Asus ROG Strix X299-E Gaming ATX Motherboard Review: 44-Lane CPU Ready

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Additional cores create additional thermal and power loads that can push other hardware to its limits, yet the parts we’re hoping to push to their maximum are all on the motherboard. Intel’s 10-core, 20-thread Core i9-7900X CPU is a great product for stressing the voltage regulators of various X299 motherboards, particularly under our full-AVX-load overclocking stability test.

Test Hardware

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SoundIntegrated HD Audio
NetworkIntegrated Gigabit Networking
Graphics DriverGeForce 382.53

The tremendous heat the Core i9-7900X produced required we use nothing less than the award-winning Fractal Design S24 liquid cooler system. Getting its fans to blow sufficiently over each motherboard’s voltage regulator required additional design consideration: Of the cases we had on hand, Cooler Master’s HAF-XB had the best layout.

Comparison Products
ASRock X299 Taichi
Gigabyte X299 Aorus Gaming 3
MSI X299 Gaming Pro Carbon AC

Similar pricing pits the ROG Strix X299-E Gaming against the AsRock X299 Taichi, Gigabyte X299 Aorus Gaming 3, and  MSIs X299 Gaming Pro Carbon AC. Each of these is designed for overclocking, and the feature sets of all four are also designed to attract similar buyers.

Benchmark Settings

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Synthetic Benchmarks and Settings
PCMark 8Version 2.7.613Home, Creative, Work, Storage, Applications (Adobe & Microsoft)
3DMark 13Version 4.47.597.0Skydiver, Firestrike, Firestrike Extreme Default Presets
SiSoftware SandraVersion 2016.03.22.21CPU Arithmetic, Multimedia, Cryptography, Memory Bandwidth
DiskSPD4k Random Read, 4k Random Write128k Sequential Read, 128k Sequential Write
Cinebench R15Build RC83328DEMOOpenGL Benchmark
CompuBenchVersion 1.5.8Face Detection, Optical Flow, Ocean Surface, Ray Tracing
Application Tests and Settings
LAME MP3Version 3.98.3Mixed 271MB WAV to mp3: Command: -b 160 --nores (160 Kb/s)
HandBrake CLIVersion: 0.9.9Sintel Open Movie Project: 4.19 GB 4k mkv to x265 mp4
BlenderVersion 2.68aBMW 27 CPU Render Benchmark, BMW 27 GPU Render Benchmark
7-ZipVersion 16.02THG-Workload (7.6 GB) to .7z, command line switches "a -t7z -r -m0=LZMA2 -mx=9"
Adobe After Effects CCRelease 2015.3.0, Version 13.8.0.144PCMark-driven routine
Adobe Photoshop CCRelease 2015.5.0. 20160603.r.88 x64PCMark-driven routine (light and heavy)
Adobe InDesign CCRelease 2015.4, Build 11.4.0.90 x64PCMark-driven routine
Adobe IllustratorRelease 2015.3.0, Version 20.0.0 (64-bit)PCMark-driven routine
Game Tests and Settings
Ashes of SingularityVersion 1.31.21360High Preset - 1920x1080, Mid Shadow Quality, 1x MSAACrazy Preset - 1920x1080, High Shadow Quality, 2x MSAA
F1 20152015 Season, Abu Dhabi Track, RainMedium Preset, No AFUltra High Preset, 16x AF
Metro Last Light ReduxVersion 3.00 x64High Quality, 1920x1080, High Tesselation, 16x AFVery High Quality, 1920x1080, Very High Tesselation, 16x AF
The Talos PrincipleVersion 267252Medium Preset, High Quality, High Tesselation, 4x AFUltra Preset, Very High Quality, Very High Tesselation, 16x AF

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Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom is a Senior Staff Editor at Tom's Hardware US. He tests and reviews cases, cooling, memory and motherboards.
9 Comments Comment from the forums
  • newsonline5000000
    Actually we need Three x8 Slots not for three ways SLI , but for 2 x SLI AND an x8 Card (NVME cards or Raid cards)

    you need to stop focusing on SLI and think about more cards to add. With today GPU power , we dont need more than Two GPUs of High end cards.
    Reply
  • derekullo
    21206294 said:
    Actually we need Three x8 Slots not for three ways SLI , but for 2 x SLI AND an x8 Card (NVME cards or Raid cards)

    you need to stop focusing on SLI and think about more cards to add. With today GPU power , we dont need more than Two GPUs of High end cards.

    To be fair, Gaming is in the name of the "Asus ROG Strix X299-E Gaming" in regards to SLI.

    If you wanted to install a raid or NVME card in this motherboard you very well could.

    But this isn't a workstation motherboard and isn't marketed as such.

    For your needs you would be much better suited to the ASUS ROG ZENITH EXTREME which supports 4 pci-e slots in a x16/x8/x16/x8 configuration, ECC ram, 3 - m.2 drives and a Threadripper cpu to make all those lanes possible.




    Reply
  • Crashman
    21206294 said:
    Actually we need Three x8 Slots not for three ways SLI , but for 2 x SLI AND an x8 Card (NVME cards or Raid cards)

    you need to stop focusing on SLI and think about more cards to add. With today GPU power , we dont need more than Two GPUs of High end cards.
    Right, so you put two cards in the first and second slot and a PCIe x8 NVMe adapter with two M.2 drives on the bottom slot. And then you use a 28-lane CPU and find that only 1 of your drives is seen, and only in x1 mode. Same complaint then?

    Reply
  • Baumy15
    867gb/s wi-fi eyy? i think you mean 867mbps wifi
    Reply
  • papality
    only 8 phases on the VRMs on a board that needs the highest end x299 processors to be worthwhile? what
    Reply
  • Crashman
    21208236 said:
    only 8 phases on the VRMs on a board that needs the highest end x299 processors to be worthwhile? what
    8 60's is worth 16 30's? Putting memory on both sides of the processor doesn't leave a great deal of room for extra power components, companies have almost universally went with higher ampacity components for there X299 models instead.

    Reply
  • robert.sandru
    Is anyone seriously considering X299 for gaming?

    I mean it's a ROG board but as a platform the X299 is pressured on both performance and cost by better Intel and AMD solutions...
    Reply
  • newsonline5000000
    21206736 said:
    21206294 said:
    Actually we need Three x8 Slots not for three ways SLI , but for 2 x SLI AND an x8 Card (NVME cards or Raid cards)

    you need to stop focusing on SLI and think about more cards to add. With today GPU power , we dont need more than Two GPUs of High end cards.
    Right, so you put two cards in the first and second slot and a PCIe x8 NVMe adapter with two M.2 drives on the bottom slot. And then you use a 28-lane CPU and find that only 1 of your drives is seen, and only in x1 mode. Same complaint then?

    Why not see it if the bios is designed to see the split lanes between three slots ? I dont get your x1 mode at all , and I dont get it why only one SSD will be shown ..





    Reply
  • Crashman
    21211737 said:
    21206736 said:
    21206294 said:
    Actually we need Three x8 Slots not for three ways SLI , but for 2 x SLI AND an x8 Card (NVME cards or Raid cards)

    you need to stop focusing on SLI and think about more cards to add. With today GPU power , we dont need more than Two GPUs of High end cards.
    Right, so you put two cards in the first and second slot and a PCIe x8 NVMe adapter with two M.2 drives on the bottom slot. And then you use a 28-lane CPU and find that only 1 of your drives is seen, and only in x1 mode. Same complaint then?

    Why not see it if the bios is designed to see the split lanes between three slots ? I dont get your x1 mode at all , and I dont get it why only one SSD will be shown ..

    Per Asus, PCIe x16 slot configuration is:
    44-lane CPU: x16/x16/x8
    28-lane CPU: x16/x8/x1
    16-lane CPU: x16/x0/x1, x8/x8/x1

    So there's your x1. Now if you're running a passive x8 adapter card, the first four lanes go to the first M.2 drive, the second four lanes go to the second M.2 drive. But, there's only one lane on the third slot with a 28-lane CPU, so if you put your passive adapter there, the first M.2 drive gets one lane and the second M.2 drive gets no lanes.
    Reply