Intel announced a list of Basin Falls Refresh Core X-series processors along with the 28-core unlocked Xeon W-3175X processor at its Fall Desktop Launch Event yesterday. Asus was quick to jump on the gun and revealed its upcoming Prime X299-Deluxe II and ROG Dominus Extreme motherboards, which are designed especially for the new processors.
Yes, it's that time of year again when Intel starts revamping its processors and motherboard manufacturers start pumping out refreshed motherboards. This time it's Intel's X299 platform, a.k.a Basin Falls. We already know that the forthcoming flagship Intel Core i9-9980XE comes with 18 cores, while the Xeon W-3175X packs up to 28 cores. So, what does this all means? New motherboards, of course.
ROG Dominus Extreme
The ROG Dominus Extreme is a freak of nature that measures 14 x 14 inches, which officially puts it into the EEB category. The all-black motherboard flaunts a monstrous 32-phase power delivery subsystem that occupies the entire width of the motherboard. Cooling the power delivery subsystem on the ROG Dominus Extreme is no easy task either. Asus had to slap a huge heat sink over the power phases to keep temperatures in check, while also adding four small fans underneath the heat sink to provide active cooling when required.
Everything about the ROG Dominus Extreme is over the top. The motherboard has enough power connectors for consumers to connect up to two power supplies. The ROG Dominus Extreme is outfitted with two 24-pin ATX power connectors, three 8-pin EPS power connectors, two 6-pin PCIe power connectors and a 4-pin power connector.
The ROG Dominus Extreme has 12 DDR4 memory slots, and, therefore, supports up to 192GB of memory. Despite the large landscape, the ROG Dominus Extreme has no M.2 ports. Instead, the motherboard has two DIMM.2 slots that house the corresponding DIMM.2 module, which is nothing more than a M.2 riser card with enough space for two M.2 NVMe SSDs. In addition to the DIMM.2 slots, the motherboard provides consumers with two U.2 ports and eight SATA III ports for storage. In terms of expansion, the ROG Dominus Extreme has four PCIe x16 slots that communicate directly with the processor.
Other features on the ROG Dominus Extreme include temperature, flow and leak detection sensors for custom watercooling setups, 12 PWM fan headers, black aluminium armor with a 1.77-inch LiveDash OLED display, Aura Sync RGB lighting, 10GbE networking, gigabit-class Wi-Fi and SupremeFX audio.
Prime X299-Deluxe II
The Prime X299-Deluxe II is a more conservative option for consumers. The motherboard possesses a black PCB dressed in black and silver armor with a 2-inch LiveDash OLED display at its center. Endowed with a 12-phase power delivery subsystem, the Prime X299-Deluxe II draws power from a standard 24-pin ATX and two 8-pin EPS power connectors. The motherboard comes with eight DDR4 memory slots and can support DDR4 speeds over 4,200MHz without much effort.
The motherboard comes equipped with three PCIe x16 slots with support for three-way SLI or CrossFireX graphics card setups and two PCIe x1 slots for other add-ons, such as sound cards, network cards, port expansion cards and more. Storage options on the Prime X299-Deluxe II consist of three M.2 slots, two of which are cooled with passive heat sinks and eight SATA III ports. Consumers can also use the PCIe slots to create bootable RAID arrays with the help of Asus' Hyper M.2 X16 card V2 that can store up to four NVMe SSDs and Intel's VROC (Virtual RAID on CPU) technology. .
There is an ample number of connectors on the Prime X299-Deluxe II for all your cooling needs. Consumers have access to five PWM headers, two pump headers and a thermal sensor header. Additionally, Asus includes its Fan Extension Card II that brings another six PWM headers and two thermal sensor headers.
The Prime X299-Deluxe II also excels in other departments, such as networking and connectivity. The motherboard features a Gigabit LAN port, a 5GbE LAN port from Aquantia, 2x2 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5 functionality. As for connectivity, the Prime X299-Deluxe II offers two USB 2.0 ports, four USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports and two USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports.
Asus hasn't disclosed the pricing or availability for the ROG Dominus Extreme and Prime X299-Deluxe II motherboards.
