Seven $260-$320 X79 Express Motherboards, Reviewed

[Crashman]

[citation][nom]g-unit1111[/nom]I'd like to see this as well. It really seems there's no real direct benefits from it yet until we start seeing GPUs and CPUs that can support it. The fact that Intel built PCI-E 3.0 into IB and SB-E chips when people who are building new 2500K systems won't upgrade immediately is really puzzling at best.[/citation]It's kind of like the AGP 8x standard, by the time the bandwidth was needed everyone was on PCIe.

 

[jaquith]

If I only had a dollar for all the PCIe 3.x vs PCIe 2.x, I even suggested a sticky. The problem is/was folks felt the PCIe 3.x was their savior and nothing I could say otherwise would convince them.

RE 'Chain' correct, all or none.

The only use is once other chipsets are PCIe 3.x 'clean' and the 'shared' bandwidth issues are fixed/improved. Mravell (SATA), NEC/others (USB), etc. IMO one of the reasons for small variations in performance -- doodas galore. Heck I'm looking forward to SATA Express - http://www.sata-io.org/technology/sataexpress.asp ; SSD's have had the fastest jump in both speed and bandwidth over the past year+.

 

[Crashman]

[citation][nom]jaquith[/nom]If I only had a dollar for all the PCIe 3.x vs PCIe 2.x, I even suggested a sticky. The problem is/was folks felt the PCIe 3.x was their savior and nothing I could say otherwise would convince them.RE 'Chain' correct, all or none.The only use is once other chipsets are PCIe 3.x 'clean' and the 'shared' bandwidth issues are fixed/improved. Mravell (SATA), NEC/others (USB), etc. IMO one of the reasons for small variations in performance -- doodas galore. Heck I'm looking forward to SATA Express - http://www.sata-io.org/technology/sataexpress.asp ; SSD's have had the fastest jump in both speed and bandwidth over the past year+.[/citation]So long as most onboard controllers use a single PCIe lane, transition to 3.0 sounds good. After all, we're trying to connect multiple devices to a single 5Gb/s lane right now. The problem of course begins that these devices are connected to the chipset, which is still PCIe 2.0, and even after that problem is solved it will probably take a while to get the controllers up to speed.

 

[josejones]

Yeah, I thought PCIe 3 was a good thing too, I mean, it doubles the bandwidth - how could that not be a great benefit. however, I knew nothing about it, really. I'm still learning but, I'm not a gamer either.

"I asked OpenGL programmer Terry Welsh, from Really Slick Screensavers, for his thoughts on PCI Express 3.0 and GPU processing. Terry told me “PCI Express was a great boost, and I'm happy with them doubling the bandwidth anytime they want, as with 3.0. However, for the types of projects I work on, I don't expect to see any difference from it."
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pci-express-3.0-pci-sig,2695-7.html

I'd like to see SATA 4 and 'Hyper Transport 4' as well and it's passed time for both.

 

[Guest]

Nice......now looking forward to the HD 7970 review!

 

[Onus]

I'm one of those who found eSATA useful. I've used an external hard drive dock with an eSATA connection to clone numerous drives.
I've pretty much retired that dock though, now that I have a case with a SATA dock built into it (Enermax Hoplite); in fact I used it tonight to clone my boot drive onto a new 120GB Mushkin Chronos.

On to the topic of this article, I don't see myself ever getting X79, since I mostly play games on my PC, and my limited "pro" uses thus far are not at all dependent on that much speed. I'm also doing just fine with a single GTX560Ti. The value simply isn't there for me. If X79 and S2011 push the prices of Z68 and S1155 down some though, I'm all for it 🙂.

 

[Onus]

Shark, until Tom's does their article, go take a look at what HardOCP had to say about it: http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/01/09/amd_radeon_hd_7970_overclocking_performance_review . Be warned though, unless you have a spill-proof keyboard, I'd suggest wearing a bib.

 

[spookyman]

If I was going to do 4 way SLI, I would by the high end motherboard

 

[xtreme5]

amazing review!!!!!!

 

[robert3892]

I am disappointed that no EVGA X79 motherboards where among this grouping for testing

 

[lp231]

It should be a crime to sell boards at these ridiculous prices. My initial choice was the Asus Deluxe or WS, after looking at their price tag, the only board affordable in their line up is the stripped down vanilla version. And that is still quite a lot. Back in 775 days you can get a ROG board for less than $300.

 

[Crashman]

[citation][nom]robert3892[/nom]I am disappointed that no EVGA X79 motherboards where among this grouping for testing[/citation]You should ask EVGA why they didn't want their X79 SLI included, and give us the answer!

 

[Guest]

Newegg now has the ASrock mobo: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157290

 

[candabi]

Is it possible to install Server2008 R2 in motherboards with X79 chipset? And can I install vmware ESX ?

 

[Guest]

I would like to see ram specifications for the motherboards. Max ram, #slots, max frequency, support ECC or not. Thank you.

 

[frodbonzi]

I want to see Asus' ROG motherboard included... Rampage 4 is supposedly the "best of the best"... is it worth it?

 

[sftechguy]

Kind of ridiculuous to criticize ASRock customer service and also mentioning that you so often love ASUS products when everyone who has purchased ASUS products knows they by far have the worst customer service of ANY hardware manufacturer. I have EVGA,ASUS,MSI and INTEL products in my builds ASUS is still the worst, EVGA would have to get credit for best Cust. Service reputation. Please correct or amend your review to include these facts