That’s exactly where I want them, because that’s the closest place to where the connectors will actually stem from. I don’t often talk at length about chassis front panel headers (power and reset buttons, and activity LEDs), but ASUS’ decision to place them at the absolute bottom-right corner stood out to me – in a good way. The below shot continues our trek, revealing a CMOS clear button, the lone bottom 4-pin fan header, the TPU on-board switch along with the ATX chassis connectors. ![]() In the above shot, and along the bottom of the board, we can see an LED EFI status read-out, on-board power and reset buttons, the on-board EPU switch (we’ll talk about this later) and also 3x internal USB 2.0 headers. Being a higher-end board, it’s no surprise to see legacy PCI slots non-existent. Should you be so inclined, you’ll be able to run 3x NVIDIA GeForce cards in SLI or 4x AMD Radeon HD cards in CrossFireX for 2x GPUs, the PCIe configuration will remain at x16+x16, but at 3+ GPUs, that changes to x16+x8+x8(+x8). Speaking of, let’s kick things off with a look at some slots. If you’re not using a memory cooler, the top-right of the board should easily accommodate three nearby fans, while your back chassis fan can reach down to below the DIMM slot.įor a quick look at what the P9X79 PRO offers, the table below should help.Ĥx PCIe 3.0 x16 (Dual x16 or x16+x8+x8+x8)ġx Bluetooth, 2x eSATA 6Gbit/s, 1x 1Gbit/s LAN, 4x USB 3.0, 6x USB 2.0, 1x Optical S/PDIF, 6x Audio Jacks, BIOS FlashbackĪSUS DIGI+ Power Control, ASUS TurboV EVO, ASUS EPU, ASUS BT GO!, Ai Suite II, ASUS SSD Caching, USB 3.0 Boost, ASUS Q-Designįor the sake of not being redundant, I won’t discuss the table directly, but instead tackle all of the components as we come across them with the help of our photos below. Finally, their placements are also thoughtfully chosen-upon – two on the right, one at the bottom, two at the top and one directly below the left DIMM array. Better-still, all six of them are 4-pin (PWM Enabled), meaning each can be manually controlled by the user. We’d expect at least five for a board of this price-range, but six remains a nice surprise when it does happen. Though it can’t be seen that well in the photo above, one of the biggest perks this board offers is the inclusion of six fan headers. I’ll be covering most of those in this review – but not all, because I can’t dedicate half a month to writing a single motherboard review. It’s not uncommon for a user to begin to discover small niggles with their hardware after a couple of months of using it, but the P9X79 PRO placed me in an interesting situation where I began to discover more cool things as time went on. I admit that I’ve been testing this board for a number of months, so I’ve gained quite a bit of experience with it. Does the PRO offer too much? There are lesser P9X79 models that could be considered.Īt first glance, ASUS’ P9X79 PRO is quite an attractive board, and layout-wise, I’ve yet to conjure up a complaint. Of course – things work in the opposite direction as well. For its ~$380 price-tag, the DELUXE adds a second LAN port, 2 additional external USB 3.0 ports, 2 additional internal USB 3.0 ports, a wireless adapter and a couple of extra accessories. At about ~$320, this PRO board packs in a ton of features, but for those who need even more, there’s DELUXE. ![]() ![]() We can see that evidenced here with 8x internal SATA ports, 10x USB ports at the back, capabilities for 4 GPUs, and more. With its P9X79 PRO, ASUS caters to those who are looking for the ultimate in flexibility with their motherboard. It’s been crafting what I feel are the most competitive boards out there for quite some time, from both a features and design stand-point. It’s for this reason that few X79 boards have sold for under $200, and it’s also the driving-force behind a board like ASUS’ P9X79 PRO.ĪSUS is obviously no stranger to the motherboard scene. We’re talking the most capable processors, the craziest GPU configurations, the fastest memory, the most storage, and the richest connectivity options. Although Intel’s X79 platform was released-to-market about a year-and-a-half ago, it remains the go-to choice for builders who need the beefiest PC possible.
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