Gamescom Slots

EVGA is also showing off its X99 motherboards.

EVGA decided to spill the beans on some of its X99 motherboards while at Gamescom. The company revealed the Micro-ATX board, the 'FTW' board and the top-spec 'Classified' board.

All of the boards follow a fairly standard X99 recipe, although there are a couple of exceptions. The Micro-ATX board, for instance, has only four DDR4 memory slots, while both the FTW and Classified boards have eight DDR4 memory slots. The Micro-ATX board also sacrifices four SATA3 (6 Gb/s) ports.

None of the boards have SATA-Express connectivity. That wouldn't be so notable except for the fact that the 'FTW' board does not even have M.2 connectivity. The Micro-ATX board does have M.2 connectivity, although you will only be able to fit 42 mm-long SSDs, which are somewhat hard to come by. Fortunately, the 'Classified' board does appear to have a decent M.2 slot.

We like to see that EVGA implemented sideways-angled power, USB 3.0 and storage connectors on the FTW and Classified motherboards, as this will make it very easy to keep clunky cables out of sight.

By the looks of it, these motherboards appear to be geared towards system builders. They take a simple no-frills approach to the X99 platform, which is often sought after by system builders as this provides a simpler experience for the end user. EVGA motherboards have also been frequently used in prebuilt desktops in the past.

So far, this is all the information we know. EVGA did not provide us with a spec sheet or pricing info, so you will have to stay tuned for more. We expect the X99 motherboards, along with the Haswell-E processors and DDR4 memory, to launch on August 29.