Intel Haswell-E and X99 Chipset Preview

Intel X99 “Wellsburg” Chipset
Intel Haswell-E Detailed

We have been hearing about the X99 chipset for over a year now and we are extremely excited that it is almost here! Of course the biggest difference between the X99 chipset and others is that it will support DDR4 memory. It will be the first consumer platform to support DDR4 memory. Before we get into all of that here is the feature sheet for the X99 chipset.

Intel-X99-Chipset-Features-Wellsburg

X99 chipset compatible motherboards will feature the LGA 2011-3 socket. While this socket is much like the LGA 2011 socket you will not be able to use older Ivy Bridge-E processors here. The X99 chipset supports overclocking on both the “K” and “X” processor variants and has 4 memory channels. There will be support for CPU overclocking (ratio and BCLK) as well as GPU overclocking. You also get the typical Intel features like Intel Rapid Storage Technology, Intel RST Smart Response Technology and Intel Rapid Recover Technology.

The chipset will support 10 SATA 6GB/s port and 14 USB ports (8 USB 2.0, 6 USB 3.0). As we mentioned DDR4 memory will be supported on the X99 chipset and the defualt DDR4 speed will be 2133 MHz. Most motherboards will ship with 8 DDR4 DIMM slots for dual quad-channel DDR4 memory operation. Smaller Micro-ATX motherboards will only have 4 DDR4 DIMM slots. The X99 chipset has support for five PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots wired to the CPU. The configurations are as follows x16/NC/x16/NC/x8, or x16/NC/x8/x8/x8, or even x8/x8/x8/x8/x8. Just like H97 and Z97 and X99 chipset will have 8-lane PCI-Express Gen 2.0 root complexes to drive on board devices.

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