ASUS Intel X79 Motherboards – P9X79, TUF, WS and ROG Rampage IV Extreme

The ASUS P9X79 Pro and P9X79 Deluxe

Intel will be releasing the Intel X79 Express chipset next month and that means we’ll start to see X79 motherboards with the new LGA 2011 socket hitting the market. ASUS today announced the companies Intel X79 Express motherbaord lineup and sent over a number of pictures for us to post up for our readers. ASUS will be launching four series of Intel X79 motherboards.

• Mainstream P9X79 Series
• Longer Warrantied & Rugged TUF Series
• Work Station (WS) Series
• Republic of Gamers (ROG) Series – Rampage IV Extreme

ASUS claims their Intel X79 series of motherboards highlight best-in-class performance, stability, features and a user experience that is unmatched. This is something that we will certainly have to test and try out once Intel releases the processors for this platform. Let’s take a look at the ASUS Intel X79 boards.

The ASUS P9X79 Series:

ASUS will be launching the ASUS P9X79 Pro and the P9X79 Deluxe as the entry level boards for the Intel X79 chipset. These boards feature the standard 3-year warranty and are aimed at mainstream users that want an even combination of performance, enhanced flexibility and good system control. This series offers an update to ASUS award winning UEFI graphical user interface for system options and the next-generation Dual Intelligent Processors 3 architecture, featuring the latest DIGI+ Power and new Digi+ DRAM technology. ASUS exclusive Digi+ technology offers the industrys leading all-digital power control design that older analog solutions cannot match in performance, stability and control options. Some features that all ASUS X79 boards will share:

Users will benefit from ASUS SSD Caching, which uses solid state drive speeds to intelligently accelerate frequently-accessed tasks and applications. Offering speeds up to three times faster than mechanical hard drives in most applications, ASUS SSD Caching features an exclusive user interface and storage control options that boosts performance with one click.

Other user enhancements include ASUS USB BIOS Flashback that allows for quick and easy
BIOS flashing without the need for a video card, CPU or hard drive attached to the system. BT GO 3.0! with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi onboard enables faster connectivity and convenience without extra adapters, making wireless devices instantly accessible with improved compatibility and versatility on select boards.

ASUS is using a black PCB on the P9X79 motherboard series, which is still the trendy look in 2011. Looking straight down at the P9X79 Deluxe you can see that the board has eight quad-channel DDR3 memory slots, which means that it supports up to 64GB of memory. This board also
features two PCIe x1 and four PCI x16 slots. We aren’t certain how many lanes each slot has, but we know the Intel X79 platform is capable of supporting 40 PCIe 2.0 bi-directional lanes off the CPU and 8 more PCIe 3.0 lanes that are not bi-directional off the chipset.
Notice that the board has ‘BT GO 3.0!’ written on the PCB just below the primary PCIe slot. ASUS says that all of their ATX motherboards of this series
will have Bluetooth onboard as a standard feature. One of the reasons
for this is that ASUS has designed some new software called BT GO! that
will allow you to overclock your system with a smartphone or tablet PC.

The ASUS P9X79 has plenty of connectivity with as the board has a total of eight SATA ports. The two bottom white SATA III ports running off the Marvell 9128 controller and support ASUS SSD Caching. Intel did not enable Smart Response Technology (SRT) for SSD caching on this board, so ASUS implemented their own solution. ASUS made the software for this in-house and this SSD caching solution doesn’t require getting into the UEFI BIOS to setup. The four blue blue SATA II and the top two SATA III ports run natively off the Intel X79 chipset.

The I/O panel has four native USB 2.0 connectors and then six USB 3.0 connectors that run off an ASMedia controller. You can also find a clear CMOS button, two SATA 6G eSATA ports, and then all the audio ports and optical out that are powered by the Realtek ALX-892 controller. The P9X79 Deluxe also has Dual Gigabit LAN available on the board hanks to the Intel 82579V controller for one port an a Realtek 8111E controller on the other.

Looking close at the boards PCB you can see things like Dual Intelligent Processors III, Digi+ VRM, Digi+ DRAM, UEFI 2 BIOS interface, MemOK!, Fan Expert+, ASUS SSD Caching, USB 3.0 Boost, BT Go 3.0! and so on. ASUS isn’t releasing the details on all of these features yet, but they are clearly shown on the board.

ASUS also has the P9X79 Pro, which is similar to the P9X79 Deluxe, but obviously has less features. It will feature a smaller price tag as a result though. You lose two USB 3.0 headers on the rear I/O panel, one of the internal USB 2.0 headers, the Realtek Gigabit LAN and some other features that might not be needed by all.