Asus P9X79 Motherboard Review
Author: Dennis Garcia
Published: Thursday, March 08, 2012
Board Layout and Features
Black and Blue has been a very popular color scheme for many years and fits well with the black PCBs common on higher end motherboards. The ASUS P9X79 features a jet black PCB with electric blue heatsinks over the PWM and chipset. You'll find a variety of different colored expansion slots based on their usage and arraigned to provide maximum flexibility for the average user.
Flipping a motherboard over can tell you a lot about its construction. Here we can see that the PCB is mostly devoid of any surface components except for a few chips scattered about. Due to the size of the LGA2011 socket the CPU reinforcement plate is considerably larger and comes with a few cutouts for surface resistors around the socket.
Under the PWM you will find a black heatspreader that helps secure the heatsink above and reinforce the PCB below.
Under the PWM you will find a black heatspreader that helps secure the heatsink above and reinforce the PCB below.
Digi+ Power Control
ASUS X79 motherboards include New DIGI+ Power Control that consists of three digital voltage controllers for CPU and DRAM to provide precise memory tuning and CPU voltage control. This is a 7th generation design specific to the unique demands of the X79 and help to unlock extreme performance and power efficiency depending on your specific power requirements and configuration.
Digi+ Power Control is a fully digital solution that is controllable thru the UEFI or through Windows using the included Ai Suite. What is important to note is that all of the Asus X79 motherboards feature a similar power delivery system and while the total phase count may change the controls and how you change them will not. The best part of this system is that it is intelligent and will react accordingly to the system demands allowing you the option to set everything on auto and enjoy all of the benefits without the hassle.
Digi+ Power Control is a fully digital solution that is controllable thru the UEFI or through Windows using the included Ai Suite. What is important to note is that all of the Asus X79 motherboards feature a similar power delivery system and while the total phase count may change the controls and how you change them will not. The best part of this system is that it is intelligent and will react accordingly to the system demands allowing you the option to set everything on auto and enjoy all of the benefits without the hassle.
The P9X79 features a 8+2+2+2 PWM design with 8+2 power phases dedicated to the LGA2011 CPU with the remaining being split up between the two memory controllers.
The cpu socket is a Lotes part featuring the standard exposed metal finish. We have seen many builders opt for the black chrome finish but given the abundance of silver capacitors scattered around the PCB the metal color just seems natural.
Unlike some X79 motherboards on the market the Asus P9X79 features a full set of eight DDR3 memory slots to accompany the quad channel memory controller and support up to 64GB of system memory at speeds of up to 2400Mhz. A side benefit to this memory configuration is that when running four memory modules you'll have room to run oversized CPU coolers and keep your tall memory modules.
The cpu socket is a Lotes part featuring the standard exposed metal finish. We have seen many builders opt for the black chrome finish but given the abundance of silver capacitors scattered around the PCB the metal color just seems natural.
Unlike some X79 motherboards on the market the Asus P9X79 features a full set of eight DDR3 memory slots to accompany the quad channel memory controller and support up to 64GB of system memory at speeds of up to 2400Mhz. A side benefit to this memory configuration is that when running four memory modules you'll have room to run oversized CPU coolers and keep your tall memory modules.
