Question 1

Does this come with the thunderbolt ex3 card? Or do you purchase it seperately

Accepted Answer

mine came with one. i think that "*" on their website is for people who wants a tb3 card and tells them they don't have to buy a new asus board to get one and can get it separately.

Question 2

Does this motherboard have bluetooth? I want to use the Xbox One S Controller's bluetooth feature with this board.

Accepted Answer

The Best Answer is wrong... I have the x99 Deluxe/3.1 a bit older than this with the on board bluetooth and I am using the Xbox One S controller without the dongle (using bluetooth). He did mention Xbox One S not the Xbox One controller which you WILL need the dongle for as it does not have bluetooth. Why is the wrong answer the best answer?

Question 3

Does this need a bios update in order to support my 6800k broadwell straight out of the box?

Accepted Answer

As of May 31st when I received this board, it had the latest bios. BUT, it is prudent to check with ASUS on the latest and at the very least become familiar with the BIOS update procedures. BTW, nice processor! $$$ though. Be sure to go just as high-end on the case and the cooling. I assume multiple GPUs are also involved so power supply of 1200 watts (and it's own circuit in your fuse panel). Have fun!

Question 4

Am I understanding the lane distribution properly? I could do sli with slots 1 and 4 at full speed (x16) and then use both u.2 ports at full speed (x4).

Accepted Answer

The top U.2 slot shares bandwidth with one of the x16 PCIe 3.0 slots, so no, you can't do this. Plugging anything into the M.2 slot or TOP U.2 slot drops your second GPU to x8.

You can use a PCIe to U.2 converter in the last PCIe slot, and use the bottom U.2 slot along with the converted U.2 slot. This will give you x4 on both U.2 drives and keep your SLI at x16/x16. But then there is nowhere to put the Thunderbolt card.

Question 5

What cpu should I get that will support all 128gb of ram gtx-1080 founders card ect. pretty much one that will run the board to its fullest potential in all aspects?

Accepted Answer

You have to spend around$1400-$1600 for an I7 with 40 lanes and can support 128MB, for example, an I7-5960x at around $500 has 40 lanes but can only support 64. Personally, since you have the GPU and thus don't need built-in graphics on the CPU, I would recommend the XEON 2630-v3 at around $500. 40 lane support, 512MB memory capacity, plus the 20MB L3 cache which enables Data Direct I/O (DDIO) where your Ethernet traffic is directly written and read from the L3 cache, bypassing main memory. Lower cost and at 85W, lower heat. You have the 1080 for that. ;-)  It only supports DDR4-2133 which it downclocks to 1866, but with 128MB of DDR4 and DDIO you won't be slowed down by memory access ever. BTW - I use the XEON 2630-v3 so went through the options when I bought the X99-Deluxe II.

Question 6

Can the childish LED lighting effects be disabled in the BIOS or with jumpers?

Accepted Answer

I couldn't see a way to completely disable.. however, what I did was set it to be a thermal indicator.  In this mode the light is always green as long as your not over heating in which case it turns red.  This at least gives it a purpose

Question 7

Does this have onboard NIC?

Accepted Answer

Yes, It contains dual LAN Ports, Which can also be teamed. As well as a Wi-fi adapter built-in.

Question 8

Can you fit 2 Intel SSD 750 Series PCIe AIC 1.2TB on this motherboard?

Accepted Answer

Yes, there are two U.2 SFF-8639 connectors, but the second U.2 connector shares PCIe lanes on PCIEX16_3. The U.2_1 shares with PCIEX16_5.

Question 9

can I boot from hyper m.2 x4 mini card with samsung 950 pro on it?  Any difference between on board m.2 x4 slot and hyper m.2 x4 extension card (like speed, functionality)? Thanks

Accepted Answer

I put windows 10 on the SSD m.2 on the mini card, it booted fine with no SATA drive plugged in, but then when I plugged in any drive to the SATA port #1 or SATA port #2, it would no longer boot from the mini card. I only tried a couple times with various BIOS settings and boot order, then gave up and put the OS on the SSD plugged into the SATA port #1, and reformated the SSD on the M.2 card and made it just another data drive. I have not plugged in the expansion card, can't address any of those questions

Question 10

Any issues installing Win7-64 on an nvme drive (intel pcie750 or 3500) with this board?

Accepted Answer

I have installed an Intel PCI-e 750 series 1.2TB and also an OCZ RD400A 1TB M.2 in the supplied Asus AIC, both using Win 7 Ult-64bit with no problems at all. Just need to have the manufacturers NVMe drivers on a USB stick to recognize the drive during the install process. Both these drives scream, but the new Samsung 960 Pro's are suppose to be even faster an should be available any day now!

Questions & Answers