A Quick Look at EVGA’s X99 Motherboard Lineup

Intel’s X99 chipset is one of tech’s worst-kept secrets at the moment, with a full unveiling expected to go down at the end of the month. Leading up to that launch, some board vendors have taken it upon themselves to begin revealing their X99 goods, like EVGA. EVGA is the first company to hand over a bunch of information on what’s coming, so with that being the case, I feel obliged to share what I’ve been given.

As has become common of EVGA’s board lineups, this one will include three different models: A mid-range FTW, a high-end Classified, and an mATX – this time called “Micro”. Because X99 is an enthusiast platform through and through, don’t be surprised to see more than half of the full-sized boards available come equipped with 8 DIMM slots – a very good thing, as DDR4 is shaping up to be rather expensive at launch, and few people are going to go all-out at launch (16GB kits will be common).

EVGA X99 Classified

One bit of information were weren’t given is pricing, so that’s up-in-the-air until launch. We can discuss features, however. The top-end model, Classified, is seen above. It’ll include a 10-phase digital VRM, PCIe disable switches, triple (yes, triple) BIOS support, an onboard CPU temperature monitor, 300% increased gold content, “EZ Voltage Read Points”, and dual 8-pin motherboard power connectors (dedicating up to 600W).

EVGA X99 FTW

The mid-range offering, FTW, includes many similar features, just a bit scaled-back. Its has 150% increased gold content, a dual BIOS, an 8-phase digital VRM, PCIe disable switches, and onboard CPU temperature monitoring. I might be using the “mid-range” term a little loosely here though, because this board is still sure to be priced a bit higher than the company’s current Z97 FTW – it has 8 DIMMS after all, and is for an enthusiast platform.

EVGA X99 Micro

The Micro is EVGA’s mATX offering, and it includes a 6-phase digital VRM and onboard CPU temperature monitoring. One thing that’s nice to see is that despite its smaller size, the board includes five fan headers.

All of EVGA’s X99 boards include the company’s E-LEET X tuning utility, and onboard power/reset switches. As mentioned above, we don’t have pricing at this time, but we can tell you that you should expect the boards to hit etail within the next month.