News EVGA X99 Micro2 with USB 3.1 Type C!

Edit: http://www.overclock.net/t/1558678/...icro2-with-usb-3-1-type-c/20_20#post_24041298

https://twitter.com/EVGA_JacobF/status/605581864380735489

Well this is unexpected. This is not just taking the X99 Micro and tacking on a Type C conector either. The caps are blacked out, CMOS battery is moved to a very convenient location. M.2 supports a useful length SSD, hopefully the M.2 has the lanes to be worthwhile without gimping the bottom slot.

If this keeps the 3.0 x8 support on the bottom slot and the Asus is really 2.0 x4 on the 4th slot I may have found my new motherboard

Availability supposedly in July:
http://hexus.net/tv/show/2015/06/New_X99_and_early_Intel_Skylake_motherboards_from_EVGA

Edit June 19:

EVGA is giving finishing touches to the X99 Micro2, is latest socket LGA2011v3 motherboard, in the micro-ATX form-factor. The board is characterized by support for two USB 3.1 ports, including a type-C port. Most of the feature-set from the original X99 Micro, is carried over. This includes a 10-phase CPU VRM, three PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots (full-time x16/x16/x8), a 32 Gb/s M.2 slot, with NVMe BIOS support, making up its expansion area. The board supports up to 64 GB of quad-channel DDR4 memory. Storage connectivity on the X99 Micro2 includes ten SATA 6 Gb/s ports, apart from the 32 Gb/s M.2 slot. Other modern connectivity includes two USB 3.1 ports (at least one of which is type-C), six USB 3.0 ports (four on the rear panel, two by header), 8-channel HD audio with ground-layer isolation, and a headphones amp; and gigabit Ethernet. EVGA didn't announce pricing or availability.

http://www.techpowerup.com/213613/evga-readies-x99-micro2-lga2011v3-motherboard.html

New X99 BIOS's tomorrow, adds 16GB DIMM support, which means up to 128GB of Memory

https://twitter.com/EVGA_JacobF/status/611714808702840832

 

[Phuncz]

There's something I'm confused about:
the 5820K has 28 PCIe 3.0 lanes, meaning x8 - x8 - x8 - x4 would be possible.
the 5930K and up have 40 lanes, meaning x16 - x16 - x8 - x0 would be possible, if the bottom slot is indeed "split" for M.2.
I'm expecting there are also PCIe 2.0 links like Haswell has for storage, sound and LAN.

The top slot clearly says PCIE_X16 and the bottom port says PCIE_X8, but nothing for the middel slot is visible.

Wouldn't it be the only way to fly to support these two configurations for allowing the maximum compatibility AND performance ?
But I'd guess they could screw everyone and just do stupid stuff.

The text below the M.2 SOCKET 3 text seems to read: SATA Port 4/5 will be disabled with M.2 is enabled.

 

[jeshikat]

http://www.overclock.net/t/1558678/...icro2-with-usb-3-1-type-c/20_20#post_24041298

 

[PlayfulPhoenix]

No need for words with a shot like that, is there?

Looks like I know which board I'm getting...

 

[Phuncz]

Definitely a winner with proper placement and hopefully correct PCIe port lane distribution, along with a the most important I/O ports and a decent look to boot.

 

[jeshikat]

Finally a nice clear shot of the board:

https://twitter.com/EVGA_JacobF/status/610564573603573761

The little transistors next to the PCIe slots seem to indicate the board is capable of a x16 / x16 / x8 configuration like the Micro1, now the question is the M.2 lanes.

I also noticed in this pic the little retaining clips on the PCIe slot are missing. Hope it stays that way because it's a pain removing the bottom card in a dual-GPU setup without taking the top one out first.

 

[Phuncz]

Does this mean it's going to be 8/8/4 when using an i7 5820K ? Or is there a cheaper Xeon that has more PCIe lanes ?

 

[Vittra]

1) "Manufactured after 18 August 2005" ... ??

2) Caps aren't blacked out, as per the twitter comments

 

[Phuncz]

The caps seem pretty black to me, but the flash of the photographer along with post-processing made the non-black parts really stand out. But the caps seem to be the same as in this picture:

Look at the ones between the PCIe slots, you can see the same silver writing and marking, but it's subdued to the way it's photographed, while the overview image above our posts puts an emphasis on the non-black parts.

The "Manufactured after 2005" is probably for some kind of regulation for recycling.

 

[Phuncz]

TechPowerUp wrote this today:

EVGA is giving finishing touches to the X99 Micro2, is latest socket LGA2011v3 motherboard, in the micro-ATX form-factor. The board is characterized by support for two USB 3.1 ports, including a type-C port. Most of the feature-set from the original X99 Micro, is carried over. This includes a 10-phase CPU VRM, three PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots (full-time x16/x16/x8), a 32 Gb/s M.2 slot, with NVMe BIOS support, making up its expansion area.

The board supports up to 64 GB of quad-channel DDR4 memory. Storage connectivity on the X99 Micro2 includes ten SATA 6 Gb/s ports, apart from the 32 Gb/s M.2 slot. Other modern connectivity includes two USB 3.1 ports (at least one of which is type-C), six USB 3.0 ports (four on the rear panel, two by header), 8-channel HD audio with ground-layer isolation, and a headphones amp; and gigabit Ethernet. EVGA didn't announce pricing or availability.

 

[jeshikat]

New X99 BIOS's tomorrow, adds 16GB DIMM support, which means up to 128GB of Memory

https://twitter.com/EVGA_JacobF/status/611714808702840832

Or 64GB for the mATX here

 

[Vittra]

I'm curious regarding ECC support for the board. Starting to think E5 Xeon again.

 

[jeshikat]

It's in stock at EVGA's website: http://www.evga.com/Products/Product.aspx?pn=131-HE-E095-KR

Manual is also up, sparse as usual though http://www.evga.com/support/manuals/files/131-HE-E095_Part1.pdf

So it turns out that the M.2 is shared with the bottom slot, which makes sense. Means that the bottom PCIe slot is unuseable with the 5820K when the M.2 is used and spaced SLI won't work with the 40-lane chips in combination with the M.2 as well.

 

[jtd871]

You would think that with X99 and all those PCIe lanes, that somebody would finally build a "no compromises - everything is usable simultaneously" mATX mobo.

 

[jeshikat]

The lanes on X99 aren't infinitely flexible so even really high-end boards like the Asus X99 Deluxe have weird combinations of slots that can work simultaneously.

 

[iFreilicht]

The lanes on X99 aren't infinitely flexible so even really high-end boards like the Asus X99 Deluxe have weird combinations of slots that can work simultaneously.

I don't think it would be impossible to offer an option to decide whether a used M.2 slot tacks 4 lanes off of the bottom slot or the middle one. Or they could've just made the middle one 8x in the first place. It's not like that would change performance in any way at all and it would solve the problem of having any shared lanes.

 

[jeshikat]

I wish motherboard makers weren't so insistent on using full x16 since it doesn't really matter for most things. Like you said, dropping to x8 is more than enough 99% of the time and those lanes could be put to better use.

Especially with the 5820K, a single x16 slot is 57% of its available 3.0 lanes.

 

[iFreilicht]

I guess the reason is marketing. If you can tell people they can run x16/x16 SLI on your board, they'll get excited. Telling them they'll have to run x16/x8 always doesn't sound as nice. You'd be surprised how little many people know that build their own PC. Most of their knowledge comes from marketing, so if manufacturers say you get maximum performance with this or that, they trust them.

 

[Phuncz]

I believe that's one of the reasons, but another one might be purely statistical.
If a board with two x16 ports gets compared to other boards with only x8 slots, some people will salivate at that one game that actually gets beyond the margin of error in framerate difference. And they'll happily shell out 50% more.

But seriously, a board with three PCIe 3.0 x8 slots and one M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4 slot (totalling 28 lanes), all connected to the CPU, would also get my main focus since I don't buy into hype. Unless it has a picture of a pepper on it. I don't get what a single x16 slot is going to gain you when your other cards are running at x8 or lower. And a single card is not going to be a good reason to demand 16 lanes.

 

[jtd871]

Running the slots @ PCIe3 at x8 electrically was my implication, as we know that there is no meaningful performance difference between x16 and x8 at gen3 speeds on current GPUs.

So, a mATX board with simultaneous support for 3 x8 slots (x16 physical) and 1 (or more) x4 M.2/U.2 devices supporting NVMe devices, and mITX/mDTX with simultaneous support for at least 2 PCIe devices (possibly via bifurcation) at x8 electrically and 1 (or more) x4 M.2/U.2 devices is entirely doable (on paper).

Even if consumers wouldn't initially snatch these up (assuming they come to market and aren't borked in some other way, desigh-wise), system integrators and boutiques will, and will rapidly school the mainstream about how to build truly amazing systems with "only" x8 gen3 support.

 

[Phuncz]

But what would the marketing department do with all those PCIe 3.0 x16 stickers and logo designs ? Just throw them away ?!