The EVGA X299 Micro Motherboard Review: A Smaller Take on X299

The EVGA X299 Micro is priced at $290 from Amazon US. Being microATX in size, there are only a few competitors in the space, such as the the X299M Gaming Pro Carbon AC and X299M-A Pro from MSI. For users that want to get even smaller, the mini-ITX ASRock X299E-ITX/ac also exists, which we reviewed.

Conclusions

The Micro stands up well compared to the other smaller-than-ATX X299 motherboards, particularly when there is a need for U.2 support as the EVGA X299 Micro is the only one to have a U.2 port. There is a downside to this, as the other boards have dual M.2 slots instead. Those features aside, the difference between the smaller X299 boards comes down to integrated RGB LEDs, which the Gaming Pro Carbon has, or included wireless capabilities which only the X299M-A Pro lacks. It will be a feature trade off depending on user requirements, and we are waiting for the others to come into our hands for testing. 

That said, the EVGA X299 Micro has most of what we would need on a PC. Most users will be sufficient with 'only' six SATA ports, or a single M.2 port, or 64 GB of DRAM: it could easily be argued that if a user needs more than this, then other ATX are available. As the EVGA X299 is a smaller board, there are natural tradeoffs

The EVGA X299 uses a reasonably robust 12-phase power delivery, with Infineon power stages, that handled stock settings and our overclocked options without issue. The power delivery heatsink, an important part of that ecosystem, worked well keeping temperatures in check during our overclocking adventures.

Overall, I am pleased with how the Micro turned out, but improvements can be made. The curious issue I had with the beep codes and getting the system to boot was a somewhat frustrating experience. We are not sure what was going on (speculating a memory training issue), but EVGA is aware of the problem we ran into and is looking into it. The stock performance in AVX tests was lower than the other boards which is something users should be aware of, but EVGA relayed to us that this is the Intel specification and other boards technically go outside of Intel spec, and thus are getting better results in those tests. Outside of that, I would have liked to see EVGA put the back panel shroud and Wi-Fi card on the board automatically. Despite a user being in the process of building a full PC, it did feel odd to also have to finish putting together the motherboard, regardless if it only takes a couple of minutes to do it. 

In the end, EVGA has given users a solid choice for a small form factor motherboard. While not without its quirks, the Micro has enough features an options to satisfy a large cross section of users from the gamer and enthusiast crowd, and even to the professional users given its high horsepower and fast storage options. Its pricepoint places it in position between the other MicroATX (and ITX) offerings, so it really will come down to each user and what they need, want, and can do without. The other side of it is EVGA's warranty strategy, which bypasses retailers and goes straight to them directly.

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• ($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 [link]
• ($290) The EVGA X299 Micro 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]