ASUS Announces WS X299 SAGE Motherboard

ASUS is officially announcing the launch of the WS X299 SAGE Motherboard. This marks the 3rd addition to their workstation series, using the X299 chipset. The WS X299 Pro surfaced three weeks ago, and the WS X299 Pro SE was unveiled last week. Technically, all three are officially launching today in the UK.

ASUS WS X299 SAGE Motherboard Features

For those disappointed with the lack of features on the WS X299 Pro, the WS X299 SAGE should be able to make up for it. It has the familiar ‘Extreme’ feature set as previous generation ASUS Workstation boards such as the WS X99 Extreme. The form factor itself uses the larger than ATX CEB form factor. ATX measures 305 x 244mm usually, but CEB measures 305 × 267mm.

This additional width allows manufacturers to put in more features and in the case of the WS X299 SAGE, the heatsinks cooling system is beefier, heatpipes connect the VRM to a rear heatsink, and the chipset heatsink has heatpipes extending up to a “northbridge” area and along the side.

In terms of storage, there are eight SATA3 6G ports, two U.2 ports, and two M.2 NVMe ports (one horizontal, and one vertical). There is also a USB 3.1 header (Gen2) and a USB 3.0 header available on-board. There are a lot more in the rear IO.

In terms of expansion slots, there are seven full-size PCIe x16 slots, with additional 6-pin power available.  There is also dual Intel Ethernet ports and several on-board buttons for troubleshooting and overclocking.