Intel W790 Motherboards Roundup: ASUS W790 SAGE, W790 ACE, ASRock W790 WS, Supermicro X13 Series

Sep 20, 2023

Intel has finally unleashed its Sapphire Rapids Xeon Workstation CPUs and along with them, we get to see a range of W790 motherboards too.

There are a total of five Intel W790 motherboards that have been unveiled so far which come from ASUS, ASRock & Supermicro. Gigabyte will also be announcing its own W790 series boards soon but we have to talk about the ones that were shown off today and those are indeed some monsters in terms of the overall design.

ASUS PRO WS W790E-SAGE SE Motherboard

Starting with ASUS's juggernaut, the PRO WS W790E-SAGE SE comes in an EEB Form factor and houses the LGA 4677 socket surrounded by eight DDR5 DIMMs that can support up to 2 TB of memory with speeds of up to 6800 Mbps. The motherboard comes with a 14+1+1 phase power design that is cooled off by large heatsinks and the CPU socket is powered by an impressive dual 24-pin connector & quad 8-pin connector array. There are also additional 8 and 6-pin connectors for PCIe power. The following are the highlighted features of this motherboard:

In terms of expansion, the motherboard feature 7 PCIe 5.0 x16 slots and triple M.2 slots (2 x 5.0x4 / 1x 4.0x4). Other storage options include 8 SATA III ports and two Slim SAS ports which operate at a bandwidth of PCIe 4.0 x4. In terms of I/O, the motherboard features a total of 8 rear & 7 front panel USB ports along with dual 10 GbE Ethernet LAN, & a 1 GbE LAN port. There's Clear CMOS and even a BIOS Flashback button on the back of the board while the M.2 slots feature their own heatsinks in a brushed metallic finish.

ASUS PRO WS W790-ACE Motherboard

ASUS also has a slimmer version of the SAGE in the form of the WS W790-ACE which features a CEB form factor. The motherboard still comes with eight DDR5 DIMM slots with up to 2 TB total capacity and 6800 Mbps speed support. The VRM features a 12+1+1 phase power design with an extended fin heatsink while power is delivered through dual 24-pin and quad 8-pin connectors. There's also a single 8-pin connector for PCIe power. Following are the highlighted features of this motherboard:

I/O options include five PCIe 5.0 x16 slots, & two M.2 slots rated at PCIe 4.0 x4 mode while storage options include 4 SATA III and triple SlimSAS ports (2x 4.0x4 / 1x 3.0x4). Other than that, there are a handful of USB ports totaling at 13 on the rear and 7 on the front. Other than that, there's a single 10 GbE and a 2.5 GbE LAN port along with a range of other ports. Both M.2 slots are situated under their dedicated heatsink.

ASRock W790 WS Motherboard

ASRock has gone all out with its brand new W790 WS motherboard which features a massive 20+2 +1 phase VRM design that makes use of 90A SPS power stages and a 14-layer PCB design. ASRock ensures up to 2 TB DDR5 capacities and up to 6800 OC+ speeds with 8 DIMM slots circling the LGA 4677 socket. ASRock also makes use of a massive aluminum finned heatsink that even incorporates a heat pipe that leads to the I/O cover which has another heatsink underneath it. Power is provided through a single 24-pin and dual 8-pin connector. There are also dual 8-pin connectors to deliver even more juice to the PCIe slots. The following are the highlighted features of this motherboard:

For I/O, ASRock has supplemented the W790 WS motherboard with four PCIe 5.0 x16, 1 PCIe 4.0 x16, & four Blazing M.2 (Gen 5.0 x4) slots, all of which are covered with heatsinks. Storage options include 8 SATA III ports and even a U.2 port. There are Power / Reset buttons along with a DEBUG LED on the motherboard itself. As for I/O, there are two 10 GbE and a single 2.5 GbE LAN ports, a range of USB 3.2 connectors including two USB4 Thunderbolt ports, WIFI 6E support, and even a BIOS flashback button on the back.

One of the highlighted features of this motherboard is that it will come with an additional Blazing Quad M.2 add-in-card which adds four additional M.2 Gen 5.0 x4 devices to the motherboard that will be cooled actively by a dual-fan design in a single-slot form factor.

Supermicro X13SWA-TF Motherboard

The Supermicro X13SWA-TF motherboard features the new LGA 4677 socket (Socket P) which will support the latest Xeon CPUs branded under the Intel Sapphire Rapids-WS family. The CPU gets power from an 8+2 phase power delivery which is juiced up by a dual 8-pin power connector layout. The motherboard supports Xeon processors with up to 350W TDPs (supported with SMC dedicated heatsink or water cooler). This is the only workstation-class motherboard that features 16 DDR5 DIMM slots for up to 4 TB memory support and up to 4800 Mbps speeds. The following are the highlighted features of this motherboard:

Moving forward to the expansion, the Supermicro W790 motherboard features a total of 6 PCIe x16 slots. There are also three M.2 slots on the board which should be Gen5 compliant too. There are 8 SATA III ports, two U.2 ports, and a good selection of I/O at the back. Supermicro, just like many other manufacturers will be offering this and several other W790-class motherboards close to launch. I/O includes a single 10GbE (Marvell AQC113C) & an Intel i210-AT 1GbE controller on the motherboard along with a share IPMI.

There's also the Supermicro X13SRA-TF motherboard which is essentially a more slimmed-out design with triple PCIe 5.0 x16 slots, an 8+2 phase power delivery, 8 DDR5 DIMM slots & dual M.2 slots. There's no word on pricing yet but expect these motherboards to cost a lot when they hit shelves next month.