ASRock X99 WS-E/10G Intel LGA 2011-3 Motherboard Review

Layout, Design and Features …

On the ASRock X99 WS-E/10G Socket 2011-3 motherboard carboard box we already see some features.
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As already explained in the YouTube unboxing video, we ordered two motherboards to test the special 10G LAN feature.
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Here’s again the ASRock X99 WS-E/10G Socket 2011-3 motherboard unboxing video:
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The back of the package shows dozens more features of the ASRock high-end motherboard. BTW. Intel Xeon E5-1600/2600 v3 processors can be installed with up to 18 cores and up to 160 watts.
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Let’s open the boxes and get a first look at the content.
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Like other high-quality ASRock motherboards, this motherboard is wrapped with foam for safe delivery, even if our sample unfortunately was not delivered original packaged.
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Already at first glance, the ASRock X99 WS-E10G high density fiber board looks very high-quality processed and has very durable Nichicon 12K Platinum Caps capacitors, as well as 12 Power Phase Design, Digi power and Purity Sound 2 with Nichicon Fine Gold Audio capacitors and active chipset cooling over the additional SB fan connector.
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The ASRock X99 WS-E/10G again offers the two UEFI BIOS ICs with a switch, the Dr. Debug 7-segment LED post code display and two buttons for power and reset. The buttons are of course again LED illuminated.
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Also the fast M.2 slot for PCIe Gen3 x4 modules with up to 20 GB/s is integrated. On the picture you can see the M.2 slot, which we’ve tested with the Crucial M.2 SSD and the two UEFI BIOS ICs, but later more on the UEFI review page.
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Here you can see the internal USB3.0 connectors, beneath to the high-quality 12K Platinum capacitors, the 24-pin ATX power connector and the TPM header as well as some fan connectors.
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Here is a side view of the motherboard with the large XXL heatsinks in aluminum alloy, which are very carefully assembled on MOSFETs and chipset.
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Contrary to the LGA1150 Socket, the Sockel 2011 and this Sockel2011-3 have two levers, to ensure an optimum pressure of the CPU on the socket contacts. On the left we also see the internal USB port for fast plug in of an USB memory stick or to connect an internal USB infrared receiver to remote control your PC.
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This is how four of eight possible memory modules on this X99 motherboard to get quad channel mode support.
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Ob both X99 motherboards we have installed a 3.5 GHz Intel Core i7-5930K Haswell-E CPU with 15 MB smart cache in the LGA2011-v3 Socket.
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Here is one LGA 2011-3 test system.
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And to test the 10GBASE-T LAN connection, we’ve connected two X99 test systems, so here again are both systems connected with network cable.
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Equipment and other features …

The ASRock X99 WS-E/10G motherboard came with a manual, software setup guide, DVD, six SATA data cables, flexible SLI bridge, 3-way SLI bridge, 4-way SLI bridge, a screw for the M.2 socket and an ATX I/O shield. USB Slot brackets and the ASRock 3.5-inch USB 3.0 front panel are optional available.

The ASRock X99 WS-E/10G offers numerous features like for example the ASRock A-Tuning Tool, ASRock Instant Flash, ASRock Internet Flash, ASRock APP Charger, ASRock Fast Boot, ASRock Restart to UEFI, ASRock XFast USB, ASRock XFast LAN, ASRock XFast RAM, ASRock Crashless BIOS, ASRock Online Management Guard, ASRock UEFI System Browser, ASRock Easy RAID Installer, ASRock Easy Driver Installer, ASRock UEFI Tech Service, ASRock Good Night LED, ASRock USB Key, Purity Sound 2, Secure Backup UEFI, 12 Power Phase Design, Digi Power and ASRock FAN-Tastic Tuning.

Expansion cards …

The Board seven PCI Express 3.0 slots for AMD CrossFireX or nVidia SLI, whereby either one graphics card with x16 bandwidth or up to four graphics cards with x16 lanes bandwidth can be installed. The motherboard comes with a CrossFire bridge, a 3-way SLI bridge and 4-Way SLI bridge. More SLI/XFire switch cards are not required to obtain optimum performance for single or CrossFireX or 3-way CrossFireX, 4-Way CrossFireX or Quad SLI mode.

Memory …

The ASRock X99 WS-E/10G can be equipped with up to eight DDR4 modules and is expandable depending upon operating system used (see list) up to maximally 128GB memory.

Here you can see a picture of the eight DDR4 memory slots with quad channel support, install them necessarily first in the four black slots DDR4_A1, B1, C1 and D1:
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The Intel LGA2011-3 motherboard supports DDR4 memory modules and can be optimized in the BIOS for DDR4-2133 Quad Channel modules with an Intel Haswell-E processor. UEFI offers the selection for DDR4-800, DDR4-1000, DDR4-1066, DDR4-1200, DDR4-1333, DDR4-1400, DDR4-1600, DDR4-1800, DDR4-1866, DDR4-2000, DDR4-2133, DDR4-2200, DDR4-2400 und DDR4-2666 and higher clock-rates are currently possible with Intel BCLK overclocking or from DDR4-2600 to DDR4-3500 by OC presets (see on the next page in the UEFI OC test part).

Thanks to XMP support (Intel Extreme Memory Profiles), XMP memory modules are set correctly with one mouse click in the UEFI and of course there are far more memory adjustments and more OC-options, but more on that later. You can also check the officially supported RAM modules at the ASRock memory support page.

Hard disk drive connectors …

The ASRock X99 WS-E/10G offers 12 angled SATA3 ports, a shared SATA3 port, a shared SATA Express 10 Gb/s port and a shared eSATA3 port on the I/O Panel.

Here you can see the twelve SATA3 ports, whereby you should connect the boot device on SATA3_0:
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The SATA 3 ports SATA3_0 to SATA3_5 are supporting RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 10, Intel Rapid Storage Technology 13, NCQ, AHCI and the Hot Plug function in AHCI mode (AHCI stands for Advanced Host Controller Interface and can/should be selected in the UEFI). Thanks to the UEFI BIOS also drives with more than 2 TB for the installation of Windows 10, Windows 8 or Windows 7 x64 can be installed. Installing the drivers was absolutely not a problem even with Windows 10 and the Windows 10 installation was done very quickly.
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Drivers for Windows 10, Windows 8 and Windows 7 32-Bit and 64-Bit can be installed over the Easy Driver Installer or Easy RAID Installer button in the UEFI, are provided on the DVD, and can be downloaded at the ASRock support page.

USB and FireWire …

The ASRock X99 WS-E10G unfortunately has no USB 3.1 ports but it features four USB 3.0 ports and four USB 2.0 ports on the ATX Panel. Internally there are two more USB 2.0 connectors for up to four optional USB 2.0 ports, as well as the USB DOM and two USB 3.0 connectors for up to four optional USB3.0 ports are available. The 20-pin connector can be connected either to an optional USB3.0 front panel or to an enclosure with USB3.0 support.

Network …

The ASRock X99 WS-E/10G motherboard is equipped with two Intel X540 10G BASE-T LAN ports and two more Intel I210AT Gigabit LAN ports at the ATX panel. The Intel LAN connectors are capable of WoL, provides LAN cable detection, supports the 802.3az energy efficient Ethernet standard and supports Intel remote wake technology. We have explained all details on the additional 10 GBit network page, but here you can see the two 10 Gigabit network connections in advance.
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Serial port and parallel port …

The serial COM port is available as internal connector on the motherboard. It does not provide a parallel port.

Sound …

The ASRock X99 WS-E/10G motherboard is equipped with the ALC1150 audio codec with content protection, 115dB SNR DAC, TI NE5532 Premium Headset Amplifier and Purity Sound 2, which supports 7.1 surround sound for example analog over 5x 3.5mm connectors on the ATX panel or over an internal frontpanel audio connector. Additionally, there is an optical SPDIF digital output and premium Blu-Ray audio support. So most users do not need to buy an additional sound card with digital outputs.

ATX back panel connectors …

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From left to right, you can see 1x Intel RJ45 Gigabit LAN and 2x USB 2.0, 2x USB 3.0 and Clear CMOS button, 1x Intel RJ45 Gigabit LAN and 2x USB 3.0, 2x USB 2.0 and eSATA3, 2x Intel RJ45 10GBASE-T LAN, optical SPDIF output and 5x 3.5mm jacks for sound.

ASRock X99 WS-E/10G BIOS and Overclocking …