Overclocking and Conclusion
Overclocking
To give a feel for the overclocking performance potential of the X99-A II motherboard, we attempted to push it to known CPU-supported performance parameters with minimal tweaking. The board seemed very finicky when attempting to push the base clock speed, but we were able to get the board stable with a base clock speed of 100Mhz speed, a 4.4GHz CPU speed, a 4.0GHz ring bus speed, and a 3200MHz memory speed. All overclocking sessions remained stable for over 4hrs. System stability was tested running the AIDA64 stability test in conjunction with EVGA's OC Scanner X graphical benchmark running at 1280×1024 resolution and 8x MSAA in stress test mode. Note that 16GB (4 x 4GB) of Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4-3200 memory modules were used for the overclocking tests.
100MHz Base Clock Stats with 3200MHz Memory
Note that this is is meant only as a quick preview of the board's performance potential. With more time to tweak the settings to a greater extent, pushing to a higher base clock and ring bus speed may have been achievable, in addition to an overnight stability run without issue.
Performance
The X99-A II motherboard performed well at stock speeds with no performance-related surprises evident in any of the benchmarks nor with in any of the subsystem tests. Similar to other X99 Broadwell-enhanced motherboards, overclocking with the X99-A II was a bit trickier than with the Skylake-based version but still did not disappoint.
Pricing
As of December 28, the ASUS X99-A II motherboard was available at Amazon.com for $219.99 with Prime shipping. The board was also available from Newegg.com for $219.99 and from B&H for $239.53.
Conclusion
The ASUS X99-A II motherboard took a tried and true design in the X99-A and enhanced it with updated Crystal Sound 3 audio, USB 3.1 support, PCIe x4 U.2 port support, RGB support, and Broadwell-E processor support built-in. The board features the ASUS channel aesthetics, a simple black PCB with white colored heat sinks and trim. Further, the board features an in-built cover plate over the rear panel for added protection and looks. The board performs very well at stock speeds, but was a bit tricky to dial-in for overlocking purposes. With its ATX form factor, the board offers excellent compatibility with a wide variety of cases. Further, ASUS designed its layout in an open and uncluttered fashion.
Strengths
- Stock performance
- Overclocking potential
- Board aesthetics, layout, and design
- Motherboard manual details and quality
- UEFI BIOS design and usability
- Intel GigE network controller performance
- CMOS battery placement
- M.2 port placement
- Varied storage device support – SATA III, Sata-Express 10Gbps, PCIe x4 U.2, PCIe X4 M.2
- RGB LEDs and integrated RGB port
- Backplate over CPU VRMs for support, protection, and cooling on back of board
- Price
Weaknesses
- Challenging overclocking dial-in
I just skip to the conclusion
I just skip to the conclusion to see if ‘CMOS battery placement’ is listed as a strength or a weakness. That’s pretty much all I need to know about a motherboard.
Same here although, I can
Same here although, I can count no of times I changed CMOS battery on fingers of my hand. Still I look for CMOS battery placement on any motherboard.
Windows only is major
Windows only is major weakness to me.
Do I notice a new (at least
Do I notice a new (at least to me) type of release lever for the pcie 16 slots? How is this one activated?
If a MB maker anywhere has designed a release lever that does not require losing the skin on your hand to remove a graphics card, I would love to know about it.
I had an old motherboard with
I had an old motherboard with an AGP retention mechanism that was essentially 2 zip ties that stood up along either side of the video card, molded into the plastic slot if I remember correctly, and then a little plastic “8” went over both to cinch down the pcb.
newish, of a sorts. It the
newish, of a sorts. It the same standard push-down release (triangular in shape) at the lower end of the PCIe slot with an embedded LED for RGB "glowy" support. Thus, the clear color of the plastic tab 🙂