Intel’s new High End Desktop CPUs, expected in the not too distant future, should be compatible with much of ASRock’s X99 range upon their release.
Intel’s new High End Desktop CPUs, expected in the not too distant future, should be compatible with much of ASRock’s X99 range upon their release.
The long road to Intel‘s Broadwell-E release continues this week with ASRock publishing a swath of UEFI BIOS updates for selected X99 motherboards, enabling support for the upcoming High End Desktop CPUs.
Intel’s new CPUs, manufactured using their 14nm process and featuring an architecture updated from Haswell-E, will become the new mainstay of Intel’s HED range. Unlike Haswell-E however Broadwell-E won’t be releasing alongside a brand new motherboard chipset. Instead X99 will continue to support the new CPUs, with individual manufacturers updating their current lineup and optionally adding support to prior designs via a BIOS update.
Whilst not comprehensive, today’s updates from ASRock mean that eleven of their X99 models will support the new CPUs when they’re released. It’s notable however that neither the X99 Fatal1ty nor OC Formula ranges appear to have been updated Broadwell-E as yet, perhaps due ongoing testing for these specific models.
To date, these are the models with BIOS updates that enable Broadwell-E Support:
X99 WS-E/10G
X99 WS-E
X99 WS X99 Extreme11
X99 Extreme6/3.1
X99 Extreme6/ac
X99 Extreme6
X99 Extreme4/3.1
X99 Extreme4
X99M Extreme4
X99 Extreme3
X99E-ITX/ac
X99 WS-E
X99 WS X99 Extreme11
X99 Extreme6/3.1
X99 Extreme6/ac
X99 Extreme6
X99 Extreme4/3.1
X99 Extreme4
X99M Extreme4
X99 Extreme3
X99E-ITX/ac
Links through the individual download pages can be found at: http://www.asrock.com.tw/mb/index.asp?s=2011-3. Broadwell-E is expected later in Q2.
