Conclusion
The ASUS TUF X299 MARK-1 is another well-built board with rugged design and Armor makes it one of the best looking board out there. The board build quality and components under the shroud are excellent. With the inclusion of the TUF Armor alongside the TUF Detective 2 this motherboard is an ideal choice for those enthusiasts who like to monitor everything and control everything happening with their board. The TUF Detective 2 also provides a unique monitoring and some remote control option like power on or off your PC from your phone.
As an HEDT platform connectivity is crucial as the platform meant for expansion and more than just one graphic card, here TUF X299 MARK-1 is well catered as it has plenty of PCIe express slots, though how many PCIe lanes available will depend on the CPU you used. The other connectivity is covered as well with two Intel LANs, 8 SATA ports, two M.2, 6 USB 2.0, 8 USB 3.0 and three USB 3.1 Gen2 ports. ASUS decision to ditch the U.2 and SATA Express connectors as they never took off and no one needs them, also help the board to free up space for other more important things. ASUS included their TUF Guard, which makes all the IO and Ethernet ports to protect from lightning strikes and static electricity.
The VRM temperature issue was not as big what I initially thought it would be, in our test we reached the CPU temperature limit way before the VRM temperatures become an issue. The max temp we recorded was 69°C, and for a well-ventilated case, it should not be a problem. Though with 18 core CPU the load on the VRM will be higher and the heatsink should be little bigger than what ASUS designed it, still the TUF X299 MARK-1 has an advantage as it features ASUS’ Thermal Radar, which includes many temp sensors spread across the board that allows you to monitor and assign a case fans to respond any specific temp sensors to keep it cool. The PCH heatsink with integrated M.2 cooler provide great cooling thanks to the small fan, but the only negative point is there is no way to control the speed or even an option to disable it in the bios. The ASUS AURA RGB lighting is only light up the “The Ultimate Force” area and one RGB header, but offer lots of effects. One thing I don’t like about the board is the placement of the debug LEDs which is placed on the top of right RAM slots and completely covered by the fans, and I can’t see them, which makes troubleshooting a hassle, but it depends on the case you’re using.
Performance is very much up to par with any other X299 motherboards. Though the Overclocking was easy and we achieved a magnificent 4.7 GHz from our Core i9-7800X with all 6 cores, 12 threads running at 4.7 GHz. The Core i9-7800X performance was shown some very great results in our benchmarks, where everything from the heavy calculation tasks of rendering and video encoding all the way through to simple gaming results reflected the improvements from the previous X99 platform with higher clock speeds and connectivity than X99 had. It is very interesting to see if this will be enough performance advantage makes up against AMD RYZEN which still offer more attractive price to performance platform.
Amazone Pricing:
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ASUS Intel X299 TUF X299 MARK 1 X299 Chipset LGA 2066 DDR4 SDRAM Motherboard
Overall the ASUS TUF X299 MARK-1 offer quite a lot of features and value compared to other boards. It looks great with black and silver armor with plenty of connectivity and quality components underneath, backed by a 5-year warranty. ASUS TUF X299 MARK-1 should be on your list if you’re looking for a high-end enthusiast grade motherboard, and we are giving it SILVER AWARD.
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- Page 1: Introduction
- Page 2: PCH - The Platform Controller Hub Chipsets
- Page 3: Packaging and Overview
- Page 4: In-Depth Look
- Page 5: UEFI BIOS
- Page 6: Software
- Page 7: Test Setup
- Page 8: Overclocking & Temperatures
- Page 9: Benchmarks
- Page 10: Conclusion
