Gigabyte vs SuperMicro vs EVGA [X99 Mobo]

[Poseidonas]

I now own the i7-6800K (28 lane, Broadwell-E) and the Corsair H60 will cool it.

After many, many hours I whittled down the motherboard options to these three:

1. GigaByte GA-X99-Designare EX | $370USD
2. SuperMicro C7X99-OCE | $265USD
3. EVGA X99 FTW K | $237USD

Some notes:

• The EVGA is an E-ATX, and I'll need to buy a new case, such as the Corsair Carbide Air 540
• The SuperMicro is the only board here not released in 2016. However, it's latest UEFI/BIOS update is dated June 2016
• The SuperMicro is the only one of the 3 here that has no M.2 and has a max of 64GB of RAM (128GB for others)
• The GigaByte has a PLX chip to maintain access to the slots that are normally disabled for my 28-lane CPU
• The GigaByte's cheaper brothers (Ultra gaming & Phoenix SLI) disable or underclock all other PCIe slots with my CPU, so sadly I can't bother
• Boards lower than $225 from these brands (and Asus, MSI, ASRock) have too many reports via NewEgg of DOA deliveries

What do you think? These offered the most available PCIe slots for my processor (40-lane CPUs unlock all slots) and have the best predictable quality control, best components, and least likely to have faults.

I'm not going to heavily overlock right away, but all of these are reported to provide great results. At the price ranges I've been seeing the X99 boards, I wanted one with the least amount of consumer reported faults (ASUS, ASRock, and MSI are some examples of poor quality control for the latest boards)

Hint: I'm partial to the SuperMicro and the EVGA, since the GigaByte being nearly $400 which is designed for the $1K+ chips isn't exactly pleasing. However the GigaByte does combine the best of the other two boards

Edit: I can't locate where to enter my signature, so here are my current specs and hardware that will be transferred to the new machine unless I get the EVGA:

Antec Twelve Hundred ATX Case | Antec High Current Pro 1200W | ASUS STRIX nVidia GeForce GTX970 4GB GDDR5 | RAID0 of 2 x Crucial m4 SATA600 64GB SSD's on Adaptec 6405e PCI-E x1 | SoundBlaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional | LG Blu-Ray Burner WH14NS40 | Plextor DVD Burner PX-891SAF | ViewSonic VX2450wm-LED 24" 1080p | Microsoft SideWinder X6 keyboard | Corsair M65 Pro RGB mouse | MS XBox One wireless controller

 

[Poseidonas]

I've been thinking about this today and now I'm leaning heavily towards the EVGA X99 FTW K | $237USD and the Corsair Carbide Air 540 Arctic White case for $125 with coupon.

Also thinking of getting 32GB (8GB x 4) of G.Skill Ripjaws for $150. Still researching M.2 drive cost/storage vs another SSD on SATA

Edit: Found a steal in memory: 32GB Kit (8GB x 4) of Crucial Ballistix Elite DDR4-2666/PC4-21300 for $160 at newegg ($200 elsewhere). The DDR4-3000 version is $200 also at newegg. I'm going to get the -2666MHz variant. When Crucial/Corsair come out with an LED version I like, I'll consider more expensive RAM then.