ASUS, EVGA, Gigabyte And MSI Release X299 Motherboards

rgMekanic

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HotHardware has compiled a roundup of the upcoming X299 motherboards from ASUS, EVGA, Gigabyte and MSI with some pricing. Most of these boards are available to pre-order now to get ready for your new i9 build.

Ever since hearing that Skylake-X and Kaby Lake-X processors would share the same socket and chipset, I've been thinking that motherboard pricing was going to be fairly high in order to incorporate all the various technologies onto the same board. It appears my worries were correct when in the lineup the cheapest motherboard is $260, and we have no pricing on high end enthusiast boards.

Preorders are currently underway for Intel's new Core X-Series processors, which range from the quad-core, quad-thread Core i5-7640X ($242) to the 8-core, 36-thread Core i9-7980XE ($1,999). These new Skylake-X and Kaby Lake-X processors require a brand-new chipset, the X299, and motherboard manufacturers have responded by providing a number of new offerings hitting multiple price points.
 
The boards that have metal covering all around the pci-e slots, does that effect cooling in anyway?

And holy crap all that RGB, hope that can be disabled in the bios
 
I for one love that EVGA made a board with no LEDs called DARK.
I so much prefer that to the look which seems to be all the rage which is about as subtle as a stripper's wardrobe.

Now that I've said that, why not make an ELITE STRIPPER X-TREME POWER model? It blasts Cherry Pie upon startup instead of a POST beep and projects lively colors on the ceiling.
 
I for one love that EVGA made a board with no LEDs called DARK.
I so much prefer that to the look which seems to be all the rage which is about as subtle as a stripper's wardrobe.

Now that I've said that, why not make an ELITE STRIPPER X-TREME POWER model? It blasts Cherry Pie upon startup instead of a POST beep and projects lively colors on the ceiling.

Leds can be done nicely IMO. Here's an example I made recently that I'm fond of. The less blinking and strobing the better.

If you can turn them off then I prefer having the option.

On topic, it's a shame mobos are so high priced for x299. Sounds like base price for x299 is equivalent to x370 top model Mobo prices.
 

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On topic, it's a shame mobos are so high priced for x299. Sounds like base price for x299 is equivalent to x370 top model Mobo prices.

It's fairly common for these newer boards. X99 was the same with most high-end boards being $350+.

What ticks me off is how Gigabyte has fallen in terms of price/performance. It used to be that their mid-range boards offered decent VRM and other things such as Thunderbolt, dual Intel NICs, onboard power/reset buttons. Now you have to pay $500 for something like that.
 
It's fairly common for these newer boards. X99 was the same with most high-end boards being $350+.

What ticks me off is how Gigabyte has fallen in terms of price/performance. It used to be that their mid-range boards offered decent VRM and other things such as Thunderbolt, dual Intel NICs, onboard power/reset buttons. Now you have to pay $500 for something like that.

All of our motherboards on X299 launch date have the same power delivery design from top to bottom. Whether it is entry model or flagship. The Gaming 3 won't have dual-NIC but it will have onboard power button (PW_SW). We weren't able to put Thunderbolt 3 on our launch models due to time constraints, but further down the line we plan on releasing a board that will. We used to have TBT3 on a lot of mid-range boards, but slow adoption and costly certification didn't make things easy.
 
Preorders are currently underway for Intel's new Core X-Series processors, which range from the quad-core, quad-thread Core i5-7640X ($242) to the 8-core, 36-thread Core i9-7980XE ($1,999). These new Skylake-X and Kaby Lake-X processors require a brand-new chipset, the X299, and motherboard manufacturers have responded by providing a number of new offering hitting multiple price points.[/COLOR]
So nobody's going to point out the elephant in the room? Nobody's going to bring up the fact that Intel sold a 10-core CPU for less than they're now selling the latest 8-core CPU? Nobody's pointing out that they're more than doubling the number of threads per core via Hyperthreading? Does this thing even have enough logic units per core to support that? Nobody's going to scratch their head and say 'WTF?!' at the fact that the thread count isn't an even divisor of the thread count? What are they going to do, assign half a thread to a core? They're just not even trying anymore! Threadripper, here I come!

(/s)
 
The boards that have metal covering all around the pci-e slots, does that effect cooling in anyway?

The weird armor/duct/thing around the slots on the EVGA board might, though I rather doubt doubt it. The little bits of metal on the slots for the other boards, though? Nah.
 
The metal around the PCI-E slots are supposedly to add mechanical strength to those cards.
 
The metal around the PCI-E slots are supposedly to add mechanical strength to those cards.
Video cards are getting so big and heavy that apparently broken slots was becoming and RMA issue for manufacturers. So now we get metal reinforced PCIe slots
 
All of our motherboards on X299 launch date have the same power delivery design from top to bottom. Whether it is entry model or flagship. The Gaming 3 won't have dual-NIC but it will have onboard power button (PW_SW). We weren't able to put Thunderbolt 3 on our launch models due to time constraints, but further down the line we plan on releasing a board that will. We used to have TBT3 on a lot of mid-range boards, but slow adoption and costly certification didn't make things easy.

Does ~each~ board with thunderbolt have to be certified by intel?
 
I wonder what is Intel's cut in this ordeal. Im guessing its bigger than in the past, because this whole plataform reads more like a corrupt money making scheme.
 
Possible intel bs aside the boards are beautiful.. like works of art. Also, who cares about thunder bolt, im sure there will be add in cards for cheap soon enough if not already.
 
Does ~each~ board with thunderbolt have to be certified by intel?

Yes.

However things should change now that Intel has dropped royalties on Thunderbolt moving forward.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/201...rbolt-3-royalty-free-in-bid-to-spur-adoption/

Might have something to do with where the TB comes from.

IIRC they moved TB support from Chipset to CPU itself.

Yeah that's their plan, can't wait to see it in action. TB was never on the chipset previously, we sourced Alpine Ridge controllers onto the board. The PCH just feeds it PCIe lanes.

Once they get TBT3 onto the CPU and USB3.1gen2 onto the PCH, we are looking at some interesting innovation. Performance will very likely keep going up and also physically size everything else down.
 
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