Asus’ WS X299 Sage workstation motherboard was released a few months and is their board when come to the X299 chipset. Now Asus is releasing a new version of the motherboard with nice extras called the WS X299 Sage/10G.
The WS X299 Sage’s makeover begins at the motherboard’s power-delivery subsystem. The WS X299 Sage/10G still has the same eight-phase digital design as its predecessor, but Asus beefed up the heatsinks quite a bit. The length of the primary heatsink has been extended to improve cooling performance while the secondary heatsink now extends to the back panel in the form of a stack of dense aluminum fins. The extended area probably cools the Intel X550-AT2 Ethernet controller, which brings us to the most significant upgrade on the WS X299 Sage/10G.
Asus has replaced both standard Gigabit Ethernet interfaces with two 10-Gigabit Ethernet ports. The Intel X550-AT2 chip, codenamed “Sageville,” is the Ethernet controller that powers and manages the new ports. However, Asus had to make a few sacrifices to accommodate the chip. As a result, the revised motherboard has lost four USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports, and a U.2 connector compared to the original WS X299 Sage.
Asus hasn’t revealed the pricing or availability of the WS X299 Sage/10G.
