What makes ASRock X99 WS-E/10G so fast is the onboard Intel X540 Ethernet controller. This single chip is capable of supporting dual 10G BASE-T LAN ports, which are ten times faster than your ordinary gigabit LAN and usually only seen on server boards. Purposely, this motherboard also supports Windows server operating systems, thus it may also be used to build a small server or workstation.

Aside from the two 10G BASE-T LAN ports, there are two more Intel gigabit LAN ports each supported by an Intel I210AT Ethernet controller, and best of all, support for quad LAN Teaming. By running IxChariot to test our quad LAN setup’s internet bandwidth, we’ve reached a mind blowing 20360 Mb/s.

As usual, to support 4-Way SLI or CrossFireX, especially if you wish to have all four of your graphics cards running at x16/16/16/16 mode, adequate PCIe bandwidth is required. That’s where the two additional PLX PEX 8747 bridge chips come in handy.

While other brands are trying to reduce costs by using less and less power phases on their X99 motherboards, ASRock X99 WS-E/10G adopts an uncompromisable 12 power phase design just like the rest of ASRock’s X99 Super Alloy Series. This ensures that the motherboard is more performance/power efficient and operates at cooler temperatures compared to its adversaries.

Casual PC or server workstation, you decide. The back of ASRock X99 WS-E/10G is mounted with ultra short screws, and the length of the CPU back plate is less than 3mm! Again, this special design is for people who tend to install this motherboard into a 1U server chassis.

ASRock X99 WS-E/10G is a crossover between a hardware enthusiast motherboard and a workstation. Identical to other ASRock X99 Super Alloy motherboards, it supports LGA 2011-3 CPUs ranging from 18 core 160W Xeon E5-1600/2600 v3 processors to unlocked Intel Core i7 CPUs.

Same as the rest of the X99 motherboards, it has eight DDR4 memory slots that support quad channel ECC technology, UDIMM/RDIMM memory modules up to 3200+(OC) and a maximum of 128GB capacity. On the other hand, the storage options are about as good as X99 Extreme11. Users may find 12 SATA3 ports, 1 SATA Express 10Gb/s connector, 1 PCIe Gen2 x4 M.2 slot, a SATA DOM and a USB DOM.