Computex 2017 Scoop: Biostar Racing X299 GT9

Biostar also has a rather pretty looking X299 motherboard on display, this is the beautiful looking Racing X299 GT9.

X299 will bring quad-channel DDR4 support to compatible 14nm processors and 40 PCIe 3.0 lanes with Skylake-X procs. Kaby Lake-X procs will support dual or quad channel DDR4 and just 24 PCIe 3.0 Lanes. The new platform also offers support for Intel Optane and quad channel DDR4-2667 MHz memory. X99 will be based up-on a new socket, LGA 2066 that means that once again you have to purchase a new (X299) motherboard. The E-ATX form-factor motherboard gets a pair of 8-pin power connectors, and an extra  6-pin PCIe. I counted 13-phases (mentioned on the label is 14) + extra phases for the memory subsystem. The processor gets a proper eight DDR4 DIMM slots tied to it. The GT9 has seven PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots which would configure at x16/x16/x8/x4/x4/x4/x4 (with selected processors).

We count two 32 Gb/s M.2 slots which interestingly enough seem to be stacked and also two U.2 ports. Then four SATA 6 Gb/s ports. There is a very expensive Ethernet jack on there, a 1/5/10 GbE jack powered by Intel X550AT. There's also another 1 GbE  jack (Intel i219-V) You'll spot 10 Gb/s USB 3.1 ports type-A and type-C one of each and six 'norma' 5 Gb/s USB 3.0. Have a peek at the two photos.