Gentlemen?
This is an interesting piece of hardware with so many features, it's impossible to categorize- limit- it's application- workstation / server is more likely, but high performance gaming is entirely possible. It's multiple personalities are apparent in this YouTube video, produced by ASRock:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yt0xtBc-z7w&feature=youtu.be
> in which an Extreme11 is used with an 18-core Xeon E5-2699 v3 (2.3 /3.6GHz, $2,800) 128GB of DDR4 RAM, M.2 Ultra PCIe SSD's, 18 various SSD's, and 4X GTX 780TI in SLI that include active bridges (PLX PEX 8487) that allows all four GPU's to run at 16X. There are a lot of benchmarks in this test, the most impressive of which is a total of 8.4GB/s transfers and 2.8GB/s from the two M.2 Ultra PCIe drives alone. The other benchmarks are not particularly meaningful to me (3D Mark Firestrike Extreme of 16216?) as they are relative scores and in some cases compared to hardware two or three generations past- i7-3930 for example. Still- very impressive, and the X99 chipset and LGA2011-3 appears to be a winner.
The Extreme11, having Xeon and DDR4 ECC support, 2X amazingly fast M.2 Ultra and so many SATA3 and SAS ports, run by an LSI controller, the line up of PCIe x16 that could accommodate either multiple GPU's and/or GPU coprocessors, suggest very high-end workstation/server use, but it appears it will do well at about anything. The one limitation is that it accommodates one CPU, but the new series of 8, 10, 12, 14, and 18 core Xeons address the issue for highly threaded applications.
I'd enjoy seeing test of a system set up for the most demanding WS applications. I don't think I could ever use such a system to it's full potential, and justify the $15-20,000 - and $40,000 of appropriate software that a full-bore system would cost, but I also enjoy watching F1 racing in which the cars have $70,000 steering wheels. Perhaps Tom's might have an X99 test festival?
N.Broekhuijsen requests ideas for a proper case for this board and I would suggest:
http://www.caselabs-store.com/magnum-sth10/
> a CaseLabs Magnum STH10 that with optional fittings can incorporate 48 drives.
BambiBoom