Layout
With
the X99 Deluxe II ASUS is using the same color scheme they introduced with the X99 Deluxe. You
find a black PCB, coolers with white elements and a white cover for
the back I/O panel, which reaches over to the Crystal Sound 3 solution. As you
might have expected, the layout has been well thought and there is for example
enough clearance around the CPU socket to install even the largest CPU
cooler. Mounting extra long graphics cards is no hassle as well, thanks to the angled SATA ports.
The
ASUS X99 Deluxe II comes with a
digital 8+4 phase power design. The CPU is backed by eight phases and the memory receives a stable current supply from
four individual
phases. Furthermore ASUS equips this board with their so called "BlackWing
Chokes". Apart from that these chokes can cope with up to 60A per phase.
A closer look at the capacitors reveals there are 10K Black Metallic Caps, which
have an average life span of 10'000 hours.
Totally you'll find eight DIMM-slots on the
X99 Deluxe II. Officially supported is DDR4-3333. There is engough space between the DIMM-slots and the CPU socket which
means that you wont encounter compatibility problems with big coolers even when you choose to install RAM with big heatspreaders.
Also supported are Xtreme Memory Profiles (XMP) in version 2.0.
On the
X99 Deluxe II the southbridge is being cooled by a
passiv cooling block, which has been connected via heatpipe to a second block,
located above the first PCI Express 3.0 slot. A closer look at the area where the VRM is, shows
that there is another heatsink taking care of adequate cooling. Thanks to the
fact, that the new Core i7-6950X, Core i7-6900 and Core i7-6850K support a total of 40
PCI Express 3.0 lanes, there is no need for an additional PLX chip. 40 lanes are
sufficient for 4-way setups and there are even 8 lanes left to install for
example a powerful PCIe SSD (should there still be space on the board).