Supreme Power Solutions |
On this board ASUS makes use of a power design, which is similar to the one, which can also be found on the vendors classic as well as ROG series products. In the case of the capacitors, there are ones, which feature a lifespan of 12'000 hours. Today this marks the state-of-the-art. To optimized the airflow towards the CPU cooler, ASUS put the power connectors in front of one of the DIMM banks. Even in a server case, there would nothing be interfering with the CPU coolers airflow. Checking the power design further, we find Dr. MOS driver MOSFETs, which allow for lower operating temperature and they help saving space on the PCB. |
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Crystal Sound 2
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With
Crystal Sound 2 you get ASUS' interpretation of high quality onboard
audio. Supporting up to eight channels, the Crystal Sound 2 solution received shielding from other onboard components. Apart from that there are high quality ELNA capacitors offering as clear as possible audio. |
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IPMI 2.0 |
IPMI 2.0 is a collection of standardized interfaces allowing reporting and remote maintenance of server and workstation systems. Thanks to IPMI 2.0 systems can be booted or rebooted remotely. Thanks to the integration of the SNMP protocol status/error reports can be sent out automatically. IPMI 2.0 even allow to remotely access the BIOS of a system. |
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ASUS OC Socket |
ASUS decided to equip this motherboard with their OC Socket. Compared to the reference socket from Intel, the ASUS OC Socket features additinoal pins. ASUS claims, that these pins help maintaining
highest possible CPU voltage stability even when a CPU is being
overclocked to more than 5.0 GHz. In other words there is a lower
voltage drop when you’re feeding HEDT or server CPUs with higher voltages at
very high clock speeds. This is especially helpful if you do extreme
overclocking, since in this case voltage drops can cause instability.
Basically the more stable the current and voltage supply are the more
likely it becomes to run a CPU at very high frequencies, thus increasing the
likelihood to break world records. |
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Q-Code Logger |
Q-Code Logger is a button located in the I/O shield. If a system admin plugs in a USB pen drive and pushes the button, a TXT file is going to be saved, showing all current live sessions. This can be a very practical feature for trouble shooting. |
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ASUS Dr. Power switch |
Once the Dr. Power feature is activated the power supplies current delivery is being monitored. If there should be any voltage fluctuation, Dr. Power will notify the user to take appropriate action, before the system automatically restarts as a safety precaution. |
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SATA Express
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SATA Express is a new port for storage devices that basically combines two SATA connectors and bundles them. Each SATA Express port has been wired using two PCI Express Gen2 lanes offering a total of 10 Gbps bandwidth. Compared to SATA-III with 6 Gbps bandwidth this is quite an improvement. |
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M.2 Support |
The new X99-WS/IPMI motherboard
from ASUS features an M.2 slot which is placed Behind the PCH. This motherboard can be equipped with SSDs in M.2 format and it is wired directly to the
X99 PCH via four PCI Express lanes, therefore offering up to 20 Gbps can be pushed over the bus through this slot. |
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ASRock X99 Extreme6 Review 