Codename(s) | Wellsburg |
---|---|
CPU supported |
|
Socket supported | LGA 2011-v3 |
Fabrication process | 32 nm |
TDP | 6.5 W |
Miscellaneous | |
Release date(s) | August 2014 |
Predecessor | Intel X79 |
Intel X99, codenamed "Wellsburg", is a Platform Controller Hub (PCH) designed and manufactured by Intel, targeted at the high-end desktop (HEDT or enthusiast) segment of the Intel product lineup. The X99 chipset supports both Intel Core i7 Extreme and Intel Xeon E5-16xx v3 and E5-26xx v3 processors, which belong to the Haswell-E and Haswell-EP variants of the Haswell microarchitecture, respectively. All supported processors use the LGA 2011-v3 socket.
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).
The X99 chipset uses a Direct Media Interface (DMI) 2.0 ×4 link for the connection between the processor and itself; that way, a total bandwidth of 20 Gbit/s 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 and a possibility to configure these lanes into ×1, ×2 and ×8 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 (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 (RST) 13.1, which supports RAID 0, 1, 5 and 10 levels; additionally, Smart Response Technology (SRT) disk caching allows the creation of hybrid volumes.