Micro ATX X99 Mobo

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L1amrob

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Nov 8, 2014
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I been looking for one but there aren’t much choices to choose from for a micro ATX sized X99 motherboard, I looked at ASRock’s X99M Killer simply blows EVGA’s X99 Micro out of the water with better hardware specifications and features. It has twice the digital VRM phases for better power efficiency, dual LAN and more SATA3 ports..
Do you guys if its worth a look?
 
From what I've heard Gigabyte will be releasing a mATX mobo soon, but like you if it's not here soon, I'm gonna go with the ASrock.
 
I believe the Gigabyte board was supposed to be released this week, but I have yet to find any information on this.
 
tell me more....

i've just built my ATX X99 system, but a friend is looking to put X99 in his new Enthoo mATX case.
 
Get that asrock x99m killer series. $235 on newegg right now $15AR. Serious, loaded mobo
 
Sky15 said:
Still 3 days left :D
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My Caselabs Mercury S5 will be shipping this week sometime, but I will probably not receive it until later next week. I am just contemplating ordering all my parts on black Friday/cyber Monday. I might get lucky and get something on sale, but most of it is water cooling parts.
 
X99m killer has treated me well, no complaints from my end.

This is the gigabyte board a couple of others have mentioned. It looks loaded aswell.
 
raidflex said:
My Caselabs Mercury S5 will be shipping this week sometime, but I will probably not receive it until later next week. I am just contemplating ordering all my parts on black Friday/cyber Monday. I might get lucky and get something on sale, but most of it is water cooling parts.
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I have the air 240 case just sitting here along with my eVGA 1000 G2 and MX 1000 SSD, just waiting for dat Gigabyte.
 
tonyftw said:
X99m killer has treated me well, no complaints from my end.

This is the gigabyte board a couple of others have mentioned. It looks loaded aswell.
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I really wish they would just use an Intel NIC instead of the killer NIC's, which give you no benefit.
 
raidflex said:
I really wish they would just use an Intel NIC instead of the killer NIC's, which give you no benefit.
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I did notice that both of ASRocks offerings have Dual Gigabit LAN, 1 Killer and 1 Intel NIC.

Really makes them stand tall above the rest... they have such feature packed boards it's ridiculous.

Which is why... I'm gonna get one of em' :)
 
Suprfire said:
I did notice that both of ASRocks offerings have Dual Gigabit LAN, 1 Killer and 1 Intel NIC.

Really makes them stand tall above the rest... they have such feature packed boards it's ridiculous.

Which is why... I'm gonna get one of em' :)
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I still feel like Asrock boards were the "budget" brand, so I question their reliability. Packing on a lot of features is fine, as long as they are not add features instead of improving the quality of the components.
 
raidflex said:
I still feel like Asrock boards were the "budget" brand, so I question their reliability. Packing on a lot of features is fine, as long as they are not add features instead of improving the quality of the components.
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Asrock uses the same parts and manufacturing plants as all the other brands.

Some motherboards skip a mounting hole that's normally to the bottom left of the RAM. Other companies do this too. I normally notice more flex mounting stock Intel coolers. Notice how when it bent, it didn't crack? PCBs are normally Copper and Fibreglass, both can flex more than you'd think.
 
Bought the X99M killer a few weeks after Haswell-E launch. No issues whatsoever with the board. I have the NICs teamed up. Overkill for internet but gets the job better when accessing NAS for video editing.
Great board!
 
enzolt said:
Bought the X99M killer a few weeks after Haswell-E launch. No issues whatsoever with the board. I have the NICs teamed up. Overkill for internet but gets the job better when accessing NAS for video editing.
Great board!
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This is just going to be for a gaming machine. I may not even go with X99 because its basically overkill at this point for my needs. I do know in the future with DX12 and newer games there will be better multithreaded support, but at this point I would only need to buy a new motherboard and CPU because I already have 16GB of DDR3 memory. If I go with X99 it would be at least another $200+ for DDR4 memory.

Edit: Although I may talk myself into X99 after keeping my X58 platform for almost 6 years.
 
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I noticed the Gigabyte board only has a 10Gb/s M.2 slot and only supports 32GB of memory. Although the latter will probably not be an issue for me, the AsRock board supports 64GB of memory and 32Gb/s M.2 slot.

But then the Gigabyte has a lot of features including SATA express and probably a better UEFI BIOS and overclocking utilities.

This is becoming a hard decision.
 
raidflex said:
I noticed the Gigabyte board only has a 10Gb/s M.2 slot and only supports 32GB of memory. Although the latter will probably not be an issue for me, the AsRock board supports 64GB of memory and 32Gb/s M.2 slot. But then the Gigabyte has a lot of features including SATA express and probably a better UEFI BIOS and overclocking utilities. This is becoming a hard decision.
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32Gb/s is just infatuation with numbers. This is PCIe M.2 for which SSDs are not available yet. If they become available and fast they will be expensive and still far from the 32Gb/s.
 
wirk said:
32Gb/s is just infatuation with numbers. This is PCIe M.2 for which SSDs are not available yet. If they become available and fast they will be expensive and still far from the 32Gb/s.
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The Samsung XP941 SSD is compatible with M.2 but yes it is pricier then a SATA SSD. But if I plan on keeping the system for 4-5 years, by then it will most likely be much cheaper and faster.

The read speed on the Samsung XP941 is already closing in on 10GB/s. Despite the speed differences, there also may be diminishing returns after 10GB/s depending on your workload. For gaming personally I have a feeling it will not make much difference.
 
tonyftw said:
This is the gigabyte board a couple of others have mentioned. It looks loaded aswell.
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I like it! And proper 4-pin fan headers everywhere, unlike the corner-cutting ASRock boards. Really wish Asus would release an X99 Gene already!
 
DejaWiz said:
I like it! And proper 4-pin fan headers everywhere, unlike the corner-cutting ASRock boards. Really wish Asus would release an X99 Gene already!
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I also wish Asus would release a board, but the 4-pin headers are very nice to have and in fact I will be needing them anyways with the fans I am using. Looks like the Gigabyte board is become more and more the best choice.
 
DejaWiz said:
I like it! And proper 4-pin fan headers everywhere, unlike the corner-cutting ASRock boards. Really wish Asus would release an X99 Gene already!
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Only the CPU is PWM control, all the other headers (even CPU_OPT) is voltage control only according to the manual.
 
People who don't read the manual buy the board thinking it's PWM.

Most people probably don't even notice since the fans are still controllable, it's just using voltage instead of PWM.
 
Aibohphobia said:
People who don't read the manual buy the board thinking it's PWM.

Most people probably don't even notice since the fans are still controllable, it's just using voltage instead of PWM.
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Almost like false advertising to me.
 
Aibohphobia said:
Only the CPU is PWM control, all the other headers (even CPU_OPT) is voltage control only according to the manual.
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They do this for compatibility purposes for just about any ISA pinout chassis fan ever made, be it 3-pin or 4-pin.

CPU Fan:
1 GND - ground
2 +12V - power source (constant)
3 Sense - rpm (fan to mb)
4 Speed Control - variable square-wave signal rpm speed (mb to fan)

...compatible with a traditional 3-pin fan, but it will run at full speed due to the 2nd pin supplying a full 12V all the time, and lack of a 4th pin for modulation/duty cycle control.

Sys Fan:
1 GND - ground
2 Speed Control - +12V power source (variable)
3 Sense - rpm (fan to mb)
4 VCC - constant +5V (tells the 4-pin PWM fan to run at full speed, but actual speed is being controlled/varied by the variable voltage on pin 2)

Also compatible with 3-pin fans, and should control the speed of any 3-pin or 4-pin fan connected to it.

With some 3-pin headers being wired as such:
1 GND
2 Speed Control
3 Sense

...you can plug a 4-pin PWM fan in to it, but it will be a coin toss if it even spins at all because of no signal/voltage going in to the 4th pin, which a lot of PWM fans interpret as "operate at 0% duty cycle". Just depends on what kind of control logic the manufacturer chooses to implement within their fans.
 
Most decent boards now have the option to switch between PWM and voltage for the CPU header.

I hadn't thought of the PWM fan on 3-pin header issue, I've only done it a few times and didn't have any problems but I can see some PWM fans not working.

My main issue with it is the motherboard makers don't go out of their way to call out that the 4-pin chassis headers are not PWM controlled. They just say 4-pin and leave it up to the user to check the manual as to whether it is PWM or not.

And even then they don't actually say PWM/no PWM, the manual for this board actually says:

All fan headers on this motherboard are 4-pin. Most fan headers possess a foolproof insertion design.
When connecting a fan cable, be sure to connect it in the correct orientation (the black connector wire is
the ground wire). The speed control function requires the use of a fan with fan speed control design. For
optimum heat dissipation, it is recommended that a system fan be installed inside the chassis.
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Clear as mud right :p

It requires a proper interpretation of the fan header pinout to determine whether the stupid thing is actually PWM or not.

It's almost false advertising considering how much they obfuscate the fact that only the CPU header is really PWM.
 
I know it lacks the features and specs of other boards out there but I like the BIOS on the EVGA boards....not that it matters.
 
HardLiner said:
I know it lacks the features and specs of other boards out there but I like the BIOS on the EVGA boards....not that it matters.
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I have nothing against EVGA, my current X58 EVGA Classified board has been going strong for almost 6 years. But yeah the features are lacking.
 
raidflex said:
I have nothing against EVGA, my current X58 EVGA Classified board has been going strong for almost 6 years. But yeah the features are lacking.
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The features are key for me, its pretty good and actualy not super highly priced I would recon...
 
L1amrob said:
The features are key for me, its pretty good and actualy not super highly priced I would recon...
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Between the EVGA and Asrock, definitely go with the latter. But I hear there are also Asus and Gigabyte that you might want to also take a closer look at.
 
Would be great if we could get a test of these 2... Im probably getting mine next wk!
 
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