EVGA X99 Micro2 Motherboard ReviewEVGA, a company in my mind had been in the enthusiast community for quite a few years now; I remember at one time having 7900GTOs in SLI, good times. So fast forward a few years, and EVGA has been now a major player in the enthusiast motherboard market. EVGA now has a full motherboard lineup of the X99, Z97 and now the newest Z170 line of Intel motherboards. Today we are looking at their new addition to the X99 family, the EVGA X99 Micro2 mATX motherboard.
The EVGA X99 Micro2 is a mATX form factored motherboard which features the X99 platform with the LGA 2011-3 socket. This version 2 takes all the great features of the original X99 Micro and makes them all better. The all black/grey color scheme is working beautifully, fitting in with just about any build color. Dat’ black matte PCB…..
Specifications 
The Micro2 has support for NVidia’s 2-way SLI, 3-way SLI and Crossfire X. Keep note of the third X16 slot as it being only a single slot design. This board is much better configured as a 2-way configuration. PCIe slot arrangement is broken down to 1x16, 2x16, or 3x8. When running in three video cards in 3-way SLI, note a 40 lane CPU is required. Also included in the feature set is USB 3.1 Type-C. This is a small reversible plug style connector for newer USB devices. 4 USB 2.0 ports and 4 USB 3.0 ports are accompanied on the rear I/O; more connections are available via the front connections. A total of 10 SATAIII/6G ports are available, 4 more than the previous model.
New look 
The original X99 Micro had a black PCB but had silver and red colored capacitors. The CPU socket is bright silver, the very first thing my eye was drawn to. The battery and short M.2 slot are also present under the first PCIe x16 slot. Moving down, the PC speaker is present under the third x16 PCIe slot. On the right side of the Micro is only 6 SATA3 ports, further up is the 24 pin power connector. Next is the debug LED, followed by the voltage readout. The power and reset buttons are right above that. While this whole package wasn’t bad, just there is a few things about the Micro that stood out.
Now with the new Micro2, you get an all blackout paint job, gone is the silver and red capacitors in luau of the black a slight hint of silver capacitors, and it seems to blend in nicely. The CPU socket gets the blackout treatment as well, making it more suited to the rest of the Micro2. Moving to the right side of the Micro2 there is 2 more banks of 2 SATA3 ports. Further up is the 24 pin connector; debug LED, smaller than original power and reset buttons, and the relocated battery.
M.2 Support and Slot Arrangement 
Here you see full x4 PCIe M.2 support for M.2 SSDs ranging from 42mm to 80mm in length, with speeds surpassing 2000MB/s as I have tested with the Samsung SM951 128GB PCIe SSD. This placement of this M.2 slot is between the first PCIe X16 slot and the second X16. You can also see that both PCIe x16 slots are both wired for X16, not like traditional motherboards. When running an Intel 5930k or higher, the slots will run x16 / x16 / x8. When a 5820K is installed, the slots will run x16/ x8 / x4.
Audio
The Micro2 has track lighting being visible which helps reduce the electrical interference from other devices in your system. While toggled in the BIOS via Dark Mode, turning on and off the light, the white line separates the audio from the rest of the Micro2. I hooked up a pair Phillips SHP9500 32-ohm headphones to the output jack, the sound was good, and not audiophile good, but a better DAC/amp would be needed to drive higher input cans.
VRM and Power Delivery
EVGA has gone for a more subtle approach to the VRMs and the cooling for them, I feel a lot of other manufacturers try to make this area more flashy than it needs to be The black nickel CPU ILM is just gorgeous. Behind the ILM is the highly efficient 6-phase digital VRM. Overclocking should be good with the 100% solid state capacitors, as I managed to get 4.4GHz on my Intel i7 5820K. On a side note, the four DDR4 memory dimms, which now feature a single side locking system, will be much easier to remove when a GPU is present in the first PCIe x16 slot.
Above is the 24 pin power connector, I really would have liked to see a right angled connection here, but not a huge deal. Next to the 24 pin power connector is the debug LED, followed by the Reset and Power buttons. Reset/Power buttons on the actual motherboard prior to installation in a chassis, is great method of getting POST without the need to do the ole’ short method. Next up is the battery, also in my opinion is in a great location. When overclocking, when a battery pull is the only option, the one thing I despised the most was pulling the battery to reset the BIOS/CMOS, that’s if you don’t want to use the actual button made for resetting the BIOS/CMOS to the right of the battery.
Rear IO Connections 
So the rear IO is chuck full of connectivity. Kicking things off are 2 USB2 2.0 ports, Reset CMOS (when your case side panel is on), 2 more USB 2.0 ports, 4 USB 3.0 ports, Intel Gigabit NIC, 1 USB 3.1 Type-C port (transfer speeds up to 10Gb/s) and finally the suite of full 8 channel High Definition Audio with optical out.
Overclocking and Eleet Software
Overclocking, the dark art of making something run faster than it was designed to do. Or is it? Overclocking over the years have been more and more accepted in the enthusiast community with the launch of Intel’s K SKU processor lineup as well as AMD’s FX lineup. As of late, no matter which version of a said product line, IE X99, most motherboards pretty much overclock the same. The BIOS is usually where most of us overclockers start and for the most part offer the most amount of functionality. Personally I have been looking at the software side of things a lot due to the ease of use. In the past if I wanted to test a CPU at 4Gghz and beyond, I had to boot to the BIOS, set my settings for 4Ghz, restart, boot into Windows, do a stability test, then make the determination that it was stable or not. Rinse. Repeat. So enter EVGA’s Eleet software suite, this useful piece of software is like CPU-Z but on steroids. Eleet has a ton of features like multiplier adjustment, motherboard info, voltage adjustment, and voltage/temperature monitoring. With the aid of Eleet, I took my 5820K, which at stock runs at 3.3 GHz base frequency, and took it to 4.4 GHz, resulting in a 33% overclock from stock frequencies! The only thing lacking is fan control from within the Eleet software, instead of using a separate utility like Speedfan.
Issues For what it is the Micro2 is a nice x99 motherboard that fits the mATX form factor nicely. However, there are a few flaws. The bottom USB 3.0 input port located on the bottom edge of the Micro2, is just poorly placed. The inclusion of EVGA’s own low profile USB 3.0 adapter would have been a nice accessory to include correcting such an issue. The two right angled fan headers on the bottom of the Micro2 really can’t used at all due to the PSU blocking the connections in a bottom mounted PSU case. Lastly, pertaining to the Eleet software, fan control seems not to be present, hopefully that is fixed in a future release.
ProsGreat color scheme
Great overclocking potential
Great IO
Tons of SATA3 connections
Power and Reset buttons on motherboard
Eleet Software is great for overclocking
Full PCIe 4x M.2 support
ConsPoor placement of USB 3.0 header
Two bottom fan headers rendered useless
Eleet Software needs fan control
ConclusionConclusion time. I personally love this motherboard. The original Micro left a lot on the table in terms of desired features and I feel that EVGA has met a lot of those needs with the Micro2. Should EVGA have included other things, sure, but that would have driven the price up. Personally, the Micro2 really is everything a small form factor builder is going to want. The EVGA X99 Micro2 has earned my seal of approval.
Pricing and Availability Priced at $230, the pricing is pretty competitive to other X99 mATX motherboards omitting a few features.
http://www.evga.com/Products/Product.aspx?pn=131-HE-E095-KR http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188176&cm_re=evga_micro2-_-13-188-176-_-Product
post edited by gendreaur - 2015/09/02 19:37:29
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