The EVGA X299 FTW K Motherboard Review: Dual U.2 Ports
by Joe Shields on January 29, 2018 8:45 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Intel
- Killer
- EVGA
- X299
- Basin Falls
- Skylake-X
- Kaby Lake-X
Conclusion
The EVGA FTW K is currently priced at $329.99 on Newegg US and is not found on Amazon. The board competes with the likes of the MSI X299 Gaming Pro Carbon AC ($350), ASRock X299 Taichi XE ($323), and the GIGABYTE X299 AORUS Ultra Gaming Pro ($350 - on sale for $300 now) by price.
Ultimately, the FTW K tries to be a jack of all trades type of motherboard. It has features listed as 'for the gamer', including the Killer E2500 NIC, support for 3-way graphics, but runs with the last generation high-end Realtek ALC1150 codec. Professionals will like its ability to use two U.2 based drives (when using a 44-lane CPU) for ultra-fast storage, compared to most X299 boards that have zero or one U.2 port. This motherboard, to a certain extent, is a unicorn on the X299 platform.
RGB LED implementation was bright, and the number of locations wasn't overkill with the chipset heatsink, back panel IO, and audio shrouds all lighting up. The lighting effects are limited compared to other boards, with only four modes to choose from. Related to this, the back panel IO/audio shroud did not come attached to the board and is something the user will have to do if they choose. I understand needing to install GPU struts and such, but I would have preferred to see these already attached since the vast majority of people will use them.
There should be enough fan headers to control CPU and case fans through the motherboard, but users need to be aware only the Chassis fans support both PWM and DC control. Both CPU headers do not. Also, many boards in this class/price range, typically have high-power header for pumps, but this board is missing such an option and all headers are good to 1A(12W).
Our overclocking hit the same speeds as all the other motherboards we have tested so far. This is an expected result since we are temperature limited by our cooling. The BIOS is pretty basic and not the most refined, however, it was able to do its job within the scope of our testing and this was EVGA's intent (it says 'straight and to the point, the way a modern BIOS should be' on the retail packaging). That being said, to not have LLC and power limit adjustments available was odd. It doesn't appear to be a huge deal in our environment, but I would have preferred to see the options.
Overall, the EVGA FTW K is a more than capable board for a large set of users and has a pretty unique feature with two U.2 ports on the board. Outside of the curious the curious behavior during any tests which include AVX instructions, performance was right around the other boards with it excelling in fast boot times as well power consumption (a result of this lower clock speeds during testing). The BIOS doesn't have every single option others have, but for ambient overclocking, at least to where we take things, it doesn't appear to be needed. It's a tough segment to be in, this mid-range segment, and other boards may have more bells and whistles in the BIOS and RGB LED department, but the EVGA FTW K presents us with a solid foundation for an X299 based system.
Other AnandTech X299 Motherboard Reviews
Prices checked Jan 25th
- The Intel Skylake-X Review: Core i9-7980XE and Core i9-7960X Tested
- The Intel Skylake-X Review: Core i9-7900X, i7-7820X and i7-7800X Tested
- The Intel Kaby Lake-X Review: Core i7-7740X and i5-7640X Tested
- Intel Announces Basin Falls: The New High-End Desktop Platform and X299 Chipset
- ($400) The ASRock X299E-ITX/ac Review [link]
- ($400) The GIGABYTE X299 Gaming 7 Pro Review [link]
- ($390) The ASRock X299 Professional Gaming i9 Review [link]
- ($370) The ASUS Strix X299-XE Gaming Review [link]
- ($350) The MSI X299 Gaming Pro Carbon Review [link]
- ($340) The ASUS X299 TUF Mark 1 Review [link]
- ($330) The EVGA X299 FTW-K Review (this review)
- ($290) The ASRock X299 Taichi Review [link]
- ($280) The MSI X299 Tomahawk Arctic Review [link]
- ($260) The MSI X299 SLI Plus Review [link]
23 Comments
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jordanclock - Monday, January 29, 2018 - link
Any chance we could see comparison numbers on the Intel and Killer NICs?Flunk - Monday, January 29, 2018 - link
There is almost no difference, type "intel vs killer nic" into Google. It's been done to death.jordanclock - Monday, January 29, 2018 - link
By that logic, they shouldn't bother including half their benchmarks for motherboards because they are almost always to same for a given chipset.My interest is in this particular motherboards implementation of the dual NICs.
Ian Cutress - Monday, January 29, 2018 - link
Aside from doing a peak throughput test, we're looking into doing something more substantial for NIC testing. Still a WIPjordanclock - Monday, January 29, 2018 - link
Awesome! Glad you're looking to do something more meaningful than peak throughput. It's kind of like the average FPS of networking, in that it gets a lot of attention but isn't the most useful number.ImSpartacus - Monday, January 29, 2018 - link
Whew, I'm glad there's finally a mobo with two u.2 ports.It's so annoying to have all of these u.2 drives without the ability to use more than one at a time!
bug77 - Monday, January 29, 2018 - link
Ha, I was just thinking the same thing when I read the article :PYuriman - Monday, January 29, 2018 - link
Maybe it's just me, but I find those heatsinks pretty ugly.JoeyJoJo123 - Monday, January 29, 2018 - link
It's supposed to align with their For The Win 3 (FTW3) series video cards styling.http://hexus.net/media/uploaded/2017/5/9656d308-25...
It's no different than MSI doing a similar red/black dragon scheme that they've done with their video cards to their motherboards.
bug77 - Monday, January 29, 2018 - link
I find this type of comment pretty useless.No one design choice will ever appeal to everyone. And a chameleonic or customizable look hasn't been done yet, so that comment really brings nothing to the discussion.
It's ok to point out fugly board, so the manufacturer knows not to do that again, but that's far from the case here.