Gigabyte Intros a Nifty X299 Designare EX Motherboard

Gigabyte has enlarged its line of motherboards with a sleek model – the X299 Designare EX. The greenhorn is developed in ATX form-factor and boasts black-and-silver design. The reverse side of the PCB employs a single base plate. The heart of the item is Intel X299 chipset, compatible with HEDT CPUs (Intel Core X family) for Socket LGA2066.
 
Gigabyte X299 Designare EX is fitted with 8x DIMM slots for the installation of DDR4-4400 MHz RAM (up to 512 GB, if using buffered memory in 4-channel mode). The manufacturer has provided for 5x slots for the expansion cards (PCIe 3.0 x16); herewith, the amount of lanes and operational mode of sockets depend upon the chosen CPU. The model brags about an integrated Thunderbolt 3 controller.
 
Furthermore, storage subsystem is backed by 6x SATA III (6 Gb/sec) interfaces, 3x M.2 Socket 3 ports as well as 2x SATA III ports, realized thanks to ASMedia ASM1061 chip. A pair of LAN-controllers, regulated by Intel, 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi + Bluetooth 4.2 module enable networks facilities of the mainboard. Audio facilities are represented by 8-channel Realtek ALC1220 controller.
 
The I/O panel is as follows: a pair of connectors for external antennas. A set of audio outputs, 4x USB 3.1 Gen 1, 2x USB 2.0, 2x RJ-45, PS/2 port, 2x USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C with Thunderbolt 3 support.  
 
Pricing and release date are not unveiled so far.