Amongst all the other goodies, the outstanding feature for me is the BIOS fan control. Well done to Asus, this board has probably the best PWM based fan control yet. Other board makers, particularly GigaByte, please take note.
Thanks so much for the feedback. We have been working hard to consistently improve in the quality of fan controls. Kudos to Ian for taking the time to detail it as well. This is somethign we have to take more time in the development ( Super I/O controller and frmware and software ) but any serious enthuiast can appreciate the additional functionality and increased usability.
Given the extreme prices involved here, I'd especially like to know the key differences between the Pro and the Deluxe models, and even the Pro and the vanilla model as well.
Offers BT3.0 with Wifi, Additionally USB3, Dual Lan, A more advanced VRM heatsink assembly,
In regards to the pricing it is important to remember many of the additional items incorporated have a higher cost ( such as the hardware required to allow for UEFI flashing with CPU, Memory or a Graphics card this required a hardware level IC, the more advanced super I/O controller with more advanced fan controls for all the headers ) These additional touches add to the total cost of the board.
For anyone else curious, after some digging I can say that in addition to the above, P9X79 Vanilla also loses the Marvell controller and associated SATA 6Gb/s ports. The Realtek sound chip also changes from a 898 to the 892, not sure what the difference is. The PWM phase design appears to remain unchanged between the vanilla and PRO models, while the Deluxe doubles the CPU & uncore phases.
Somewhat oddly, the P9X79 also gains a firewire port over the PRO model.
Yes as you go up the boards you will also have more USB 3 (as the PRO has more USB which makes sense as 1394 is a legacy standard). Main reason it is offered on the Standard is that this model is adopted by sometimes business or professionals you still need some legacy connections.
In regards to the overall VRM design we use the same high quality dual N mosfet package on all three boards and advanced driver this aligns with the high amperage rated choke. While the "phase" is increased on the Deluxe this only helps to slightly improve balancing of the VRM otherwise the performance for overall power delivery is rated the same. (Although the advanced heatsink design as you move up will help to ensure a cooler operating temperature for the VRM assembly.
Why no comparison with another X16-X16 Intel platform, most notably the X58-990X combo ? Gaming tests and value for possible upgrade are not very convincing this way.
Our P9X79 WS is qualified to support Xeon series CPUs. Other baords may potentially offer microcode support but will not be officially validated for use with Xeon CPUs.
still relying on heat sinks,heat pipes and fans I expected some change from the board manufactures for this platform at least from you Asus,Disappointed......... Please move Forward & show us the glimpse of the future cooling technologies .
And also why intel has downgraded from QPI to DMI ,yes of course PCIe lanes are moved to Processor but for this is such a high end & pricy platform QPI should have opted.
Great work Asus Iam fan of your color theme and UEFI implementation.Board looks great. At present proud owner of Maximus iv Gene-Z, Iam waiting for some mATX boards
We are always looking into other aspects in regards to cooling / dissipation technologies. Thanks for the feedback depending on certain factors more advanced technologies can considerably increase cost or time to produce ( Such as when we used CeraM!X on our TUF series motherboard. Regardless we look for other aspects to improve upon such as more advanced and efficient VRM designs with more options on temperature and current handling or loading.
Thanks for the great feedback it is appreciated and watch out soon on the MATX front!
If populating all 8 DIMMS is going to drop it down to DDR3-1333 speeds, that means that you can just BUY DDR3-1333 8 GB DIMMs for as little as $75 a pop (and that's ECC Registered server RAM too!). That means for a system with 64 GB, you're only look at $600, which is almost $300 less than the top-of-the-line (currently, at launch) SNB-E processor you can buy.
"There are issues to the memory that a lot of people will consider – does anyone ever need 64 GB of memory? Even if it were populated with relatively cheaper 4 GB sticks, does anyone ever need 32 GB of memory?"
With memory being relatively cheap these days, would most people "need" it? No, you're right, probably not.
But if I can get a 32 GB super fast RAM drive, that extra $300 might be worth it. If you have a game or two that's ridiculously large and takes a fair bit of time to load, the RAM drive would be well served. Or if you start/restart large apps (like Photoshop CS5) often; again, the RAM drive could come in handy.
And when you can have that much memory for less than the cost of the processor, it's worth considering -- IF you can use it.
SSD caching looks like a killer feature. It seems like it's the key new feature this year. But, I am surprised that ASUS chose not to use Intel SRT. Any idea why? Or, is this a rebranded solution from NVELO?
Also, I don't get why the "SSD Cache" ports are 3Gb/s SATA. All the new SSDs will be 6Gb/s so shouldn't the 6Gb/s ports be dedicated to caching? Or, let me choose!
SRT is not supported natively on the PCH for X79 as such we phased in our ASUS SSD Caching implementation. To clarify the SATA controller used does offer SATA6G support.
That's great news. (article should be updated). So, I can use any SSD with any SATA 3G or 6G port. So, when can we see a comparison of intel SRT against this solution? And, if it's not Dataplez, compare against that too.
Also, when will this be available in Europe (France)?
Aww sh!t, just looked at the snapshots. It's a Marvell controller feature. If its the same as their hyperduo junk, I'm no longer interested. Thats not even real caching, just concatenation. I was so excited too. :-(
Actually it is the same as SRT which and in realworld performance compairson you acheive the same improved results ( reduced boot times, significantly faster read performance, imporved application response. There is also the advantage compared to SRT that you are no limited on the cache volume size.
Overall it is a solid implementation and the cool part is you can still locally run a primary volume and then have your secodary volume ( storage be cached.
> Actually it is the same as SRT Hardly... that so-called "caching" feature based on the Marvell (I think they call it hyber duo), does not even perform real caching - its already been exposed. junk... fail... use SRT or dataplex...
I think you are incorrect on this. Yes, there are two Marvell ports stated to run at 6G. Like you I'd never use that. But there are two 6G ports available on the main, and not Marvell.
Cost we phased in a number of more readily useable options than dual lan ( which is only used by a very small % ( of course we do have it on two other boards Deluxe and WS which even features dual Intel lan ).
Keep in mind things like 6 pwm fan headers with advanced control for 5 of those headers means a higher bom cost to put the header , the super I/O controller and other aspects little items like this all add up and you have to make the calls on what to phase in over what not to.
Better question... why use a dual 5850 setup to test a dual 16x pci-e 2.0 when you could have done a dual 5990 or better yet dual 590 or 6990? The main benefit with this release is to answer the lack of pci-e lanes which if you had highend cards, your only option was x58 until this release since dual 8x just wouldn't cut it on a dual 590 or dual 6990 solution.
Also when running those cards in sli/crossfire, lets see how stressed the 4 core sb is vs the new 6 core or even nehalem or westmere.
No disrespect to Asus but there's no way in Hell I'd pay $300 for any desktop mobo no matter how many "features" it has.
In addition the X79 chipset with more RAM channels is a waste for anything but server use, which is not what this mobo/platform is being hyped for. As other website reviewers have noted, the X79 mobos are basically hacked server mobos being hyped as an enthusiast desktop upgrade, which it really is not.
With the price of the mobo and CPUs, Sandy Bridge-E and X79 are a fail as far as many if not most enthusiasts are concerned. Basically this is a rushed-to-market product that doesn't fit well in either the enthusiast or server segments. That's why many folks are saying: PASS just as they are with "Ultrabooks" that ain't Ultra at all except in price - just like this deal.
This deal looks like an opportunistic cash cow that may die quickly?
Why anand never mentions in ASUS reviews about the long standing memory leak present in their AI suite? atkexComSvc grows up to a few GB after just a few days, this is totally unacceptable and should be made aware in every post and review about ASUS until they fix it.
Feel free to send me information i continually use this application and have not seen this issue. It is a possibility an attached driver or system could be causing the issue. Regardless we are interested into looking into it if there is an issue.
I'm concerned to see the review says there is no long crossfire cable included. Obviously anyone wanting to run crossfire on this board and have the X16 X16 slots is going to need a long CF cable. Is it possible the reviewer is incorrect and the long ribbon cable is for CF?
The extended cable is SLI. As AMD cards include crosshair cables it is up to the vendor you purchase from to opt in those cables. On our triple slot cards we do offer a extended length cable. Regardless this is good feeback i will pass along to HQ but it is also another cost aspect to consider. As most of the dual GPU market uses SLI it was a decision made on that factor.
On a secondary note we do have availible for pruchase extended crossfire bridges from our estore.
Do your X79 boards support Xeon E5 series cpu's? I have a pair of E5-2670's here and I am trying to choose between the Gigabyte X79-UD5 and your P9X79 Deluxe. Because you have taken fan speed control seriously, I will most likely get the P9X79 Deluxe, but would like to know if it will support my cpu.
There has never been a board that has automatically done what I want it todo, until now by the looks of that picture in this article. I want my pc to be silent during normal operation and don't care too much about the noise when I'm playing games. At the moment the loudest thing in my PC which is an i7 975EE at 3.73ghz is the hard drives, and I want my SB-E system to be just as quiet. With an E5-2670 at (hopefully) around 4.2ghz or so I am worried about how loud it will be.
Ohh and by the way Asustechmkt, I did read this from an earlier post, but you don't specifically say if the other boards will boot or what will happen: "Our P9X79 WS is qualified to support Xeon series CPUs. Other baords may potentially offer microcode support but will not be officially validated for use with Xeon CPUs. "
I've bought the Asus P9X79 Deluxe board now and it works perfectly. I can force the multiplier up to the 33x max of the cpu but no matter what settings I try, I can not get the 1.25x multiplier to work, the board does not post after setting it to 1.25 or 1.66. Even with the multiplier set to 20x. I updated the bios to the new version on your site and it hasn't made a difference.
Can you get the right person to email me at otama@ihug.co.nz? Maybe an update needs to be made to support Xeons at 1.25x or 1.66x base clock?
am i missing something - why would an enthusiast give up 1/3 of the silicon for crap intel graphics - wouldnt they go an I7 & discrete gpu
SB just doesnt make sense to me - the mainstream market it targets can live w/ a slower cpu but must have decent graphics. Ignorance aside, they want a lot more for a lot less.
when this hits the shelves in quantity - llano mobos & apuS will be mature, cheap & better - my pick anyday.
I upgraded to SB 2600k/ASUS MOBO/Quadro from day one this year and I am not ready to upgrade again maybe until next year. But as I use this machine for 3D modeling/rendering almost exclusively I am interested in a Xeon class workstation as my next machine. With this SB-E platform I wonder if this is a new class of entry Xeon workstation. But what are the advantages and disadvantages? I mean isn't it overlapping with single socket Xeon workstations? Fortunately I can wait until next year to compare side by side what I will get from each. I can think on ECC memory on a Xeon, but what else?
SSD catching on a workstation machine will be solved with at least an 128 SSD for the system and important applications, so I see no real problem there. USB3 could be a problem next year as more devices may be available. So I can see some confusion in what really is this platform target if the price in the same as a Xeon workstation.
Please Anand I would like to see a system to system comparison in the future.
"Please Anand I would like to see a system to system comparison in the future."
Yes! Spec reviews and pictures are nice and all, but real system to system comparisons for different workloads would be hella more useful. And, when you do so, please enable the max feature set that one system is capable of.
For example, enabling the use of the differentiating features like RAM cache during your benchmarks would give readers a good idea of how ASUS' system outperforms (or not) Gigabyte's board. Also, soup it up with ASUS SSD cache and overclock.
"The XMP profile was easy enough to enable with the XMP mode. For more performance, I pushed the board on to the 2400 MHz strap, which booted at auto values of 10-11-10 2T, and was completely stable. Moving towards the 2666 MHz strap caused failed boots. The nearest strap while on the 1.25x ratio was only at 2333 MHz, suggesting that 2400 MHz on the 1.00x strap is a safe memory overclock. "
What? 1600Mhz Memory overclocked to 2400Mhz?
Also, I have a Gigabyte Assassin board and the Strap appears to coincide with the Bclk and PCIe. Not memory!
So any upping the gear ratio over 1.00x causes Boot failure.
Does anyone know if the K series is the cause of this. What I mean is, Does the 3930K strap the Bclk/PCIe and the X series Straps the Bclk/ Memory? Not having purchased the 3960X causes a bit of confusion because this area on my board is all Bclk/PCIe related.
Bclk/PCie Clock Control - Manual Host Clock Frequency - 100.00Mhz Processor Base Clock (Gear Ratio)- 1.00x Bclk/PCie Clock Evaluation-100.00Mhz
Changing the Processor Base clock(Gear Ratio) to 1.25x Changes the Bclk/PCIe Clock Evaluation to- 125.00Mhz which causes a 3930K CPU to change to a Frequency of 4.0Ghz from 3.2Ghz with a Multiplier of 32.
My confusion is that Anand said that one touch OC overclocks this way. And that he was able to boot using the 1.25x Gear Ratio and that it has to do with Memory! Well you can clearly see by my board layout that it doesnt have anything to do with Memory.
CPU Strap adjustment ( BCLK ) does affect memory dividers. While you have a GB board for more information check out our OC guide which details information on how the strap affect dram scaling and the dividers that are present.
CPU has 4 straps: 100, 125, 167, 250: 1:1, 1:1.25, 1:1.67, 1:2.5 respectively When you select 125MHz BCLK with 125 strap, 125mhz is given to cpu and internally it gives it’s own PCIE/DMI Controller 125 / 1.25 = 100MHz. When you select 129MHz BCLK with 125 strap, 129mhz is given to cpu and internally it gives it’s own PCIE/DMI Controller 129 / 1.25 = 103.2MHz. When you select 122MHz BCLK with 125 strap, 122mhz is given to cpu and internally it gives it’s own PCIE/DMI Controller 122 / 1.25 = 97.6MHz.
In regards to the memory divider if you look at the memory dividers applied ( once the board has reposted with the new strap you will see your dividers are different.
In regards to the K part it works exactly the same way.
We offer the TPU switch ( which offers an actual higher default quick OC option ) this can be executed directly on the board, in the UEFI or within windows so flexibility is superior for whenever you feel you want to execute this OC.
How is the 3D UEFI superior? Their range of adjustments are considerbly reduced compared to our UEFI and in regards to recovery options like our USB Bios Flash back they do not offer anything. If you really take a look at the small features and big features I feel our baords offer superior value plus I do n ot see GB providing feedback. I welcome any questions you may have.
Additionally keep in mind that in the first year of ownership our warranty does offer APS service ( advanced replacement ) meaning if you did have an RMA we would provide a board before you sent in your faulty board.
I know my workstations... they had to pry my Sun 20 out of my dying hands! All the P9X79 lacks as a true workstation are SAS+SATA control and some Intel virtualization and net tech, at least on the WS model. That would have been easy to add, and I'm sorry Asus failed to go the extra step with the WS model.
The P9X79 lacks nothing that I can see for the enthusiast - in fact there are huge possibilities for overclocking, tweeking, water cooling, and improvement via add-on boards.
There is the issue of threading in current games. Worry not! Every developer I know is urgently learning to improve their code at compile time, including deeply threading applications.
Yes, the board is expensive. So are all the rest in the Top Tech arena. I've looked for another board for the i7-3960X class, and can't find anything cheaper on balance. My experience with Asus build quality and their warranty are final decision factors for me.
I urgently need to build a machine for home office use. I do heavy OLAP and Data Mining research, and I contribute to open source -- the R project and others. I'm also a heavy WS virtualization user. Whatever I choose will be feed by two mid-range servers on a cheap switched 1K+ network, my total "IT Dept." Soon I will have to learn CUDA, and this board will serve will with the right video, since behind the visualization is a ton of computation.
Yes, I could build a server-like box, but I think this board, tons of fast switched memory, and the Core i7-3960X CPU may do better than a traditional dual machine. I'll have to add some boards, but that would be required with any motherboard.
So it's a bit of a risk, but I'm sold.
Thus to all -- if you want to "pee on the tall weeds with the big dogs," the P9X79 is the board and the Intel I7-39x0 is the CPU to do it.
While X38 was really something over P35 and P45 from X58 to X79 eve I can't see a difference that will worth the money invested in 1366,1356 socket boards. The extra USB or the power to tweak a CPU that already doesn't have enough backbone for his power? Or the extra bandwidth of VGA which is so small vs the high price of this boards and CPU. Not to say it consume more Watts than sandy. I really scrambled my brains to find the advantages of this boards in IO and ram latency over 1155 boards but, I can't really see but very small differences in performance and with what cost. I expected that triple channel , quad channel and the native sata 6gb will really tell me something on so called enthusiastic boards. So the CPU and whole system will benefit from lower RAM latency and the rest need it for a big brain as latest CPUs are capable off. I expected that SB on X79 will really get in flames of so much IO but no, it only burning your pocket for more multicolored heat-sink or some worthless shape. In top of all extra expenses we get the power bill higher as this boards + their CPU consume quiet more.
Coming back to x38, yes is better than P45 and consume about 25 watts more but, easy taken by P965 in performance and power consumption and for me P965 remain the king of DDR 2 platforms as I tested Asus P5EWS pro X38 , Abit quad GT P965, asus P5K deluxe P965 and Maximus II P45.
History repeat itself. I'll go prolly to a common 1155, is not worth to wait for X79 CPUs to go down in price as this boards are not shining for me and the same for 1366. Very disappointing results but thank you for tests it's clear again for me10th time now is not really a deal but, a rip off.
I have a need for lots of memory, even up to 32GB: virtual machines. My current virtual host system (Core i7 950) has 12GB, and I run several small virtual machines for my MCITP testing prep. I currently have 2 domain controllers, a SQL server, an Exchange server, a WDS and WSUS system, and 2 virtual workstations, all to practice for my MCITP tests. (Now I just need to get the money to actually take the tests. 9 tests are pretty expensive.) It's well worth the time and money to get a system like this for that purpose. It's even more cost effective than classes for me.
I'm looking for a soho server for Virtualize several machines so, I like this Mobo for its 8 memoriy slots, but Is it possible to install Win2K8 w/o any problem?
I want to use the teaming functionallity of my Synology iSCSI NAS with two LAN ports.
So, I am thinking on purchase one DUAL LAN card, or two separated LAN cards in order to connect them directly to NAS.
And the integrated LAN, it could be connected to the USERS SWITCH.
Do you think is possible? What DUAL LAN card do you recommend?
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55 Comments
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buildingblock - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
Amongst all the other goodies, the outstanding feature for me is the BIOS fan control. Well done to Asus, this board has probably the best PWM based fan control yet. Other board makers, particularly GigaByte, please take note.ASUSTechMKT - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
Thanks so much for the feedback. We have been working hard to consistently improve in the quality of fan controls. Kudos to Ian for taking the time to detail it as well. This is somethign we have to take more time in the development ( Super I/O controller and frmware and software ) but any serious enthuiast can appreciate the additional functionality and increased usability.Thanks again!
jigglywiggly - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
am i the only one kind of dissapointed? No integrated gpu is lame, also not that much faster.Kougar - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
Holy moly, $330 for just the Pro?Given the extreme prices involved here, I'd especially like to know the key differences between the Pro and the Deluxe models, and even the Pro and the vanilla model as well.
ASUSTechMKT - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
DeluxeOffers BT3.0 with Wifi, Additionally USB3, Dual Lan, A more advanced VRM heatsink assembly,
In regards to the pricing it is important to remember many of the additional items incorporated have a higher cost ( such as the hardware required to allow for UEFI flashing with CPU, Memory or a Graphics card this required a hardware level IC, the more advanced super I/O controller with more advanced fan controls for all the headers ) These additional touches add to the total cost of the board.
Kougar - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
Thank you for the reply!For anyone else curious, after some digging I can say that in addition to the above, P9X79 Vanilla also loses the Marvell controller and associated SATA 6Gb/s ports. The Realtek sound chip also changes from a 898 to the 892, not sure what the difference is. The PWM phase design appears to remain unchanged between the vanilla and PRO models, while the Deluxe doubles the CPU & uncore phases.
Somewhat oddly, the P9X79 also gains a firewire port over the PRO model.
ASUSTechMKT - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - link
Yes as you go up the boards you will also have more USB 3 (as the PRO has more USB which makes sense as 1394 is a legacy standard). Main reason it is offered on the Standard is that this model is adopted by sometimes business or professionals you still need some legacy connections.In regards to the overall VRM design we use the same high quality dual N mosfet package on all three boards and advanced driver this aligns with the high amperage rated choke. While the "phase" is increased on the Deluxe this only helps to slightly improve balancing of the VRM otherwise the performance for overall power delivery is rated the same. (Although the advanced heatsink design as you move up will help to ensure a cooler operating temperature for the VRM assembly.
Hope it helps!
Filiprino - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
There was a rumour saying ASUS would release a dual socket LGA2011 motherboard to compete with EVGA SR-3. Any news?Kougar - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
The board exists, but I haven't seen anything about it so far. Very curious to see it and the EVGA SR-3 compared, even if just to drool over!ASUSTechMKT - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - link
Sorry cannot comment on that one......mailman65er - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
No SSD Caching (no intel RST)?Just get a Synapse Cache SSD - the included Dataplex cache software outperforms Intel caching anyway... No problem.
jmelgaard - Tuesday, November 15, 2011 - link
Pft... Who needs SSD caching anyways?!?...I have more than enough space on my 3x240GB Vertex 3 + 2x120GB Vertex 2 + 80GB Intel X25-M r2.
:P...
ASUSTechMKT - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - link
LOL you are lucky man. Keep in mind though you do get to maintain Trim in SSD Caching but while not in raid.kvanje - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
Tom's just showed in a test that Skyrim becomes CPU-bound at a certain point, so that might make a good addition to your benchmarks in this case.ts1973 - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
Why no comparison with another X16-X16 Intel platform, most notably the X58-990X combo ? Gaming tests and value for possible upgrade are not very convincing this way.futurepastnow - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
Will Sandy Bridge -EP Xeon processors work in X79 desktop motherboards?ASUSTechMKT - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
Our P9X79 WS is qualified to support Xeon series CPUs. Other baords may potentially offer microcode support but will not be officially validated for use with Xeon CPUs.ven - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
still relying on heat sinks,heat pipes and fans I expected some change from the board manufactures for this platform at least from you Asus,Disappointed......... Please move Forward & show us the glimpse of the future cooling technologies .And also why intel has downgraded from QPI to DMI ,yes of course PCIe lanes are moved to Processor but for this is such a high end & pricy platform QPI should have opted.
Great work Asus Iam fan of your color theme and UEFI implementation.Board looks great. At present proud owner of Maximus iv Gene-Z, Iam waiting for some mATX boards
ASUSTechMKT - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
We are always looking into other aspects in regards to cooling / dissipation technologies. Thanks for the feedback depending on certain factors more advanced technologies can considerably increase cost or time to produce ( Such as when we used CeraM!X on our TUF series motherboard. Regardless we look for other aspects to improve upon such as more advanced and efficient VRM designs with more options on temperature and current handling or loading.Thanks for the great feedback it is appreciated and watch out soon on the MATX front!
alpha754293 - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
If populating all 8 DIMMS is going to drop it down to DDR3-1333 speeds, that means that you can just BUY DDR3-1333 8 GB DIMMs for as little as $75 a pop (and that's ECC Registered server RAM too!). That means for a system with 64 GB, you're only look at $600, which is almost $300 less than the top-of-the-line (currently, at launch) SNB-E processor you can buy."There are issues to the memory that a lot of people will consider – does anyone ever need 64 GB of memory? Even if it were populated with relatively cheaper 4 GB sticks, does anyone ever need 32 GB of memory?"
With memory being relatively cheap these days, would most people "need" it? No, you're right, probably not.
But if I can get a 32 GB super fast RAM drive, that extra $300 might be worth it. If you have a game or two that's ridiculously large and takes a fair bit of time to load, the RAM drive would be well served. Or if you start/restart large apps (like Photoshop CS5) often; again, the RAM drive could come in handy.
And when you can have that much memory for less than the cost of the processor, it's worth considering -- IF you can use it.
RegGam - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
SSD caching looks like a killer feature. It seems like it's the key new feature this year. But, I am surprised that ASUS chose not to use Intel SRT. Any idea why? Or, is this a rebranded solution from NVELO?Also, I don't get why the "SSD Cache" ports are 3Gb/s SATA. All the new SSDs will be 6Gb/s so shouldn't the 6Gb/s ports be dedicated to caching? Or, let me choose!
ASUSTechMKT - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
SRT is not supported natively on the PCH for X79 as such we phased in our ASUS SSD Caching implementation. To clarify the SATA controller used does offer SATA6G support.RegGam - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
That's great news. (article should be updated). So, I can use any SSD with any SATA 3G or 6G port. So, when can we see a comparison of intel SRT against this solution? And, if it's not Dataplez, compare against that too.Also, when will this be available in Europe (France)?
RegGam - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
Aww sh!t, just looked at the snapshots. It's a Marvell controller feature. If its the same as their hyperduo junk, I'm no longer interested. Thats not even real caching, just concatenation. I was so excited too. :-(ASUSTechMKT - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - link
Actually it is the same as SRT which and in realworld performance compairson you acheive the same improved results ( reduced boot times, significantly faster read performance, imporved application response. There is also the advantage compared to SRT that you are no limited on the cache volume size.Overall it is a solid implementation and the cool part is you can still locally run a primary volume and then have your secodary volume ( storage be cached.
mailman65er - Friday, November 18, 2011 - link
> Actually it is the same as SRTHardly... that so-called "caching" feature based on the Marvell (I think they call it hyber duo), does not even perform real caching - its already been exposed. junk... fail...
use SRT or dataplex...
CodeToad - Friday, December 2, 2011 - link
I think you are incorrect on this. Yes, there are two Marvell ports stated to run at 6G. Like you I'd never use that. But there are two 6G ports available on the main, and not Marvell.chrone - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
with that hefty price, i wonder no dual LAN teaming support. :PASUSTechMKT - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - link
Cost we phased in a number of more readily useable options than dual lan ( which is only used by a very small % ( of course we do have it on two other boards Deluxe and WS which even features dual Intel lan ).Keep in mind things like 6 pwm fan headers with advanced control for 5 of those headers means a higher bom cost to put the header , the super I/O controller and other aspects little items like this all add up and you have to make the calls on what to phase in over what not to.
wharris1 - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
I wonder why the 2600 was not used as a comparison CPU for the multithreaded benchmarks in lieu of the 2500.OblivionLord - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
Better question... why use a dual 5850 setup to test a dual 16x pci-e 2.0 when you could have done a dual 5990 or better yet dual 590 or 6990? The main benefit with this release is to answer the lack of pci-e lanes which if you had highend cards, your only option was x58 until this release since dual 8x just wouldn't cut it on a dual 590 or dual 6990 solution.Also when running those cards in sli/crossfire, lets see how stressed the 4 core sb is vs the new 6 core or even nehalem or westmere.
Beenthere - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
No disrespect to Asus but there's no way in Hell I'd pay $300 for any desktop mobo no matter how many "features" it has.In addition the X79 chipset with more RAM channels is a waste for anything but server use, which is not what this mobo/platform is being hyped for. As other website reviewers have noted, the X79 mobos are basically hacked server mobos being hyped as an enthusiast desktop upgrade, which it really is not.
With the price of the mobo and CPUs, Sandy Bridge-E and X79 are a fail as far as many if not most enthusiasts are concerned. Basically this is a rushed-to-market product that doesn't fit well in either the enthusiast or server segments. That's why many folks are saying: PASS just as they are with "Ultrabooks" that ain't Ultra at all except in price - just like this deal.
This deal looks like an opportunistic cash cow that may die quickly?
Mikuni - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
Why anand never mentions in ASUS reviews about the long standing memory leak present in their AI suite? atkexComSvc grows up to a few GB after just a few days, this is totally unacceptable and should be made aware in every post and review about ASUS until they fix it.ASUSTechMKT - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - link
Feel free to send me information i continually use this application and have not seen this issue. It is a possibility an attached driver or system could be causing the issue. Regardless we are interested into looking into it if there is an issue.
vol7ron - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
Ian,I'm curious how this would fair for computational games like Starcraft II, which relies less on video rendering in FPS and more on model layouts.
Thx
mdzcpa1 - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
I'm concerned to see the review says there is no long crossfire cable included. Obviously anyone wanting to run crossfire on this board and have the X16 X16 slots is going to need a long CF cable. Is it possible the reviewer is incorrect and the long ribbon cable is for CF?ASUSTechMKT - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - link
The extended cable is SLI. As AMD cards include crosshair cables it is up to the vendor you purchase from to opt in those cables. On our triple slot cards we do offer a extended length cable. Regardless this is good feeback i will pass along to HQ but it is also another cost aspect to consider. As most of the dual GPU market uses SLI it was a decision made on that factor.On a secondary note we do have availible for pruchase extended crossfire bridges from our estore.
bradcollins - Tuesday, November 15, 2011 - link
Do your X79 boards support Xeon E5 series cpu's? I have a pair of E5-2670's here and I am trying to choose between the Gigabyte X79-UD5 and your P9X79 Deluxe. Because you have taken fan speed control seriously, I will most likely get the P9X79 Deluxe, but would like to know if it will support my cpu.Beenthere - Tuesday, November 15, 2011 - link
No disrespect but what's the big deal with fan control? I've been building high end PCs for 20 years and never had any issues with fan speed control.bradcollins - Tuesday, November 15, 2011 - link
There has never been a board that has automatically done what I want it todo, until now by the looks of that picture in this article. I want my pc to be silent during normal operation and don't care too much about the noise when I'm playing games. At the moment the loudest thing in my PC which is an i7 975EE at 3.73ghz is the hard drives, and I want my SB-E system to be just as quiet. With an E5-2670 at (hopefully) around 4.2ghz or so I am worried about how loud it will be.Ohh and by the way Asustechmkt, I did read this from an earlier post, but you don't specifically say if the other boards will boot or what will happen: "Our P9X79 WS is qualified to support Xeon series CPUs. Other baords may potentially offer microcode support but will not be officially validated for use with Xeon CPUs. "
ASUSTechMKT - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - link
No problem i will look into it and let you know.bradcollins - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - link
I've bought the Asus P9X79 Deluxe board now and it works perfectly. I can force the multiplier up to the 33x max of the cpu but no matter what settings I try, I can not get the 1.25x multiplier to work, the board does not post after setting it to 1.25 or 1.66. Even with the multiplier set to 20x. I updated the bios to the new version on your site and it hasn't made a difference.Can you get the right person to email me at otama@ihug.co.nz? Maybe an update needs to be made to support Xeons at 1.25x or 1.66x base clock?
Other than that, the board is brilliant :)
ASUSTechMKT - Saturday, November 26, 2011 - link
This is not a UEFI limitation or bug the Xeon CPUs do not support strap changes.
msroadkill612 - Tuesday, November 15, 2011 - link
am i missing something - why would an enthusiast give up 1/3 of the silicon for crap intel graphics - wouldnt they go an I7 & discrete gpuSB just doesnt make sense to me - the mainstream market it targets can live w/ a slower cpu but must have decent graphics. Ignorance aside, they want a lot more for a lot less.
when this hits the shelves in quantity - llano mobos & apuS will be mature, cheap & better - my pick anyday.
jecs - Tuesday, November 15, 2011 - link
I upgraded to SB 2600k/ASUS MOBO/Quadro from day one this year and I am not ready to upgrade again maybe until next year. But as I use this machine for 3D modeling/rendering almost exclusively I am interested in a Xeon class workstation as my next machine. With this SB-E platform I wonder if this is a new class of entry Xeon workstation. But what are the advantages and disadvantages? I mean isn't it overlapping with single socket Xeon workstations? Fortunately I can wait until next year to compare side by side what I will get from each. I can think on ECC memory on a Xeon, but what else?SSD catching on a workstation machine will be solved with at least an 128 SSD for the system and important applications, so I see no real problem there. USB3 could be a problem next year as more devices may be available. So I can see some confusion in what really is this platform target if the price in the same as a Xeon workstation.
Please Anand I would like to see a system to system comparison in the future.
RegGam - Tuesday, November 15, 2011 - link
"Please Anand I would like to see a system to system comparison in the future."Yes! Spec reviews and pictures are nice and all, but real system to system comparisons for different workloads would be hella more useful. And, when you do so, please enable the max feature set that one system is capable of.
For example, enabling the use of the differentiating features like RAM cache during your benchmarks would give readers a good idea of how ASUS' system outperforms (or not) Gigabyte's board. Also, soup it up with ASUS SSD cache and overclock.
abeeftec - Friday, November 18, 2011 - link
"The XMP profile was easy enough to enable with the XMP mode. For more performance, I pushed the board on to the 2400 MHz strap, which booted at auto values of 10-11-10 2T, and was completely stable. Moving towards the 2666 MHz strap caused failed boots. The nearest strap while on the 1.25x ratio was only at 2333 MHz, suggesting that 2400 MHz on the 1.00x strap is a safe memory overclock. "What? 1600Mhz Memory overclocked to 2400Mhz?
Also, I have a Gigabyte Assassin board and the Strap appears to coincide with the Bclk and PCIe. Not memory!
So any upping the gear ratio over 1.00x causes Boot failure.
Does anyone know if the K series is the cause of this. What I mean is, Does the 3930K strap the Bclk/PCIe and the X series Straps the Bclk/ Memory? Not having purchased the 3960X causes a bit of confusion because this area on my board is all Bclk/PCIe related.
Bclk/PCie Clock Control - Manual
Host Clock Frequency - 100.00Mhz
Processor Base Clock (Gear Ratio)- 1.00x
Bclk/PCie Clock Evaluation-100.00Mhz
Changing the Processor Base clock(Gear Ratio) to 1.25x Changes the Bclk/PCIe Clock Evaluation to- 125.00Mhz which causes a 3930K CPU to change to a Frequency of 4.0Ghz from 3.2Ghz with a Multiplier of 32.
My confusion is that Anand said that one touch OC overclocks this way. And that he was able to boot using the 1.25x Gear Ratio and that it has to do with Memory! Well you can clearly see by my board layout that it doesnt have anything to do with Memory.
ASUSTechMKT - Saturday, November 26, 2011 - link
CPU Strap adjustment ( BCLK ) does affect memory dividers. While you have a GB board for more information check out our OC guide which details information on how the strap affect dram scaling and the dividers that are present.
CPU has 4 straps: 100, 125, 167, 250: 1:1, 1:1.25, 1:1.67, 1:2.5 respectively
When you select 125MHz BCLK with 125 strap, 125mhz is given to cpu and internally it gives it’s own PCIE/DMI Controller 125 / 1.25 = 100MHz.
When you select 129MHz BCLK with 125 strap, 129mhz is given to cpu and internally it gives it’s own PCIE/DMI Controller 129 / 1.25 = 103.2MHz.
When you select 122MHz BCLK with 125 strap, 122mhz is given to cpu and internally it gives it’s own PCIE/DMI Controller 122 / 1.25 = 97.6MHz.
In regards to the memory divider if you look at the memory dividers applied ( once the board has reposted with the new strap you will see your dividers are different.
In regards to the K part it works exactly the same way.
markgerazzi - Saturday, November 19, 2011 - link
I'm having a hard time deciding between this and the GA X79 UD5The machine I'm having will be running the 3930k processor, with 32gigs of ram for audio production.
Strongpoints:
Asus:
-Better soundcard apparently, which may not matter in the long run
-Better fan control
-More USB 3.0
Gigabyte:
-Great OC button right on the mobo for when I wan't to switch things off before booting up
-3D bios
Other than those things everytthing looks to be the same...
Any pointers?
Thanks!
ASUSTechMKT - Saturday, November 26, 2011 - link
We offer the TPU switch ( which offers an actual higher default quick OC option ) this can be executed directly on the board, in the UEFI or within windows so flexibility is superior for whenever you feel you want to execute this OC.How is the 3D UEFI superior? Their range of adjustments are considerbly reduced compared to our UEFI and in regards to recovery options like our USB Bios Flash back they do not offer anything. If you really take a look at the small features and big features I feel our baords offer superior value plus I do n ot see GB providing feedback. I welcome any questions you may have.
Additionally keep in mind that in the first year of ownership our warranty does offer APS service ( advanced replacement ) meaning if you did have an RMA we would provide a board before you sent in your faulty board.
markgerazzi - Saturday, November 19, 2011 - link
Also very important, will the Noctua D14 fan block or compromise any of the 8 DImm slots?THanks!
CodeToad - Friday, December 2, 2011 - link
I know my workstations... they had to pry my Sun 20 out of my dying hands! All the P9X79 lacks as a true workstation are SAS+SATA control and some Intel virtualization and net tech, at least on the WS model. That would have been easy to add, and I'm sorry Asus failed to go the extra step with the WS model.The P9X79 lacks nothing that I can see for the enthusiast - in fact there are huge possibilities for overclocking, tweeking, water cooling, and improvement via add-on boards.
There is the issue of threading in current games. Worry not! Every developer I know is urgently learning to improve their code at compile time, including deeply threading applications.
Yes, the board is expensive. So are all the rest in the Top Tech arena. I've looked for another board for the i7-3960X class, and can't find anything cheaper on balance. My experience with Asus build quality and their warranty are final decision factors for me.
I urgently need to build a machine for home office use. I do heavy OLAP and Data Mining research, and I contribute to open source -- the R project and others. I'm also a heavy WS virtualization user. Whatever I choose will be feed by two mid-range servers on a cheap switched 1K+ network, my total "IT Dept." Soon I will have to learn CUDA, and this board will serve will with the right video, since behind the visualization is a ton of computation.
Yes, I could build a server-like box, but I think this board, tons of fast switched memory, and the Core i7-3960X CPU may do better than a traditional dual machine. I'll have to add some boards, but that would be required with any motherboard.
So it's a bit of a risk, but I'm sold.
Thus to all -- if you want to "pee on the tall weeds with the big dogs," the P9X79 is the board and the Intel I7-39x0 is the CPU to do it.
InfiDELL - Thursday, December 8, 2011 - link
While X38 was really something over P35 and P45 from X58 to X79 eve I can't see a difference that will worth the money invested in 1366,1356 socket boards.The extra USB or the power to tweak a CPU that already doesn't have enough backbone for his power?
Or the extra bandwidth of VGA which is so small vs the high price of this boards and CPU.
Not to say it consume more Watts than sandy.
I really scrambled my brains to find the advantages of this boards in IO and ram latency over 1155 boards but, I can't really see but very small differences in performance and with what cost.
I expected that triple channel , quad channel and the native sata 6gb will really tell me something on so called enthusiastic boards. So the CPU and whole system will benefit from lower RAM latency and the rest need it for a big brain as latest CPUs are capable off.
I expected that SB on X79 will really get in flames of so much IO but no, it only burning your pocket for more multicolored heat-sink or some worthless shape.
In top of all extra expenses we get the power bill higher as this boards + their CPU consume quiet more.
Coming back to x38, yes is better than P45 and consume about 25 watts more but, easy taken by P965 in performance and power consumption and for me P965 remain the king of DDR 2 platforms as I tested Asus P5EWS pro X38 , Abit quad GT P965, asus P5K deluxe P965 and Maximus II P45.
History repeat itself.
I'll go prolly to a common 1155, is not worth to wait for X79 CPUs to go down in price as this boards are not shining for me and the same for 1366.
Very disappointing results but thank you for tests it's clear again for me10th time now is not really a deal but, a rip off.
dgingeri - Friday, January 13, 2012 - link
I have a need for lots of memory, even up to 32GB: virtual machines. My current virtual host system (Core i7 950) has 12GB, and I run several small virtual machines for my MCITP testing prep. I currently have 2 domain controllers, a SQL server, an Exchange server, a WDS and WSUS system, and 2 virtual workstations, all to practice for my MCITP tests. (Now I just need to get the money to actually take the tests. 9 tests are pretty expensive.) It's well worth the time and money to get a system like this for that purpose. It's even more cost effective than classes for me.candabi - Thursday, January 26, 2012 - link
I'm looking for a soho server for Virtualize several machines so, I like this Mobo for its 8 memoriy slots, but Is it possible to install Win2K8 w/o any problem?I want to use the teaming functionallity of my Synology iSCSI NAS with two LAN ports.
So, I am thinking on purchase one DUAL LAN card, or two separated LAN cards in order to connect them directly to NAS.
And the integrated LAN, it could be connected to the USERS SWITCH.
Do you think is possible? What DUAL LAN card do you recommend?
Tks