With the X99 WS, ASRock already has an X99 motherboard ready for launch day and this particular model comes with a reasonable feature mix. It doesn't take long until you see that ASRock did not overexaggerat equipping this board with additional chips, which is something that's reflected in the price. Let's have a look then if ASRock did a good job with their X99 WS.

Haswell-E is finally here, and so is a new wave of motherboards based on its X99 companion chip. We've spent some quality time with Asus' X99 Deluxe, which combines all the goodness baked into the platform with a luxurious array of additional features.

With the X99 Deluxe, ASUS for sure has one of the most interesting boards ready at launch. First of all they're suprising with a new color scheme and as always with the Deluxe, there are countless features. A quick look reveals for example that there are two SATA Express ports as well as an M.2 x4 SSD slot. At this point we're already really curious to find out what this board is capable of.

It'€™s finally here, the day we’ve been waiting for! Intel has now officially launched the latest LGA2011 platform on the new Intel X99 chipset! That’s not all though, they are also launching the Intel Core i7-5960X, Intel Core i7-5930K, and the Intel Core i7-5820K! While all that is exciting, right now I have the pleasure of showcasing the first of the Intel X99 motherboards to come across my bench, the ASUS X99-Deluxe! The ASUS X99-Deluxe is currently the lowest cost Intel X99 motherboard from ASUS at $399. Read on to see how it performs.

With Haswell-E, Intel is not just launching a few new high-end desktop CPUs but a completely new platform. In combination with X99 and DDR4, Haswell-E is big step forward for Intel. On top of all this there are now eight core CPUs available for endusers, which is something enthusiasts as well as professionals have been waiting for.

Intel updates its enthusiast platform with more cores and DDR4.

Intel's X79 Extreme series platform has been out for a while now, but technology has started passing it by. In the three years since the X79 Extreme series platform was introduced, there have been three mainstream performance chipsets (Z77, Z87, and Z97) along with two sockets (1155 and 1150) that have added functionality, while we only got a refresh on the original X79 platform last year. The time has finally come for Intel to take the wraps off what has been more or less known for a while now with the introduction of the X99 platform and new Haswell-E processors.

Today Intel launches its new flagship processor, the Core i7 5960X, as the top processor in its product stack. Basic specifications on the Core i7 5960X are eight physical cores and, with Hyper Threading support, 16 threads of processing power. Also launching today with the 5960X will be the Core i7 5930K (a six core, 12 thread processor) and the 5820K that takes a step up from the 4820K with an additional pair of cores to make it a six core, 12 thread processor. While the 5960X has 20MB of dynamically shared cache, the 5930K sees only 15MB and the 5820K sees a further drop to 10MB of cache. Another key difference that sets these processors apart is that the Core i7 5820K sees a reduction in the amount of PCIe lanes to 29 PCIe lanes instead of the 40 seen on the 5930K and 5960X.

With the new platform and X99 chipset we see a new socket rather than the familiar LGA 2011 socket, with a revision to the socket labeled as LGA 2011-v3. While the socket is still a 2011 pin socket, earlier Exteme Edition socket 2011 CPUs are not compatible. To further separate the platforms, Intel has introduced DDR4 memory support and usage on the latest Hawell-E Core series processors as a way to further boost memory performance, albeit at the cost of some latency due to the change in voltage applied to the DIMMs and the timings that can be run with currently available memory ICs. It is much like what we saw with DDR3 DRAM as the process and ICs matured.

Bring out the beast. The true enthusiast wants the best of everything. Nowhere is this notion better illustrated than in the PC space. How many of you have played around with online configurators and 'built' a dream machine?

There will always be conjecture on whose memory or graphics card you should use for the ultimate desktop platform. Arguably what's beyond discussion is the brand of CPU. AMD will admit privately that rival Intel has the high-end space sewn-up, particularly with the many-core Extreme chips that are Xeons in a different guise.

It's been almost a year since Intel debuted the $999 Core i7-4960X - a six-core, 12-thread monster hewn from third-generation Ivy Bridge technology. Yet the next generation of silicon, codenamed Haswell, has been doing the mainstream rounds since June 2013, with Intel mixing and matching architectures as it sees fit.

We have been hearing about Intel’s next-generation Haswell-E processors for some time now and they have finally arrived. For people running older HEDT (high-end desktop) systems it has been quite a while waiting around for an upgrade. The Haswell-E HEDT (high-end desktop) lineup is at hand and it is made up three high end enthusiast processors, the Core i7-5960X, Core i7-5930K, and Core i7-5820K. Today we are going to be taking a look at the flagship processor of this group or as I call it the big daddy of the bunch, the Core i7-5960X. This extreme edition processor features 8 cores, 16 threads, 20 MB of L3 cache, a 40-lane PCI-Express root complex and DDR4 support. This will be Intel’s first 8-core desktop processor as well as the first consumer platform to support DDR4 memory, so it is a very exciting time for people looking to upgrade to the newest offering. The Core i7-5960X will have a base frequency of 3.0 GHz and a turbo frequency of 3.5 GHz. This processor is not for the faint of heart though; it has an MSRP of $999! ThinkComputers is excited to get this tough guy on the test bench and see what he can do!

Only 18 months ago, Intel’s enthusiast platform was on the chopping block. While X79 and Sandy Bridge-E did well and Ivy Bridge-E was on the horizon, the desktop PC market was in a downturn and the continuity of interest for ultra-high-end platforms was in doubt. And yet here we are reviewing Haswell-E and Intel’s first 8-core 16-thread enthusiast processor, the Core i7-5960X. So what happened? A resurgence in the desktop space has created a rapid succession of roadmap updates, adding processors like Devil’s Canyon, the Pentium Anniversary Edition and a now full Haswell-E lineup.


While Intel may have been a bit cautious in bringing Haswell-E to the market, there’s no denying that we have seen a relatively constant progression in terms of technology, if not performance. However, due in no small part to a lack of true competition from AMD, the actual speed of change has slowed down a bit. While the trademark tick / tock process is still very much alive we are no longer seeing massive performance uplifts from one generation to the next. Rather, Intel is focusing on both processing and TDP efficiency while also optimizing their instructions per clock ratio.

In many ways the original Haswell architecture moved things to another level in nearly every respect and Haswell-E alongside the upcoming server-oriented Haswell-EP will capitalize on its internal changes. Naturally, those original Haswell processors will remain around at lower price points since Haswell-E is supposed to offer something they can’t: a ridiculous amount of parallel processing horsepower and a platform that’s been designed for high end computing.

This is our review of the Intel Core i7-5960X and we will be running it on one of Gigabytes latest X99 boards along with some of Corsairs DDR4-2800MHz, 16GB of it to be exact.

Haswell-E has arrived. With eight cores, 20MB of cache, and quad channels of DDR4 memory, it looks to be the fastest desktop CPU in history--and not by a little bit. We've tested the heck out of it and have a huge suite of comparisons going to back to the Pentium III 800. Just, you know, for context.

With the X99 and Haswell-E platforms being launched today, MSI is coming to market officially with four models on sale with another coming soon. We took a look at the MSI X99S SLI PLUS when it was leaked earlier this month, and I have since learned that the release price will be $230, making it a very attractive model at the lower end of the X99 pricing bracket.

The other models from MSI are the X99S Gaming 9 AC, the X99S Gaming 7, the X99S XPower AC and the X99S MPower (the MPower being released later). You may notice that all these names start with ‘X99S’, which MSI says indicates the presence of SATA Express. It may be one of their defining naming characteristics going forward, but it seems that MSI is keen to support this storage technology in advance of retail drives coming to the market. MSI is also supporting ‘Turbo M.2’ on all its models, which means PCIe 3.0 x4 connectivity for future drives. Some motherboards will support up to 2280 sized drives, whereas others will go all the way to 22110. MSI is also keen to point out that all its motherboards will come with dual USB 3.0 headers.

Today marks the release of Intel’s latest update to its Extreme processor line with a trio of Haswell-E models including Intel’s first consumer socketed 8-core product. This is the update from Ivy Bridge-E, which includes an IPC increase, a new X99 chipset, the first consumer platform with DDR4 memory, and a new CPU socket that is not backwards compatible. We managed to get all three CPUs ahead of launch to test.