Located at the top-right, near the DIMM slots, is the 24-pin ATX power connector; an ideal location, but angling it 90 degrees would have allowed for a neater build. An 8-pin EPS-12V socket is positioned at the top behind the VRM heatsink, and a lack of additional auxilluary EPS-12V power speaks to the X99-Deluxe not being an extreme overclockers board.

The ASUS MemOK! Button just above the 24-Pin socket is terribly useful when overclocking at the limits of your memory, resetting your memory settings back to a failsafe mode.

At the other side of the 24-Pin socket is the M.2X4 slot for vertically mounting M.2 SSDs. Typically M.2 mounts have been oriented to slot the drive in horizontally, parallel to the motherboard PCB; vertical mounts are a better use of surface space, but does leave the SSD (especially those of the 110mm+ lengths) relatively vulnerable to knocks. Of course the PCIE adapter is also included, but if you’re intending to make use of this feature it’s best to install the M.2 drive last.



Moving down to storage, the X99-Deluxe has eight dedicated SATA III 6Gbps ports and two SATA-Express ports, capable of up to 10Gbps or alternatively useable as four SATA III ports. SATA-Express storage is provided by the Intel chipset and an ASMedia SATA-Express controller, with the Intel controller at the top of the stack.



Next up is the bottom-right of the motherboard. We’ve mentioned the switches for advanced feature control outside of BIOS, but we can also make note of the two USB 3.0 and 2.0 headers for front panel I/O. Quite comprehensive, and locating these headers here should also help in cable management.



Plenty more components are present just below the PCIE slots. Reset, Power and Clear CMOS switches will be handy for anyone dropping the X99-Deluxe into a test-bench, and a troubleshooting LED display is always welcome. The white five-pin bracket is intended for the PWM fan expansion board, offering five more fan connectors but allowing you to route the cables behind your motherboard. And of course the array of Japanese capacitors is all dedicated to providing clear electrical signals for audio.



Simplicity is the order of the day in rear I/O, the majority of which is hidden would be hidden by the white cover when looking through a case window. Included are:


Note the lack of a legacy PS/2 port; USB has certainly come a long way but some gamers will be disappointed by the absence.



Finally, a look at the wider PCI-Express slot area. Six slots are present, five of which are sized at 16x and one at 4x. Two are wired for 16x operation and are separated by two clear slots, ideal for keeping plenty of space between cards hungry for unobstructed cool air; the other 16x slots are wired for up to 8x operation.

As far as card layout options go the X99-Deluxe is impossible to beat. Whether with two or three GPUs an ideal x16/x16 or x8/x8/x8 is possible, which is exceptionally rare on an ATX board. For that they have sacrificed a spot for the surface mounted M.2 SSD, moving it to a vertical slot at the edge, but that’s a fine trade-off.