Question 1

Is this a micro ATX board?

Accepted Answer

This is not an extended ATX. It is 20% smaller than that! It is just an inch wider than standard ATX, and most ATX cases should fit it. I use it in a Fractal Design Node 605, which is the smallest (although not the lightest) ATX case AFAIK.

Question 2

Hi - Does this motherboard require a sound card?

Accepted Answer

Dedicated area on the motherboard, high grade Japanese audio capacitors and crystal sound 2. Some of the best audio you can get on a motherboard today. Although nothing beats high end audio cards.

Why would you think that they wouldn't put audio on such an expensive motherboard? There is an overview when you scroll down.

Question 3

So I'm wondering, what cooler would be best to use on this motherboard if I'm making a workstation? Thanks in advance.

Accepted Answer

I bought this motherboard, along with multiple other items including ram, processor, new case, etc a few months back, but haven't even built it yet, lol. Just got too busy. But I did do alot of research. What I did find out was that if you're going to do any oc'ing you'll probably want to go with water cooling. If not, then a good strong air cooler would be fine. I have a beefy Noctua air cooler and was told that would be fine if I'm not oc'ing.

Hope it helps.

Question 4

What is the maximum number of GPUs that the BIOS will support (for compute/CUDA tasks)?

Accepted Answer

I'm 98% sure that you can populate all 7 slots with gtx cards.  I'm currently running 4 780ti's.  But let me warn you.  The biggest issue that you have to overcome is HEAT!  If you install the cards right up against each other (without leaving a empty slot between) you will have a heat and noise issue.  The upper card will intake all the heat from the card below.  The cards will not preform at 100% and they will throttle down within a minute or so.

The only options you have is that you can could water cool them.

But if your sticking with air cooling, you'll need to space them out.  I ended up buying a PCIE extension cable (the good one is made by 3M @ 100$ per cable!) to solve my heat issue.

Do some research on people building bitcoining rigs.  A lot of them end up using multiple pcie extension cables in there PCs.

Question 5

I can use this motherboard on my corsair 900d?

Accepted Answer

Jose:
   Just got booted off & re-booted server so don't know what you got so far so I will start again.   
   The CEB Form Factor is only about 1/8" (3mm) wider than standard ATX motherboards.   I'm pretty sure (99.9%) it will fit in a Corsair 900D case but I have it installed in a Cooler Master 935 HAF Stacker and had enough room between it and the hard drive / 5.25"  trays to put the D5 liquid cooling pump and 250mm reservior.   Hope this helps.

Question 6

I understand that if I'm asking this question that I probably should'nt be considering this product but can anyone explain what the SSI CEB form factor is and can this work in a standard full tower? (CoolerMaster HAF 935)

Accepted Answer

Quoting from Wikipedia: "The SSI CEB specification was derived from the EEB and ATX specifications. SSI CEB motherboards have the same IO connector area and many of the same motherboard mounting holes as ATX motherboards, although SSI CEB motherboards are larger in size than ATX motherboards and have different processor mounting holes. The rear panel aperture is identical to the EEB and ATX specification and expansion cards mounted on an SSI CEB motherboard appear much the same as they would on an ATX motherboard.

To standardize thermal behavior, processor position is defined, including primary and secondary processor identification. For motherboards with only one processor installed, it is recommended the primary processor socket be populated first."

This will work in almost any standard full tower.  And definitely with the HAF 935 no problem, you'll have plenty of room.  The fact that it is listed as CEB rather than ATX in this case only means that the processor location is more specifically located than on the looser ATX specification, and also that the board measures 12 x 10.5 inches.

Question 7

If I use the M.2 SSD card, will that prevent a quad sli setup?

Accepted Answer

With or without SLI (especially quad), an XP941 should be given a lot of additional spot cooling in the form of glue-on or clip-on heat spreaders (aftermarket... not available from Samsung as far as I know) plus a localized cooling fan or blower.

Question 8

I am a music producer/engineer. looking at purchasing this MB. But, I am having a lot of problems with latency with my present MB. My question is: will this board  fix/improved the latency problem?
Dunn

Accepted Answer

That is really quite difficult to answer at the level of a motherboard.  The best any of us can really do is say that there are some potential scenarios where, if you really cleared all other potential obstacles, you would find this motherboard to be the basis for a really excellent low-latency system.  But that is not the same thing as answering "yes" to your question!  In all my years of experience with Windows, it's simply an operating system that does not do a great job of prioritizing device and I/O latency, with the sole exception of their relentless pursuit of smooth graphics -- because the enthusiast side of the industry is driven by sales to gamers.  Meanwhile, on the non-enthusiast side, the industry is driven by absolute stability, which is pretty much the design opposite from low latency.

The only truly low latency systems I know are running special low-latency versions of Linux.  But you're probably not using Linux-based music production software!

But back to Windows as the realistic most likely OS that you're running... it has latency problems for a hundred strange reasons.  One day you'll notice a weird lag in your key presses or mouse action.  You will track the problem relentlessly for three weeks and finally find that it was caused by some seemingly unrelated and insignificant program that you installed, or by some very minor option that you set or unset in some driver software.  In my case, horrible mouse and keyboard latency have been introduced several times as a result of completely unrelated drivers.

While we're on the subject, generally the best way to keep a Windows system at low latency is to completely reinstall it on a regular basis and to install as little as you possibly can into it.  Ideally a music-production machine is doing one thing: music production... and basically never surfs the web or does much of anything else.  And has all its storage external so that the system drive can have Windows reinstalled often.

Question 9

Will Windows Server 2008 or 2012 run on this board?

Accepted Answer

As far as I know Windows Server will run on any motherboard. I'm not 100% sure, but I know for sure linux runs on every motherboard I've installed it on, including Asus, that includes linux server distros..I think Asus Mobos will handle any OS except Apple. If it will handle win 7 & 8 there should be no problem with win server 2008 or 2012. Hope you can use my input.....

Question 10

says 64 gig of ram when asus website says 128 gig?

Accepted Answer

I think that discrepancy comes from type of used processor. With Intel Xeon CPU this board can support up to 128GB (ECC or non ECC), but with i7, it is limited to 64GB (non ECC only) as this is the most memory this CPU can handle. Hope it helped.

Questions & Answers