Following up on recent news of leaked benchmark data, Asus has announced that it’s already prepared a trio of X299 motherboards to support Intel's next-gen HEDT Cascade Lake-X CPUs. Or maybe that’s some other next-gen CPU? You be the judge. But there's no denying the details of these new HEDT boards.
ROG Rampage VI Extreme Encore
The “EATX”-specified ROG Rampage VI Extreme Encore gets top billing (cough, or at least an encore) with its 16 power “stages,” 1.77-inch LiveDash OLED display, 10GbE controller, four NVMe M.2 slots, and 20Gbps Gen2x2 USB3 header. Of course, the board is also packed with other high-end ROG features, such as coolant flow and temperature sensors, but that’s covered in the features table below.
ROG Strix X299-E Gaming II
ROG Strix X299-E Gaming II assumes the center, getting no encore for its Roman Numerals. It does, however, get most of the features of its big brother, substituting 2.5GbE for the higher-speed variant, dropping down to three NVMe M.2 slots and a 12 “stage” CPU voltage regulator, and losing the flow rate and temperatures sensors. But, it fits within the standard ATX form factor and even gains an x4 slot to replace the fourth M.2 slot that it lost.
Prime X299-A II
For those of us who need to save a little money to buy that new CPU, Asus offers its Prime X299-A II. It has but one Gigabit Ethernet controller, no Wi-Fi, three NVMe M.2 connectors, and two x1 slots to supplement the x16/x16/x8 configuration of its longer slots. Hey, at least it has the same voltage regulator as the Strix version.
| Row 0 - Cell 0 | ROG Rampage VI Extreme Encore | ROG Strix X299-E Gaming II | Prime X299-A II |
| Size | EATX | ATX | ATX |
| Memory | 8x DDR4 up to 4266MT/s (OC) | 8x DDR4 up to 4266MT/s (OC) | 8x DDR4 up to 4266MT/s (OC) |
| Multi-GPU | 3x SLI, 3x CrossFireX | 3x SLI, 3x CrossFireX | 3x SLI, 3x CrossFireX |
| PCIe | 3x x16: x16/x16/x8 2x x1 | 3x x16: x16/x16/x8 1x x4 1x x1 | 3x x16: x16/x16/x8 2x x1 |
| Storage | 4x M.2 (all PCIe x4, 1 supports SATA) 8x SATA 6Gbps | 3x M.2 (all PCIe x4, 1 supports SATA) 8x SATA 6Gbps | 3x M.2 (all PCIe x4, 1 supports SATA) 8x SATA 6Gbps |
| Networking | Aquantia AQC-107 10G Ethernet Intel I219-V Gigabit Ethernet 2x2 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6) MU-MIMO; Bluetooth 5 | Realtek 2.5G Ethernet Intel I219-V Gigabit Ethernet 2x2 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6) MU-MIMO; Bluetooth 5 | Intel I219-V Gigabit Ethernet |
| Audio | SupremeFX S1220 codec DTS Sound Unbound | SupremeFX S1220A codec DTS Sound Unbound | Realtek ALC S1220A DTS X:Ultra |
| USB | 3.2 Gen 2 2x2 (20 Gbps): 1x back 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps): 1x Type-C, 1x Type-A, 2x front 3.2 Gen 1: 8x back, 4x front 2.0: 1x back, 2x front | 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps): 1x Type-C, 3x Type-A, 1x front 3.2 Gen 1: 2x back, 4x front 2.0: 4x back, 4x front | 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps): 1x Type-C, 1x Type-A, 1x front 3.2 Gen 1: 4x back, 4x front 2.0: 2x back, 4x front |
| Aura | 2x strip headers + 3x on Fan Extension Card II 2x Gen2 addressable headers | 2x strip headers 2x Gen2 addressable headers | 2x strip headers 1x Gen2 addressable headers |
| Cooling | 2x pump headers 5x fan headers + 6x on Fan Extension Card II 1x high-amperage fan header 1x coolant flow rate sensor 2x coolant temperature sensor | 5x fan headers 1x pump header 1x AIO cooler header | 5x fan headers 1x pump header 1x AIO cooler header |
Availability and pricing have not been announced, but we expect these to coincide to the release of Intel’s next-generation X-series CPU and to cost a little more than the models they replace.
Image Credits: Asus
