Intel X99, codenamed "Wellsburg", is a

Platform Controller Hub The Platform Controller Hub (PCH) is a family of Intel's single-chip chipsets, first introduced in 2009. It is the successor to the Intel Hub Architecture, which used two chips - a Northbridge (computing), northbridge and Southbridge (computing), ...

(PCH) designed and manufactured by

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...

, targeted at the high-end desktop (HEDT) and enthusiast segments of the Intel product lineup. The X99 chipset supports both

Intel Core i7 The following is a list of Intel Core i7 brand microprocessors. Introduced in 2008, the Core i7 line of microprocessors are intended to be used by high-end users. Desktop processors Nehalem microarchitecture (1st generation) "Bloomfield" ...

Extreme and

Intel Xeon Xeon ( ) is a brand of x86 microprocessors designed, manufactured, and marketed by Intel, targeted at the non-consumer workstation, server, and embedded system markets. It was introduced in June 1998. Xeon processors are based on the same arc ...

E5-16xx v3 and E5-26xx v3

processors A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor or just processor, is the electronic circuitry that executes instructions comprising a computer program. The CPU performs basic arithmetic, logic, controlling, ...

, which belong to the

Haswell-E Haswell is the List of Intel codenames, codename for a Central processing unit, processor microarchitecture developed by Intel as the "fourth-generation core" successor to the Ivy Bridge (microarchitecture), Ivy Bridge (which is a die shrink/Tick ...

and

Haswell-EP Xeon ( ) is a brand of x86 microprocessors designed, manufactured, and marketed by Intel, targeted at the non-consumer workstation, server, and embedded system markets. It was introduced in June 1998. Xeon processors are based on the same arc ...

variants of the Haswell microarchitecture, respectively. All supported processors use the LGA 2011-v3

socket Socket may refer to: Mechanics * Socket wrench, a type of wrench that uses separate, removable sockets to fit different sizes of nuts and bolts * Socket head screw, a screw (or bolt) with a cylindrical head containing a socket into which the hexag ...

. The X99 chipset was released in late August 2014, while the supported processors were released in late August 2014 (Haswell-E) and early September 2014 (Haswell-EP). In May 2016, X99's processor support was extended to the Broadwell variants of the Intel Core i7 Extreme and Intel Xeon E5-16xx v4 and E5-26xx v4 processors, which belong to the Broadwell-E and Broadwell-EP variants of the Broadwell microarchitecture, respectively.

Features

The X99 chipset uses a

Direct Media Interface In computing, Direct Media Interface (DMI) is Intel's proprietary link between the northbridge and southbridge on a computer motherboard. It was first used between the 9xx chipsets and the ICH6, released in 2004. Previous Intel chipsets had us ...

(DMI) 2.0 ×4 link for the connection between the processor and itself; that way, a total bandwidth of 20

Gbit/s In telecommunications, data-transfer rate is the average number of bits ( bitrate), characters or symbols ( baudrate), or data blocks per unit time passing through a communication link in a data-transmission system. Common data rate units are mu ...

is available to all connectivity options provided by the chipset. Up to eight PCI Express 2.0 lanes are provided by the X99 chipset, with speeds of up to 5 Gbit/s per

lane In road transport, a lane is part of a roadway that is designated to be used by a single line of vehicles to control and guide drivers and reduce traffic conflicts. Most public roads (highways) have at least two lanes, one for traffic in each ...

and a possibility to configure these lanes into ×1, ×2 and ×4 links. Additionally, the X99 chipset supports a configurable layout of the PCI Express 3.0 lanes provided by the processor, which may be bifurcated into up to two ×16 links and one ×8 link, or into up to five ×8 links (the total number of available PCI Express 3.0 lanes depends on the used processor). Two Serial ATA (SATA) 3.0 controllers are integrated into the X99 chipset, providing a total of up to ten ports for storage devices and supporting speeds of up to 6 Gbit/s per port, with hardware support for the

Advanced Host Controller Interface The Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI) is a technical standard defined by Intel that specifies the register-level interface of Serial ATA (SATA) host controllers in a non-implementation-specific manner in its motherboard chipsets. The ...

(AHCI) logical interface. Each SATA port may be enabled or disabled as needed. Six SATA ports provided by the first controller may be configured for

Rapid Storage Technology Intel Rapid Storage Technology (RST) is a driver SATA AHCI and a firmware-based RAID solution built into a wide range of Intel chipsets. Currently also is installed as a driver for Intel Optane temporary storage units. It contains two opera ...

(RST) 13.1, which supports

RAID Raid, RAID or Raids may refer to: Attack * Raid (military), a sudden attack behind the enemy's lines without the intention of holding ground * Corporate raid, a type of hostile takeover in business * Panty raid, a prankish raid by male college ...

0, 1, 5 and 10 levels; additionally,

Smart Response Technology In computer data storage, Smart Response Technology (SRT, also called SSD Caching before it was launched) is a proprietary caching mechanism introduced in 2011 by Intel for their Z68 chipset (for the Sandy Bridge–series processors), which a ...

(SRT) disk caching allows the creation of

hybrid volume In computing, a hybrid drive (solid state hybrid drive – SSHD) is a logical or physical storage device that combines a faster storage medium such as solid-state drive (SSD) with a higher-capacity hard disk drive (HDD). The intent is adding s ...

SATA Express SATA Express (sometimes unofficially shortened to SATAe) is a computer bus Interface (computing), interface that supports both Serial ATA (SATA) and PCI Express (PCIe) storage devices, initially standardized in the SATA 3.2 specification. ...

and

M.2 M.2, pronounced ''m dot two'' and formerly known as the Next Generation Form Factor (NGFF), is a specification for internally mounted computer expansion cards and associated connectors. M.2 replaces the mSATA standard, which uses the PCI Ex ...

are also supported, providing the ability for interfacing with PCI Express-based storage devices. Each of the X99's SATA Express ports requires two PCI Express 2.0 lanes provided by the chipset, while the M.2 slots can use either two 2.0 lanes from the chipset itself, or up to four 3.0 lanes taken directly from the processor. As a result, the X99 provides bandwidths of up to 3.94

GB/s In telecommunications, data-transfer rate is the average number of bits (bitrate), characters or symbols (baudrate), or data blocks per unit time passing through a communication link in a data-transmission system. Common data rate units are multi ...

for connected PCI Express storage devices. One

Extensible Host Controller Interface eXtensible Host Controller Interface (xHCI) is a computer interface specification that defines a register-level description of a host controller for Universal Serial Bus (USB), which is capable of interfacing with USB 1.x, 2.0, and 3.x compatible ...

(xHCI) controller and two

Enhanced Host Controller Interface A host controller interface (HCI) is a register-level interface that enables a host controller for USB or IEEE 1394 hardware to communicate with a host controller driver in software. The driver software is typically provided with an operating sys ...

(EHCI) controllers are integrated into the X99 chipset, providing a total of up to 14 USB ports. Out of those ports, up to six can be configured as USB 3.0 ports with speeds of up to 5 Gbit/s per port, while the remaining are USB 2.0 ports with speeds of up to 480

Mbit/s In telecommunications, data-transfer rate is the average number of bits (bitrate), characters or symbols (baudrate), or data blocks per unit time passing through a communication link in a data-transmission system. Common data rate units are multi ...

per port. Each USB port may also be enabled or disabled as needed. Integrated

Intel High Definition Audio Intel High Definition Audio (IHDA) (also called HD Audio or development codename Azalia) is a specification for the audio sub-system of personal computers. It was released by Intel in 2004 as the successor to their AC'97 PC audio standard. Featur ...

(HD Audio) supports up to four hardware

audio codec An audio codec is a device or computer program capable of encoding or decoding a digital data stream (a codec) that encodes or decodes audio. In software, an audio codec is a computer program implementing an algorithm that compresses and decompres ...

s and multi-channel audio streams. An Intel

Gigabit Ethernet In computer networking, Gigabit Ethernet (GbE or 1 GigE) is the term applied to transmitting Ethernet frames at a rate of a gigabit per second. The most popular variant, 1000BASE-T, is defined by the IEEE 802.3ab standard. It came into use i ...

controller is also integrated, supporting (among other features) receive-side scaling (RSS) with two hardware receive queues. Some of the connectivity options and interfaces provided by the X99 chipset are configurable via Flexible I/O, which allows certain hardware capacities of the chipset to be selectively distributed between the PCI Express, USB 3.0 and SATA interfaces. That way, connectivity options of the X99 chipset may be adjusted to fit the needs of a particular motherboard implementation; for example, some of the SATA or USB 3.0 ports may be exchanged for additional PCI Express 2.0 lanes. The X99 chipset supports Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O (Intel VT-d), which provides hardware support for

virtualization In computing, virtualization or virtualisation (sometimes abbreviated v12n, a numeronym) is the act of creating a virtual (rather than actual) version of something at the same abstraction level, including virtual computer hardware platforms, stor ...

by implementing an input/output memory management unit (IOMMU). The chipset also integrates a

Low Pin Count The Low Pin Count (LPC) bus is a computer bus used on IBM-compatible personal computers to connect low-bandwidth devices to the CPU, such as the BIOS ROM (BIOS ROM was moved to the Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) bus in 2006), "legacy" I/O ...

(LPC) interface, supporting interrupt controllers, timers, power management,

super I/O Super I/O is a class of I/O controller integrated circuits that began to be used on personal computer motherboards in the late 1980s, originally as add-in cards, later embedded on the motherboards. A super I/O chip combines interfaces for a vari ...

real-time clock A real-time clock (RTC) is an electronic device (most often in the form of an integrated circuit) that measures the passage of time. Although the term often refers to the devices in personal computers, servers and embedded systems, RTCs are pr ...

(RTC), etc. Integrated

Serial Peripheral Interface The Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) is a synchronous serial communication interface specification used for short-distance communication, primarily in embedded systems. The interface was developed by Motorola in the mid-1980s and has become a ...

(SPI) allows interfacing with devices such as

Trusted Platform Module Trusted Platform Module (TPM, also known as ISO/IEC 11889) is an international standard for a secure cryptoprocessor, a dedicated microcontroller designed to secure hardware through integrated cryptographic keys. The term can also refer to a ch ...

s (TPMs) and

serial flash Flash memory is an electronic non-volatile computer memory storage medium that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. The two main types of flash memory, NOR flash and NAND flash, are named for the NOR and NAND logic gates. Both us ...

devices. System Management Bus (SMBus) is also provided, with additional support for I²C devices.

Overclocking In computing, overclocking is the practice of increasing the clock rate of a computer to exceed that certified by the manufacturer. Commonly, operating voltage is also increased to maintain a component's operational stability at accelerated spe ...

is available for unlocked variants of the supported processors. As a significant new feature, the X99 enthusiast platform as a whole was the first to support

DDR4 Double Data Rate 4 Synchronous Dynamic Random-Access Memory (DDR4 SDRAM) is a type of synchronous dynamic random-access memory with a high bandwidth (" double data rate") interface. Released to the market in 2014, it is a variant of dynamic ra ...

memory. Thanks to the features of integrated memory controllers (IMCs) of supported processors, the X99 platform also supports dual- and quad-channel memory layouts, with optional support for registered

ECC memory Error correction code memory (ECC memory) is a type of computer data storage that uses an error correction code (ECC) to detect and correct n-bit data corruption which occurs in memory. ECC memory is used in most computers where data corruption c ...

References

External links

*
X79 vs. X99: What is new in X99 and Haswell-E
August 29, 2014, by Matt Bach {{Basic computer components

X99 Intel X99, List of Intel codenames, codenamed "Wellsburg", is a Platform Controller Hub (PCH) designed and manufactured by Intel, targeted at the Desktop computer, high-end desktop (HEDT) and enthusiast segments of the Intel product lineup. Th ...

Computer-related introductions in 2014

Features

See also

References

External links