EVGA Also Wants X99 Attention, Shows Boards at Gamescom

EVGA decided to spill the beans on some of its X99 motherboards while at Gamescom. The company revealed the Micro-ATX board, the 'FTW' board and the top-spec 'Classified' board.

All of the boards follow a fairly standard X99 recipe, although there are a couple of exceptions. The Micro-ATX board, for instance, has only four DDR4 memory slots, while both the FTW and Classified boards have eight DDR4 memory slots. The Micro-ATX board also sacrifices four SATA3 (6 Gb/s) ports.

The Micro-ATX board

The FTW branded board

The Classified branded board

None of the boards have SATA-Express connectivity. That wouldn't be so notable except for the fact that the 'FTW' board does not even have M.2 connectivity. The Micro-ATX board does have M.2 connectivity, although you will only be able to fit 42 mm-long SSDs, which are somewhat hard to come by. Fortunately, the 'Classified' board does appear to have a decent M.2 slot.

We like to see that EVGA implemented sideways-angled power, USB 3.0 and storage connectors on the FTW and Classified motherboards, as this will make it very easy to keep clunky cables out of sight.

By the looks of it, these motherboards appear to be geared towards system builders. They take a simple no-frills approach to the X99 platform, which is often sought after by system builders as this provides a simpler experience for the end user. EVGA motherboards have also been frequently used in prebuilt desktops in the past.

So far, this is all the information we know. EVGA did not provide us with a spec sheet or pricing info, so you will have to stay tuned for more. We expect the X99 motherboards, along with the Haswell-E processors and DDR4 memory, to launch on August 29.

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Niels Broekhuijsen

Niels Broekhuijsen is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware US. He reviews cases, water cooling and pc builds.

  • Jeffrey H
    It looks like it also Eliminates USB 2.0 and the Regular PCI slots from this, and probably are the first boards that will eliminate it, since support on Windows 9 might not included Software support for USB 2.0 unless you download a driver that will allow Backwards Compatibly from the USB 3.0, I wonder if the AMD boards will release something similar.
    Reply
  • JeanLuc
    Disappointing that performance board doesn't have M.2 or even SATA express.
    Reply
  • Richard Sabatino
    evga makes good products both of my computers have evga motherboards and gpus in them. the first one I built is still running 730i/9300 cor 2 duo
    Reply
  • Nuckles_56
    Is it just me or the red on all the capacitors ruins the looks of all the boards
    Reply
  • Richard Sabatino
    now that you mentioned that it does look a little cheap
    Reply
  • racecar56
    Is it just me or the red on all the capacitors ruins the looks of all the boards
    Yeah, it does look silly. Oh...we're both #56ers, interesting.
    Reply
  • Nuckles_56
    14004651 said:
    Is it just me or the red on all the capacitors ruins the looks of all the boards
    Yeah, it does look silly. Oh...we're both #56ers, interesting.

    56 for the win :D
    Reply
  • racecar56
    14005090 said:
    14004651 said:
    Is it just me or the red on all the capacitors ruins the looks of all the boards
    Yeah, it does look silly. Oh...we're both #56ers, interesting.

    56 for the win :D

    Indeed that! :bounce:
    Reply