Final Words
With a new enthusiast platform, it is easy to get caught in the hype of just how well a processor is when analyzing a motherboard. Part of my job is to communicate what I think about the motherboard to the readers and hopefully provide information as well as a judgment on the product at hand.
So this review has been about X79, and specifically ASUS’ P9X79 Pro. If the past has told us anything, the Pro boards from ASUS have been hot sellers, and I expect X79 will be no different, assuming users will also shell out for the Sandy Bridge-E processors. The P9X79 Pro is expected to retail at $329.99 on release, which to a lot of non-enthusiast users will seem mind blowing that a motherboard could cost this much. But there is method in the madness.
From the outside, as a whole, X79 contains a lot of what an enthusiast user may want from a motherboard – lots of memory channels and lots of PCIe lanes for GPUs being the main plus points here. Downsides are the lack of USB 3.0 native support, the promise of SAS support being removed, no Z68 RST, and the persistence of SATA 3 Gbps ports on Intel’s PCH when AMD can provide six SATA 6 Gbps ports from their FCH.
ASUS have tried to change that, by introducing sets of unique features to the platform. Their SSD caching technology is a welcome side to the platform, USB 3.0 Boost offers that little bit extra beyond the standard X79 specifications from the USB, and BIOS Flashback technology is an ideal feature that in retrospect should have been on motherboards years ago. The board as a whole gives a clear indication of what can be possible after Intel hands a motherboard manufacturer a chipset and the chipset specifications.
Alongside the board’s aesthetics, we have a well featured product on our hands. The P9X79 Pro has six fan headers, all under some of the best controls available on a motherboard; power/reset/clear CMOS buttons; a debug LED; ASUS’ DIGI+ VRM solution for fine tuning; ASUS’ TPU (Turbo) and EPU (Power Saving) processors; a BIOS full of features especially when tuning memory; Bluetooth; and an Intel NIC.
No board has ever been perfect, and the nit picking I have to do here is relatively minor. The ‘per-core’ adjust required for fairness in comparison to other boards was a little peculiar, and in terms of what came with the board, I would have preferred a CrossFireX cable rather than one of the SLI cables, to account for the spacing between the first two recommended GPU slots. At ~$330, a USB 3.0 front panel may have been a good addition too, as well as another NIC.
Hopefully a lot of people who buy this board will enjoy it as much as I have enjoyed reviewing it. For this, I would like to give ASUS, and the P9X79 Pro, a silver AnandTech Editors’ Choice award, for innovation on such a solid product beyond the standard specifications, as well as having the solid hardware and software backbone that users expect in a motherboard.
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