The EVGA X299 FTW K Motherboard Review: Dual U.2 Ports

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]