU ratio is changed. In mode 2, both the CPU ratio and the base clock value are changed.
To the upper left of the upper set of DIMM slots are the PCI power header and a chassis fan header. The PCIe power header can be used to supply additional power to the PCIe bus when using multiple PCI x16 video cards with the board. The power port accepts a 6-pin PCIe-style power connector (used to power video cards normally) from your PSU.
The CPU socket area is clear of obstructions. The chokes tied to the 8-phase power delivery system are to the right of the CPU socket with the VRM heat sink along the board's right-most edge. The chokes and VRM heat sink are placed far enough back from the CPU socket assembly to not interfere with CPU cooler mounting.
To the lower left the CPU socket are the CPU 4-pin fan headers, offering two connections for use with multi-fan CPU coolers or liquid-based systems requiring extra header-based power connections.
The board's dual 8-pin ATX12V power connectors sit outside of the VRM heat sink, along the board's edge.
Those finned heatsinks used
Those finned heatsinks used to cool VRM are really neat. Its hard to see those good old finned heatsinks on recent motherboards.
on page 2 -> “ASUS designed
on page 2 -> “ASUS designed the X99-M WS board with a total of eight SATA 6 Gb/s ports, all controlled by the Intel Z170 chipset.”
it should rather be X99 chipset 😉
Agree.
Appears to be a typo
Agree.
Appears to be a typo on the “Features and Motherboard Layout” page where “[…] 6 Gb/s ports, all controlled by the Intel Z170 chipset. […]” should say X99 chipset. As far as I know, ASUS hasn’t made any revision to the chipset.
You are correct, thanks for
You are correct, thanks for pointing it out. So much for my iron clad review methods…
I’ve built a pc with this
I’ve built a pc with this mobo. I love the board. Only down side would be the fact that older m.2 (x2, not 32gbps) was used.
Totally agree, I’m looking
Totally agree, I’m looking forward to build a small powerful system, and this motherboard would have been great, but the m.2 slot is already dated and lagging behind current SSDs.
If you are only using one
If you are only using one video card, I would think that you could get an m.2 to PCIe adaptor card for about $20 to $30. For full speed you would need to use one of the x16 or x8 slots, either of which would prevent use of a second video card unless you have a single slot card.
i hope to correct your
i hope to correct your confusion here. m.2 is a slot, and ssd is a type of storage. m.2 theoretically can reach a transfer rate of 32 gb/s. On the other hand, the most common form of today’s ssd in computer main storage ultiliszes the sata III slot that reaches a transfer rate of 6 gb/s. PCIe based ssd will reach the same performance as m.2. The storage board that you use for m.2 slot is ssd too. sata 3 is slower but not lagging behind anything because sata 4 doesn’t not exist and the use of PCIe is slowly replacing sata. m.2 is faster than sata. which ssd drives were you referring to? please understand the logic of form and function.
Thank you Morry Teitelman for
Thank you Morry Teitelman for the Review! Been waiting for it 🙂
Wow, I didn’t know the antenna came with it 🙂
Does this board support Dual Channel memory if only using a Dual Channel memory kit of 2 sticks or more? My understanding was that this board only supports Quad. If it supports both, what are the pros and cons? You didn’t go in much details when OC the memory.
What is your opinion on the OC socket compared to the competitors options? Did you feel it provided better stability?
Thanks 🙂
It appears to only have 3
It appears to only have 3 PCIe X16/8, but supports Quad SLI?
That’s a neat trick.
Its supports Quad SLI when
Its supports Quad SLI when using two dual GPU cards…
Ah, i totally forgot about
Ah, i totally forgot about that.
As always unique &
As always unique & interesting perspective from Morry.
Sadly board is a bit hit and miss. mATX is not exactly good for advanced RAID setups (and I don’t mean 2 SSDs in non-redundant ‘RAID’ 0 on chipset controller because that’s how most home users see RAID) or anything in general except SLI/CF. One of the things I don’t get it. “WS” doesn’t equal SLI/CF gaming machine.
Can’t slap more than one RAID card as it’ll be totally impossible to provide enough cooling to keep RoC cool (unless liquid cooled, but still not enough space for 2 controllers or expander). Even with less power-hungry HBAs for drive pools 1 card is max.
WS moniker with mATX/mITX boards is a bit overinflated. It’s not very good at everything workstation should do or at least be prepared to do. That’s why I just read ‘micro/mini’ reviews for flavor sake. Definitively not my cup of tea. But if your “workstation” is a gaming one, go ahead. 😀
Hello
thank very much Morry
Hello
thank very much Morry for the review and also the review of the big X99-WS board, I know it is very late, but I had to disconnect my internet for a few months for the sake of passing in college *sigh*
One more I have one little parts question: does the add-in card stack up against the onboard 3.1 ?
Is there a board similar to
Is there a board similar to this but with the m.2 x4?
The only x99 mATX board that
The only x99 mATX board that I know of is the EVGA X99 Micro2, here:
http://www.evga.com/Products/Product.aspx?pn=131-HE-E095-KR
What about the two ASRock
What about the two ASRock boards? They also feature M.2 with PCIe 3.0 x4 bandwidth.
ASRock X99M Extreme4:
http://asrock.com/mb/Intel/X99M%20Extreme4/index.us.asp
ASRock Fatal1ty X99M Killer/3.1:
http://asrock.com/mb/Intel/Fatal1ty%20X99M%20Killer3.1/index.us.asp
Asus is really testing my
Asus is really testing my loyalty, not releasing an x99 ROG branded MATX mobo. I’m in love with my Fractal Define Mini, and refuse to change it.
Maybe they should do a
Maybe they should do a refresh on x99 platform and remove that useless data exspress port. It’s what’s kept me from upgrading my x79 rig something bout useless tech on board bugs me too much to buy in why I waiting for z170ws but it’s $600 cnd atm a gut punch at that price.maybe kabby lake will cause a refresh and data exspress will go the way of FireWire,and be ripped of chipset and outa BIOS.
Not sure that I follow what
Not sure that I follow what you’re saying.
As far as I know, this board doesn’t support sata express ports. It does have a lot of sata ports to support multiple raid setup.
Which they believe is more important on a WS board than fewer high performance data transferring storage drives.
Weaknesses
*Lack of
It does have an integrated CMOS clear switch. It’s the red button situated beneath the lower PCI-E x16 slot.