Review: asus x99 deluxe

We will now analyze another of Asus' bets for high-end teams, the X99 Deluxe. This time we are facing a board as cutting-edge as the Asus Rampage V, but in this case outside the ROG series, aimed at teams looking for a more discreet aesthetic or OEMs that mount professional teams where the gamer connotations of other series do not make sense. As in Rampage V, this X99 Deluxe is one of the first LGA 2011-3 socket boards with an X99 chipset, and includes all the improvements that we expect in a board in this range: Support for fifth-generation Intel processors, DDR4 memory, M.2 and SATA Express ports, plus a 3 × 3 AC wireless network card and a fairly good quality sound card.

We thank the Asus Ibérica team for the loan of this plate to carry out the review.

Technical characteristics

ASUS X99 DELUXE FEATURES
CPU	Intel Socket 2011-v3 Core i7 ™ Supports Intel ® 22nm CPU Supports Intel ® Turbo Boost Technology
Chipset	Intel ® X99 Express Chipset
Memory	Memory 8 x DIMM, Max. 64GB, DDR4 3200 (OC) / 3000 (OC) / 2800 (OC) / 2666 (OC) / 2400 (OC) / 2133 MHz Non-ECC, Un-buffered Memory Quad Channel Memory Architecture Supports Intel® Extreme Memory Profile (XMP)
Multi-GPU Compatible	NVIDIA® Quad-GPU SLI ™ Compatible NVIDIA® 3-Way SLI ™ Compatible Compatible with AMD Quad-GPU CrossFireX ™ AMD 3-Way CrossFireX ™ Compatible Expansion slots: 40-Lane CPU- 5 x PCIe 3.0 / 2.0 x16 (x16, x16 / x16, x16 / x16 / x8, x8 / x8 / x16 / x8, x8 / x8 / x8 / x8 / x8 mode) * ¹ 1 x PCIe 2.0 x4 (max at x4 mode) * ² 28-Lane CPU- 3 x PCIe 3.0 / 2.0 x16 (x16, x16 / x8, x8 / x8 / x8) 2 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (x1 mode) 1 x PCIe 2.0 x4 (max at x4 mode) * ²
Storage	1 x M.2 Socket 3, with M vertical key design, type 2242/2260/2280 supporting storage devices (support PCIE SSD only) Intel ® X99 chipset: 1 x SATA Express port, supports 2 x SATA 6.0 Gb / s ports 8 x SATA 6Gb / s port (s), * 3, support RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 Supports Intel ® Smart Response Technology, Intel ® Rapid Recovery Technology * 4 ASMedia® SATA express: * 5 1 x SATA Express port, supports 2 x SATA 6.0 Gb / s ports
USB and extras	4 x USB 3.0 / 2.0 port (s) (4 at mid-board) Intel® X99 chipset: 6 x USB 2.0 / 1.1 port (s) (2 at back panel, 4 at mid-board) ASMedia® USB 3.0 driver: 10 x USB 3.0 / 2.0 port (s) (10 at back panel, blue)
Net	Intel® I218V, 1 x Gigabit LAN Controller (s) Intel® I211-AT, 1 x Gigabit LAN Dual Gigabit LAN controllers- 802.3az Energy Efficient Ethernet (EEE) appliance ASUS Turbo LAN Utility
Bluetooth	V4.0 Bluetooth
Audio	Realtek® ALC1150 8-Channel High Definition Audio CODEC including Crystal Sound 2 - Supports: Jack Detection, Multi-streaming, Front Jack Function Change - High-quality stereo output, 112 dB SNR (line and rear output) and high-quality input, 104 dB SNR (Line-in) - High-fidelity audio OP AMP (s) Audio Feature: - DTS Ultra PC II - DTS Connect - Optical S / PDIF out port (s) at back panel - BD Audio Layer Content Protection - Audio Shielding: Ensures precision analog / digital separation and greatly reduced multi-lateral interference - Dedicated audio PCB layers: Separate layers for left and right channels to guard the quality of the sensitive audio signals - Audio amplifier: Provides the highest-quality sound for headphone and speakers - Premium Japanese-made audio capacitors: Provide warm, natural and immersive sound with exceptional clarity and fidelity - Unique de-pop circuit: Reduces start-up popping noise to audio outputs - Top notch audio sensation delivers according to the audio configuration - EMI protection cover to prevent electrical noise to affect the amplifier quality
WiFi connection	Yes, Wi-Fi 802.11 a / b / g / n / ac Supports dual band 2.4 / 5 GHz frequency Up to 1300Mbps transfer rate
Format.	ATX format: 30.5 cm x 24.4 cm

Asus X99 Deluxe: Outer appearance

The box is somewhat more discreet and more contained than in the ROG series, natural if we think that there are fewer accessories to include

In the back we find the usual list of differentiating features and functions for which we should choose this particular model.

And we have another round of regular marketing on the back cover of the cover

In the front window you can see the plate directly. A pity that with the antistatic bag you can not see such a beautiful design well.

The aesthetic aspect is impeccable, in this case they have opted for black PCB and white details. The left part, even being plastic, gives a fairly solid feeling to the whole. All ports are USB3.0, and all ports are SATA3 or SATA Express, so there is no color differentiation. The phases have more than generous heatsinks also with the same color scheme.

Regarding the accessories, although as we have anticipated it does not have as many extras as the Rampage, we again find ourselves with a very well endowed plate. They stand out a plate to control fans, and a bracket to incorporate an m.2 slot in a pciexpress slot, apart from the usual SATA cables, 3 × 3 antenna, rear trim, and other expected accessories on any plate of this level.

Asus X99 Deluxe: In Detail

Another socket 2011-3 board, and again identical anchors to those used in socket 2011 first version, allowing us to reuse any heatsink that we previously had and facilitating the task in case of buying a new one. As in the rest of Asus boards, the pins are protected by a plastic tab that removes itself the first time we install a processor. The fixing system is also the usual one, with a double lever.

We repeat the number of ports from Rampage V, the impressive number of 12 SATA3 ports (2 of them in the SATA Express connector of the chipset, another 2 in the SATA Express connector provided by the ASMedia controller). Two of the chipset ports are separated from the main group, to facilitate the placement of recorders and the management of their cables.

At the bottom of the board we find 5 pciexpress 16x ports, and one 4x that we can use with the M.2 adapter that includes the board. We note that the effective speeds of the ports vary, and are especially limited if we mount a 28-lane processor (see technical characteristics for more information).

Detail of the chipset heatsink, just below the switches to choose the number of GPUs to use (and with it the distribution of lanes). A led indicates the graphics to connect, very comfortable for equipment assemblers or first-time users. The front USB connectors are located just below.

Detail of the power / reset buttons, the diagnostic screen and the button to reset the BIOS. The addition is very useful, although the placement is somewhat uncomfortable if we do not have the equipment mounted on a benchtable. Since this board strictly respects the ATX form factor (and does not have the extra width of the Rampage E-ATX) there are space restrictions that we must adapt to.

The power supply of the processor is carried out, as usual lately, by means of a 4-pin ATX connector and an EPS connector, again equal to the Rampage V at the power level, and as we have seen in our tests, for overclocking The non-extreme behavior is absolutely identical, exceptional in both cases, achieving very tight voltages, always limiting the batch quality of our processor. We have two connectors for CPU fans, something users of tower fans or push-pull systems will surely appreciate.

At the back of the board we find, as usual, a huge number of connectors. The first button helps us to reset the BIOS without opening the PC (very comfortable, although unfortunately easy to press by mistake, as it happened on other similar boards). In this case, although we see similarities with the Rampage V, with 2 USB 2.0 and the rest 10 USB 3.0 by a third-party controller. The PS / 2 connector disappears, as well as the dedicated processor for the keyboard and mouse ports, luckily nowadays the vast majority of keyboards are USB and we save space and unnecessary cost. We have had some compatibility problems with the keyboard used for the tests (a low-end litetouch eclipse), which curiously did not appear in Rampage V, although in its favor we will say that it seems an isolated case, since the rest of the tester keyboards (a Gigabyte Aivia Osmium, and a Logitech G19) worked perfectly.

The next thing we see is the first victory over Rampage, with two Intel network cards, one of them the I218V model (as in the Rampage) and the other the I211-AT model. With this we see that it is a more off-road plate, oriented more to professionals and enthusiasts than to overclockers, although without skimping on options for the latter. Next we see the 3 RCA connectors for the antennas of the great AC1300 network card (3 × 3) that it includes, although the included antenna does not use a thread, but rather it is press-fit in a very comfortable way. Only the audio connectors on the integrated sound card remain, along with the optical output.

Details of the phases and their heatsink, in this case with tones in accordance with the rest of the plate, in black and white. Beneath it are the 8 chokes that give rise to the 8 phases that feed the processor. Do not fool anyone with a low a priori number, they are very well designed phases, MOSFET and first-line chokes, we remember that the Rampage IV had a similar configuration and was also the one chosen by many to perform extreme overclock.

In this case we do not have switches to turn off the pciexpress ports. Nor is it that in a plate of this style we see it necessary at all. The sound chip is hidden, it is a Realtek ALC1150, and we see that in Asus they have managed to squeeze it to the maximum with a signal-to-noise ratio of 112 dB, numbers that until recently were unthinkable for an integrated one. It also includes an amplifier in case we have headphones that need a little more power. We see the detail of the specific capacitors for audio in the lower corner of the plate, in gold.

We finish with two exclusive additions to this board, firstly we have a pciexpress bracket to connect an M.2 form factor SSD, reaching the speed of 32 Gbit / sec with the 4 pciexpress lanes. We note that the board already includes a native M.2 slot, although again we see size restrictions to keep a board of this range within the ATX form factor measurements, with a vertical mounting that many will not finish to convince. Likewise, it is one of the few boards that, with its own accessories and without adding anything else, allows us to mount two M.2 SSDs (within the limitations that this implies, for example, we must use software RAID in case of mounting a system of this type, and not all operating systems boot well from a pciexpress disk).

The second addition is something that I personally liked a lot. It is a board that allows us to connect additional fans without problems (the low power delivered by the pins of the board can be a problem for the older fans), saving space on the PCB on the fly and helping us a lot to manage the cables in the case of doing some kind of mod. Without a doubt, an extra that really works, and that we trust other manufacturers to take note of for their high-end plates.

Again, we find several expansion ports that share bandwidth, especially cumbersome with 28-lane processors, so we must be careful and review the manual before deciding in which slot we mount things, if we do not want to have to disassemble the team later to change the layout. The default configuration for the main slots is 8x / 8x / 8x, and the 5th slot can be configured from BIOS.

In short, it is a board that can cope with everything from high overclock to workstations, at the Rampage level in many things, and with a novel and very particular aesthetic. It is certainly a great choice if we want to opt for a quality X99 platform.

Test equipment and performance tests

TESTING BENCH
Processor:	Intel i7 5820K
Base plate:	Asus X99 Deluxe
Memory:	Crucial DDR4 4x8gb 2133MT / S CL15
Heatsink	Cooler master Seidon 120XL + NB Eloop 1900rpm
HDD	Intel X-25M G2 160Gb
Graphic card	Asus 780Ti Matrix Platinum
Power supply	Antec High Current Pro 850W

As expected, the performance is high and very similar to that obtained with i7 hexacores of the previous generation. The benchmarks that will appear below have been carried out with the processor and the graph at stock frequencies, and all the default options, so the influence of the plate on the results will be minimal, but it helps us to get an idea. what should we expect from a high-end team built around this platform. With our specific processor we achieve a maximum overclock of 4.4Ghz at 1, 325V using offset voltage and extensively testing stability. The voltage used to achieve stability coincides exactly with what we obtained in the case of the Rampage V, which invites us to think that this board is really good even in fairly extreme overclocks, although it lacks more specific options such as the mode. LN2 of the Rampage. The settings used in each benchmark are detailed in our i7 5820K review.

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TESTS
Cinebench R15	1018 points
3DMark Fire Strike	10820 3DMarks
tomb Raider	95.9 FPS
Metro: The last light	56.29 FPS

As we can see, the results are almost identical to those obtained with Rampage, and the minimal advantage that exists seems to be due to statistical variability (in fact, it alternates in various tests), so we confirm our statement that the plate is not a determining factor in performance, at least not in these ranges where there will be no throtling in phases or anything like that. I must emphasize that finally I see that manufacturers do not "cheat" with the turboboost, and the algorithm is implemented as required by Intel, with a lower multiplier if all the cores are in use.

X99 Platform USB 3.0 Controller Performance

One of the drawbacks of the old X99 platform was the absence of a native USB 3.0 controller. Although it seems that manufacturers do not seem to care too much about this point (on the two Asus top boards, there are only native USB 3.0 connections of the chipset from the internal connectors), from Professional Review we want to check if the loss is appreciable. To do this, we have used a Sandisk Extreme pendrive (one of the fastest that can be obtained right now) on both platforms, confirming with our results that the difference in favor of the X99 is small, but there is. We note that this difference has only been observed using the internal connectors, the third-party controller connectors give, as we supposed, a performance almost identical to those used in X79.

The advantage is small but consistent. As it happened in previous generations, although on a smaller scale, third-party controllers, probably due to the inherent latency in their use, suppose a slight downgrade. Nothing to worry about, although it surely becomes more evident the faster our devices are. Especially with small blocks.

BIOS

In this case, unlike Rampage, the BIOS boots to the basic screen by default. We liked it a lot, because it gives much of the relevant information at a glance, although for advanced users it is still necessary to go through the advanced settings inescapably. Nor would we want anything else, for users who like to control even the smallest detail, this BIOS is again the best. Again, we see a clear improvement over X79 boards from any manufacturer, even from Asus itself. The distribution of options in advanced mode is identical to that seen in the Rampage, so we will repeat the list below:

Extreme Tweaker: To make the vast majority of adjustments dedicated to overclocking: Frequencies, voltages, RAM latencies, phase configuration, LLC… Advanced: Where we can configure the included devices, WoL, SATA port behavior, and other advanced parameters not related to overclocking.Monitor: To check the temperatures of all the sensors included in the board, as well as the revolutions of the fans and where they are connected.Boot: For starting priorities, and also some minor adjustments such as the delay for POST.Tool: Here are accesses to the typical Asus tools, such as EZ Flash to update the BIOS, or the behavior of the internal OC buttons.Exit: In this section there are simply options to load previous values, save changes and exit, or discard changes and exit.

We see that the fan control has integrated it into a new menu of its own, repeating once again what was seen in the Rampage.

They also include an automatic overclock assistant that automatically chooses frequencies and settings based on our cooling and PC usage, although again from profesionalreview we always recommend using the manual options, it is not at all complicated with a good guide, and in general they are achieved results similar to those of automatic overclocking, optimizing voltage and consumption better.

Although the first look is in basic mode, advanced mode again has a number of options that we will rarely use.

conclusion

This board is located in the highest range of Asus, with the permission of the already mentioned Rampage, and is a really good option for users who do not need all the extreme overclocking options and do not want to pay a premium for it. Asus has brought us a perfect board for anyone looking for something really complete, with everything we can imagine, but more discreet and slightly cheaper compared to Rampage.

The BIOS is really well cared for, and given the novelty of the platform I would say that it exceeds what I expected, it is stable and it works well, although as with all the boards we have tested, it lacks some details, which we will surely see corrected in later reviews. Interestingly, the POST is slightly longer than in the Rampage (few seconds in both, the days of the first BIOS for X79 and its 30-40 seconds of clock with some setups are far away).

We are left in doubt as to whether some of the design decisions are the most successful, such as the BIOS battery vertically, that M.2 slot also vertically, or the power and reset switches that are very difficult to access in case of mount a graph in the lower slots. All of them are necessary concessions to include all the possible functionalities in a moderate size board, although I wonder if many users really would not prefer to change their box for an E-ATX in favor of a better distribution of all the components.

ADVANTAGE	DISADVANTAGES
+ OVERCLOCK CAPABILITIES AND CUSTOMIZATION AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL	- PLACEMENT OF THE BIOS BATTERY AND SLOT M.2 SO MUCH PROBLEMS, TO MAINTAIN CONTENT DIMENSIONS
+ EXTRAS IN QUANTITY: 10 USB3.0 PORTS, SLOT M.2, 2 SATA EXPRESS PORTS, RED AC 3X3...	- MANY OF THE NUMEROUS EXPANSION SLOTS ARE COMPROMISED IF WE USE A 28 LAN PROCESSOR
+ AESTHETICALLY IMPECCABLE, MUCH MORE DISCREET THAN OTHER OPTIONS, BUT ALSO MORE ELEGANT AT THE SAME TIME	- PRICE IN THE MIDDLE / HIGH RANGE, ALTHOUGH FULLY JUSTIFIED
+ INTEGRATED SOUND CARD PRETTY SUPERIOR TO THE USUAL
+ FAN CONTROL PLATE