ASUS Pro WS W890E-SAGE SE Cooling
A few weeks back we reviewed Noctua’s NH-U14S DX4677 cooler, which is the cooler we used for our testing of the SAGE SE motherboard and overall Xeon 600 platform. So here is a quick look at what the SAGE SE looks like with a suitable cooler installed.
As a reminder, instead of installing a CPU into the socket and motherboard, then installing a heatsink on top, Intel’s Xeons of the past few years require that the CPU is first installed in a carrier. That CPU and carrier then get installed on the heatsink. That entire assembly gets installed onto a motherboard.
ASUS provides both the E2A and E2B carriers with the SAGE SE. The E2A is for the Xeon 696X and 698X CPUs, both of which use Intel’s Granite Rapids XCC chip configurations. All other Xeon CPUs, including our Xeon 658X, use the E2B carrier.
Once installed, the NH-U14S DX4677 sits on top of the SAGE SE motherboard, as shown above. Notably, the heatsink does not provide sufficient airflow to any components not directly attached to it, namely the CPU, which is why ASUS needs to build additional fans into the motherboard itself to handle VRM and RDIMM cooling.
This feels much better suited to a liquid cooling block for the CPU, and even in that case, the memory cooling helps.
Final Words
Bringing Intel’s Granite Rapids CPUs to the company’s workstation lineup has been a long time coming, but with the release of the Xeon 600 series and the associated W890 motherboards, that moment is finally here. For Intel and its partners, that means launching and supporting a top-to-bottom, brand-new platform that incorporates everything from new CPU cores to an extensive memory subsystem capable of supporting DDR5-8000 MRDIMMs.
For ASUS in particular, they play a rather hefty role in supporting the Xeon 600 platform, as their Pro WS W890E-SAGE series motherboards are the only boards readily available in the North American retail market. Though it’s just one segment of the larger workstation motherboard market (and one with plenty of other competitors in the OEM space), ASUS is in a position to make or break the Xeon 600 as a retail/DIY product.
Thankfully for both ASUS and Intel, then, ASUS has been able to put their best foot forward with the Pro WS W890E-SAGE SE motherboard. The company’s premium W890 motherboard offering throws in everything but the kitchen sink, giving Xeon 600 CPUs the opportunity to put all their I/O and memory bandwidth to good use through a generous array of PCIe slots, M.2 sockets, SSD connectors, and more. In the process, ASUS has been able to address multiple user bases at the same time, adding a BMC to the workstation board for the enterprise IT crowd while also baking in extensive overclocking support for enthusiasts. Between these two points, there is certainly something for everyone with the SAGE SE.
To that end, if the Xeon 600 platform will have only a handful of retail motherboards, the Pro WS W890E-SAGE SE is a good fit for the workstation CPU. ASUS has done everything they need to do – and quite possibly could do – to let Granite Rapids for workstations spread its wings.
Where to Buy
If you wanted to find the ASUS Pro WS W890E-SAGE SE online, here is an Amazon Affiliate link.
