Asus jumped at the chance to show off its X599 Dominus Extreme motherboard here at CES 2019. This massive motherboard, which measures 14" x 14" and uses the Super ETX form factor, is designed to accommodate Intel's forthcoming 28-core Xeon W-3175X. That's the chip that Intel debuted running overclocked at 5.0 GHz to take the shine off of AMD's Computex announcement of a 32-core Threadripper chip.
Intel announced that the W-3175X should be available in December 2018, but we've yet to see the processors available at retail.
The W-3175X comes with a 255W TDP rating, but it should suck down plenty of power during overclocking. We expect the board to pull in excess of 1000W, but Asus designed it with an ample power delivery subsystem. The board has two 24-pin ATX power connectors and a whopping four 8-pin and two 6-pin power inputs that feed a 32-phase VRM arrangement. The company also equipped the power delivery subsystem with an active cooling system that consists of four fans hidden under the aluminum heatsink cover.
The board comes with plenty of connectivity options, too. Networking comes courtesy of a 10G Aquantia AQC-107 LAN chip and Intel's I219-LM gigabit connection complemented by an Intel wireless AC-9260 chip that supports 802.11ac Wi-Fi. The board also exposes five USB 3.1 Gen 2, twelve USB 3.1 Gen 1, and four USB 2.0 connections.
The massive LGA 3647 socket comes with, you guessed it, 3,647 pins. Intel also uses this socket for its server products, so it has a unique cooler mounting system, but we have yet to see any specialized cooling solutions from vendors. Asus says the board is designed to accommodate custom watercooling solutions, which is evident from the two water pump PWM connectors and the additional 12 PWM fan headers. The board also uses the enterprise-class C621 chipset.
The socket is flanked by 12 DIMM slots that support the six-channel W-3175X and can accommodate up to 192GB of DDR4 clocked up to DDR4-4200. As with all Xeon-class products, ECC memory is supported. The board also supports two of Asus's ROG DIMM.2 (a riser card that supports M.2 SSDs), but it also sports four M.2, two U.2, and eight SATA connectors, meaning you can load this board up with plenty of storage.
What extreme motherboard is complete without some bling, though? The Dominus Extreme comes with the AURA Sync RGB lighting system and also has a 1.77" color LiveDash OLED screen. Finally, the board comes equipped with a SupremeFX audio chip.
The motherboard is rumored to cost roughly $1,500, but that pricing hasn't been confirmed. That seems appropriate for the W-3175X, which could come to retail anywhere between $4,000 to $8,000. Asus says the board will be available "this year."
