What is Assist Fan connector for on ASUS TUF Sabertooth Mobo?

[ljcool_17]

I've never purchased a TUF motherboard before but the new x99 Sabertooth got me looking and thinking this might be the x99 motherboard for me. So I checked it's specs out and saw 5 fan connectors that are labeled "Assist Fan". What exactly is it? Is it the same as a regular fan?

 

[dwatterworth]

Yes those are normal fan connectors. The great difference between the TUF motherboards and mainstream motherboards is the level of control you can have over each fan header. You can select cooling profiles for each fan header that correspond to different motherboard components and add-in cards such as GPU temperatures etc.

These boards make fantastic liquid cooling platforms since you can map fan headers to individual components in separate cooling loops etc instead of having everything tied to the CPU.

 

[ljcool_17]

That's great. So I can connect any regular fan on it. Just wonder if it's PWM just like most if not all new ASUS motherboards. Also, the x99 Sabertooth seems to include only one of those tiny fans, whereas the z97 version has two. One in the middle of the board and another on the rear I/O ports.

 

[dwatterworth]

I think the new X99 board only needs one assist fan due to lower voltages used in a lot of the controllers and more extensive heat sink design over the power delivery etc.
The new headers are definitely PWM capable. It's great to have so many.

 

[onmybikedrunk]

I think the new X99 board only needs one assist fan due to lower voltages used in a lot of the controllers and more extensive heat sink design over the power delivery etc.
The new headers are definitely PWM capable. It's great to have so many.

Thanks for the info! I was wondering the same after purchasing a new X99 ST. Very helpful!