[News/Review] Asus X99-E-10G WS Motherboard Review

[StyM]

https://www.servethehome.com/asus-x9...rboard-review/

The X99-E-10G WS brings new 10G network capability to the table which will boost transfer times of large files between 10G storage solutions and the workstation. Users should expect to see 10x faster transfers of data across a 10GbE network. In the past we would need to add in a 10GbE PCIe network card to achieve this, now 10G is built right into the motherboard which frees up PCIe slots for more GPU?s. We expect the trend to include 10GbE support on motherboards to continue. As working files become larger, faster networks will become more commonplace.

The ASUS X99-E-10G WS a suggested retail price of $650 for this board (verified with Amazon as of the time of this writing.) Considering that a Dual port Intel X550-AT2 10 Gbit expansion card would cost upwards of $300 or more adding this network feature does add a significant amount to the cost of this motherboard. On the other hand, we are starting to see 10GbE as a mandatory feature for STH readers in the near future. Switch technology has brought the networking costs to extremely reasonable levels.

[Chrono Detector]

Could really use more USB ports though, though the board layout looks sleek and nice.

[NEOAethyr]

Awesome looking board.
My issues though:
Only 1 bios chip, and the location of it.
The location/distance of the battery from the bios chip.
The crumby cpu power setup they do on every board excluding the extreme's and black editions :\, no tat's are what I'm talking about.
The not so great i/o plate design/layout.

Oh and the last one, the memory slot locations / distance form the top pci-e slot, depending on what ram you got in there it can totally get jammed in there real good, I've done it on my black edition a few times now, it gets real close to breaking the slots when you try to unjam it, let alone for the smd resistors on the sticks themselves, haven't had those pop off on me yet, actually ever really, but I had gotten enough 2nd hand sticks with them busted off so it's something else I look out for.
But anyways those mem slots, you have to take out your vga card just to mess around with the mem, one stick is missing, oh, take the whole darned thing apart again and try again... .
The flimsy loseness of the slots don't really help either, though it may protect the mem from damage, it feels like the slots are gonna split in half.
The missing latch, a so called feature , makes you / me anyways, wonder if the mem is even in right half the time.
That's how I feel about it.

Don't much care for the chipset heatsink, it's better then alot of other boards, but a flat design is a poor design for a heatsink.
It needs pins / or square fins or something to make it actually work as a heatsink...
The bridge chip stuff is kinda lame, I wonder if it can be bypassed when you use certain slots.

Other then that, personally, I would like it if asus concentrated on these ws boards as the top tier ones, instead of the extreme and black editions.
I feel like it's back in the early 90's, that board cost's to little to have a full slot setup...
If I had seen my board back then, I would of asked myself, why did you get the cheap board?
I would of had to reply it's the cpu..., blah blah lol.