1 00:00:07,440 --> 00:00:12,160 welcome to my unboxing of the ASUS p8 2 00:00:10,519 --> 00:00:17,279 z77v premium now of note is the fact that 3 00:00:15,360 --> 00:00:22,560 ASUS actually doesn't even always release a premium grade motherboard they 4 00:00:20,480 --> 00:00:27,359 always have a pro they always have a vanilla you know sometimes they'll have 5 00:00:24,800 --> 00:00:31,359 you know leds or lx or whatever else mixed in uh they always have a deluxe 6 00:00:30,000 --> 00:00:35,440 but they don't always have a premium because ASUS only releases a premium 7 00:00:33,520 --> 00:00:39,920 board when they feel that there is some kind of a feature set mix that they can 8 00:00:37,360 --> 00:00:44,559 bring to the table that justifies the premium moniker so in this case uh 9 00:00:42,320 --> 00:00:49,280 before we get any further into it what makes this one super special and super 10 00:00:46,719 --> 00:00:54,399 premium above all else is full native support for Thunderbolt so 11 00:00:52,000 --> 00:00:58,399 Thunderbolt is built right into the boards Thunderbolt gives you up to 10 12 00:00:56,640 --> 00:01:03,520 gigabit per second which is fully capable of running external storage as 13 00:01:01,120 --> 00:01:09,760 well as displays even daisy chained together at the same time moving along 14 00:01:05,920 --> 00:01:11,520 we've got an msata 32gb SSD built in so 15 00:01:09,760 --> 00:01:15,200 that's as a caching solution for whatever hard drive you might actually 16 00:01:13,520 --> 00:01:19,119 connect to it we've also got full support for their wi-fi go technology 17 00:01:17,119 --> 00:01:23,119 including bluetooth as well as the ability to use your board as a wi-fi 18 00:01:20,799 --> 00:01:26,799 access point fan expert 2 is included this is actually a fantastic little 19 00:01:24,799 --> 00:01:31,280 piece of software within the ai suite that lets you manage your fan speeds and 20 00:01:28,640 --> 00:01:34,799 temperatures along custom curves should you see fit to give you guys some idea 21 00:01:33,119 --> 00:01:38,159 how important of a feature i think that is i bought an over a hundred dollar 22 00:01:36,560 --> 00:01:41,920 piece of hardware called an m cube t balancer to use in my system just to 23 00:01:40,560 --> 00:01:46,079 give me that functionality it comes built into your board here smart digi 24 00:01:43,920 --> 00:01:50,079 plus so for better overclocking yes this is definitely an overclocking optimized 25 00:01:47,920 --> 00:01:53,920 board you they've also got their epu and tpu so epu is a one button way to 26 00:01:52,479 --> 00:01:57,600 undervolt and save power with your system whereas tpu has a couple of 27 00:01:56,320 --> 00:02:01,920 different options you can either do it with the one button option or you can 28 00:01:59,360 --> 00:02:06,399 have it tune itself to overclock your system and get better performance we 29 00:02:04,240 --> 00:02:10,879 have full support for NVIDIA sli AMD crossfire x virtue mvp which improves 30 00:02:08,959 --> 00:02:15,680 your performance as well as offers GPU virtualization which allows you to use 31 00:02:13,200 --> 00:02:19,440 uh Intel quick sync which is a quick way of transcoding video even 32 00:02:18,080 --> 00:02:24,720 though you have a dedicated graphics card installed dts dts connect 33 00:02:22,400 --> 00:02:28,640 Intel z77 chipset supports Intel core processors are better 34 00:02:26,239 --> 00:02:33,519 22 and 32 nanometer CPU support so that's second and third generation 35 00:02:30,879 --> 00:02:37,440 Intel core series processors and 36 00:02:35,040 --> 00:02:41,519 here we go we find a whole lot of pretty much the same basic stuff 37 00:02:39,680 --> 00:02:46,480 inside here it does talk a little bit more about fan expert too including uh 38 00:02:44,560 --> 00:02:49,680 your abilities to take advanced control with detailed information about each fan 39 00:02:48,000 --> 00:02:53,760 you can listen and locate the fans you can get blah blah okay this is all good 40 00:02:51,680 --> 00:02:57,360 stuff this is what i'm all about oh no not this one not the RPM fixed mode 41 00:02:55,360 --> 00:03:00,720 that's cool so you can take all of your fans and fix them at a given RPM which 42 00:02:59,120 --> 00:03:04,239 is kind of neat this is the one that i'm all about the one where you can create 43 00:03:02,560 --> 00:03:07,680 whatever curves you want and according to temperatures of various parts you 44 00:03:05,840 --> 00:03:12,640 lock in each fan to whatever you want it to adjust based on you can get your 45 00:03:09,840 --> 00:03:17,120 system to keep itself at exactly the cooling and noise level that you're 46 00:03:14,319 --> 00:03:21,760 comfortable with ah SSD caching too so this is cool so 47 00:03:19,360 --> 00:03:25,920 SSD caching 2 now has a multiple caching option so you have four 48 00:03:23,920 --> 00:03:30,000 four SSD caching capable ports which means you can do all kinds of cool stuff 49 00:03:27,840 --> 00:03:34,319 including having two separate cached volumes so two ssds and two hard drives 50 00:03:32,480 --> 00:03:37,700 and you can tune exactly the way you want to do it you can have one SSD 51 00:03:35,760 --> 00:03:39,760 that's caching like a um 52 00:03:39,760 --> 00:03:45,200 a volume of the other three drives so that gives you more flexibility because 53 00:03:43,599 --> 00:03:48,720 in the past we've only really seen caching solutions that work uh or 54 00:03:47,280 --> 00:03:53,440 third-party caching solutions that work with only two ports okay virtue mvp 55 00:03:51,840 --> 00:03:57,840 we've talked about usb 3 boost this is important so uasp as well as their turbo 56 00:03:55,760 --> 00:04:00,959 mode turbo mood turbo mood that's like when you're like 57 00:03:59,439 --> 00:04:06,720 depressed but like really really really fast 58 00:04:03,120 --> 00:04:08,959 um anyway turbo mode sorry guys um 59 00:04:06,720 --> 00:04:12,720 turbo mode and uasp give you options to accelerate your usb 3 performance we 60 00:04:10,560 --> 00:04:17,519 have a full ncix tech tips coming out about this soon network eye control uses 61 00:04:15,360 --> 00:04:21,919 the Intel mix built into this board it actually has 62 00:04:18,560 --> 00:04:24,160 dual built-in Intel network cards um to 63 00:04:21,919 --> 00:04:26,080 manage things like qos um 64 00:04:25,199 --> 00:04:30,960 for more optimized network performance 65 00:04:29,040 --> 00:04:35,040 Thunderbolt okay up to daisy chain up to six Thunderbolt devices ASUS also put a 66 00:04:32,880 --> 00:04:39,520 lot of engineering into making sure that it would be hot pluggable because by 67 00:04:37,120 --> 00:04:43,360 nature uh pci express is not a hot pluggable interface so they had to do 68 00:04:41,040 --> 00:04:48,720 some special tuning to the BIOS as well as the driver in order to make this 69 00:04:45,680 --> 00:04:50,560 possible on the pc 70 00:04:48,720 --> 00:04:54,160 okay yes we've covered that already we've covered that already so easy 71 00:04:52,400 --> 00:04:58,479 installation for Intel smart response and rapid start technology very very 72 00:04:56,080 --> 00:05:02,400 cool wi-fi go is another really neat feature that we've sort of already 73 00:04:59,840 --> 00:05:06,240 talked about okay so that's good oh yeah of note to do with wi-fi go is 74 00:05:04,560 --> 00:05:10,400 that it is dlna compatible so you can use dlna devices to uh 75 00:05:08,400 --> 00:05:14,800 access stuff that you have on your computer from your compatible media 76 00:05:12,479 --> 00:05:19,759 player such as one from you know pivx or patriot or another uh or ASUS with their 77 00:05:17,840 --> 00:05:24,320 own oh play players as well so uh that'll so that'll be over 78 00:05:21,759 --> 00:05:26,960 the network so inside the accessory package we find a whole lot of really 79 00:05:25,919 --> 00:05:30,720 good stuff i'm just going to take all these out and then we'll have a look at 80 00:05:28,960 --> 00:05:35,120 them outside of the box this has a really big box you can tell that it's a 81 00:05:33,120 --> 00:05:39,039 higher end board because the box is substantially larger than their pro 82 00:05:37,199 --> 00:05:43,759 series board here i'm gonna go get the pro series board box so that you guys 83 00:05:41,280 --> 00:05:46,000 can see the physical comparison so 84 00:05:47,280 --> 00:05:52,960 that's how you know you're getting like more and more like different and more 85 00:05:50,880 --> 00:05:59,440 better stuff so you check this out premium box compared to pro box 86 00:05:56,880 --> 00:06:03,840 see look at that thickness yeah that's a premium board so why did 87 00:06:01,520 --> 00:06:08,080 they need all of that space well because there's tons of cool stuff in here 88 00:06:05,199 --> 00:06:11,759 here's the wi-fi go module with wi-fi n and bluetooth here are the antennas 89 00:06:10,080 --> 00:06:15,520 these are magnetic antennas which are super handy it means you can stick them 90 00:06:13,360 --> 00:06:20,560 to the outside of your case so those are for the wi-fi go module 91 00:06:17,840 --> 00:06:25,199 here are the exclusive features user guide 92 00:06:22,639 --> 00:06:30,720 walkthroughs okay we also have the wi-fi go card specific user guide for that guy 93 00:06:27,600 --> 00:06:32,639 right there we've got the p877v premium 94 00:06:30,720 --> 00:06:36,319 user guide including the installation dvd which you should ignore and download 95 00:06:34,479 --> 00:06:41,199 latest off the ASUS website check this out this is all english so this is a 96 00:06:38,479 --> 00:06:45,120 thick thick user manual for your motherboard which is great because 97 00:06:42,639 --> 00:06:50,240 detail is better than not having detail we have two-way three-way and 98 00:06:47,840 --> 00:06:53,039 four-way republic of gamers check that out you even get like a republic of 99 00:06:51,840 --> 00:06:58,400 gamers uh sli bridge to go with your not republic of gamers 100 00:06:56,479 --> 00:07:02,880 board but i mean with these kinds of features it almost is pretty close to 101 00:07:00,479 --> 00:07:08,240 that level we've also got four SATA three six gigabit per second cables two 102 00:07:05,280 --> 00:07:12,960 SATA two three gigabit per second cables a an i o shield with a few interesting 103 00:07:10,720 --> 00:07:18,800 color codes so they've got the usb BIOS flashback port color coded and then the 104 00:07:15,840 --> 00:07:22,479 button color coded for you as well as your usb 3 ports that are compatible 105 00:07:20,720 --> 00:07:26,800 with uasp so they've gone ahead and labeled that for you can configure them 106 00:07:24,880 --> 00:07:30,319 in the ai suite whether you want to use uasp or whether you want to use bot or 107 00:07:28,639 --> 00:07:36,080 standard mode but the fact that they color code them for you means you can more easily figure out which ones are 108 00:07:34,319 --> 00:07:39,599 going where because these ones that aren't uasp ready you can also use turbo 109 00:07:38,000 --> 00:07:44,080 mode on those so i also like the positioning of these up 110 00:07:42,560 --> 00:07:48,000 at the top because if you do have to reach around the back or if you do have 111 00:07:45,840 --> 00:07:52,080 a case that has a pass-through having it at the top is usually the closest and 112 00:07:49,680 --> 00:07:55,360 most convenient place ASUS q connectors are right here for more convenient 113 00:07:53,599 --> 00:07:59,360 plugging in a front panel of whatnots and hoo-has 114 00:07:56,720 --> 00:08:05,039 and last but not least we've got an ASUS usb 3 front panel three and a half inch 115 00:08:02,720 --> 00:08:08,560 bay since nobody has a floppy drive anymore this is a far more useful thing 116 00:08:06,960 --> 00:08:13,840 to put in your three and a half inch bay than whatever else you were planning to put in your three and a half inch base 117 00:08:11,199 --> 00:08:18,080 so thanks to ASUS for including that and it uses an internal header not an 118 00:08:15,680 --> 00:08:20,240 external passthrough which is definitely ideal 119 00:08:19,199 --> 00:08:27,360 all right moving along to the board itself this is 120 00:08:25,280 --> 00:08:30,560 yeah i mean i was gonna say it's a premium board but if you haven't figured 121 00:08:29,039 --> 00:08:34,399 that out based on the name of the board already then you're probably pretty newb 122 00:08:33,120 --> 00:08:39,200 so uh we're just gonna leave it at that i mean even the fact that i felt the need to 123 00:08:37,440 --> 00:08:43,279 say it's a premium board is pretty noob right there by the way a lot of people 124 00:08:41,039 --> 00:08:46,320 complain about how i touch pcbs let me show you how i'm actually removing the 125 00:08:44,800 --> 00:08:49,839 motherboard so this is the grip i have on it which might look pretty bad on the 126 00:08:48,480 --> 00:08:55,040 surface but let me show you what i'm doing one thumb is on plastic components 127 00:08:52,240 --> 00:09:00,000 here my fingers on the back are actually on the metal spikes coming out of the 128 00:08:57,360 --> 00:09:04,959 RAM slots on the other side of the board i'm not touching the pcv 129 00:09:02,880 --> 00:09:09,360 touching the edge of a pcb once again is fine so if you watch when i hold a board 130 00:09:06,880 --> 00:09:13,120 like this i'm positioning my hand like this so once again i have my fingers on 131 00:09:11,760 --> 00:09:18,720 those metal spikes i'm not touching the pcb the oil from your fingers can damage 132 00:09:15,360 --> 00:09:21,120 pcbs and is not very good for them so 133 00:09:18,720 --> 00:09:26,320 yes i'm aware of that no i don't have my greasy fingers all over the pcb i like 134 00:09:23,440 --> 00:09:29,760 to maneuver boards by slots heat sinks and parts where i don't actually have to 135 00:09:28,240 --> 00:09:33,360 touch it i also avoid touching things like this because your fingerprints will 136 00:09:31,839 --> 00:09:37,920 get on them and they'll look ugly and greasy because they're made of aluminum 137 00:09:35,680 --> 00:09:43,680 and aluminum tends to stain when you get fingerprint oil on aluminum 138 00:09:40,959 --> 00:09:47,839 yes not good i hate fingerprints so that is what i am doing i'm not just 139 00:09:46,480 --> 00:09:51,760 really nearly touching the board all over the place so let's have a look at 140 00:09:49,600 --> 00:09:55,519 the general layout of the board uh right up here in the top left corner i'm going 141 00:09:53,120 --> 00:09:58,720 to start there for a change because uh it's a bit of an exceptional feature 142 00:09:57,040 --> 00:10:02,640 of this board that is where the wi-fi go module plugs in you just put that in 143 00:10:00,800 --> 00:10:05,839 there there's a space for it in the back of the i o shield right there that's 144 00:10:04,080 --> 00:10:09,920 where you plug in your antennas so that's pretty straightforward there's a 145 00:10:07,120 --> 00:10:14,160 screw that is pre-plugged into the wi-fi go card so it doesn't get lost just go 146 00:10:11,760 --> 00:10:18,880 ahead screw that in no big deal the socket so this has an lga 1155 147 00:10:16,959 --> 00:10:23,200 socket which means you can't use 1156 processors it's fully compatible with 148 00:10:21,120 --> 00:10:27,920 sandy bridge and iv bridge so you can use whatever CPU you want and overclock 149 00:10:25,440 --> 00:10:33,360 the snot out of it with the huge multi-phase digital vrm that this 150 00:10:30,800 --> 00:10:37,360 premium level board has going on over here it also has fairly 151 00:10:35,519 --> 00:10:40,640 beefy cooling with your chipset cooled by just a little guy here we got a heat 152 00:10:38,800 --> 00:10:44,959 pipe connecting it to a much larger heat sink that is responsible for cooling 153 00:10:42,720 --> 00:10:50,240 part of the ddrm with another large heatsink cooling the rest of it honestly 154 00:10:47,600 --> 00:10:54,399 these ivy bridge cpus with their 77 watt tdps don't really start to suck back 155 00:10:52,480 --> 00:10:57,920 power and produce a lot of heat until you overclock them so that's how you can 156 00:10:56,720 --> 00:11:01,279 tell when a board is designed with overclocking in mind because it'll have 157 00:10:59,760 --> 00:11:05,120 all that space and all that cooling going on for overclocking so we've got a 158 00:11:03,760 --> 00:11:09,760 lot of logos on the board oh you know what let's here i'll do my usual routine and then we'll go into some of the other 159 00:11:07,920 --> 00:11:12,959 more detailed stuff so right here is our eight pin power connector in its ideal 160 00:11:11,200 --> 00:11:19,200 location at the top left of the board here are our dual channel ddr3 slots so 161 00:11:16,959 --> 00:11:23,519 all ivy bridge and sandy bridge cpus support only four slots that's why you 162 00:11:20,800 --> 00:11:27,600 don't see any 1155 boards that support more than four slots of memory although 163 00:11:25,760 --> 00:11:34,399 technically all ivy bridge and sandy bridge cpus only support up to 164 00:11:31,279 --> 00:11:36,800 2 by 8x configurations for the PCIe 165 00:11:34,399 --> 00:11:39,600 slots but ASUS has clearly cheated on that a little bit so we'll talk more 166 00:11:38,000 --> 00:11:44,079 about that later moving along here's your tpm plug here's 167 00:11:41,839 --> 00:11:48,959 your 24 pin power connector and it's ideal location along the right hand edge 168 00:11:46,399 --> 00:11:52,640 one front usb 3 connector is located here this is going to be running off of 169 00:11:50,320 --> 00:11:58,399 the Intel chipset so that is according to Intel spec you must have at least two 170 00:11:55,200 --> 00:12:01,440 available front panel Intel usb 3 171 00:11:58,399 --> 00:12:03,760 headers or usb 3 connectors okay here's 172 00:12:01,440 --> 00:12:07,120 a set of three um okay say the 3g 173 00:12:05,839 --> 00:12:11,360 port for whatever reason i'm guessing that's probably the same one that's the same 174 00:12:10,079 --> 00:12:17,360 controller that's wired into something on the back panel or something i don't know why that oh i know why that's there 175 00:12:15,440 --> 00:12:21,279 okay give me a sec guys all right not so complicated as all of 176 00:12:18,880 --> 00:12:25,680 that guys this is a seda this is just a regular run-of-the-mill Intel two three 177 00:12:23,360 --> 00:12:30,800 gigabit per second port these are your Intel SATA three six gigabit per second 178 00:12:27,839 --> 00:12:35,200 ports this is another couple Intel SATA two three gigabit per second ports and 179 00:12:32,480 --> 00:12:39,360 this one is running off your fourth SATA two three gigabit per second port on the 180 00:12:37,120 --> 00:12:43,440 Intel controller so that's an msata configuration right there so it is power 181 00:12:41,200 --> 00:12:47,839 and data to an msa to drive which by the way you can swap for something bigger 182 00:12:45,519 --> 00:12:51,760 should you so desire however srt technology only supports up to 64 gigs 183 00:12:50,160 --> 00:12:55,760 on a single drive anyway or is it 60 gigs or something in that neighborhood 184 00:12:53,360 --> 00:12:58,720 so 32 gigs is plenty for some storage drive that you plug in in order to make 185 00:12:57,120 --> 00:13:03,760 sure that whatever games you play most frequently or whatever else is going to 186 00:13:00,720 --> 00:13:05,440 be cached and ready to rock whenever you 187 00:13:03,760 --> 00:13:08,959 want so these guys are special though so i okay 188 00:13:07,440 --> 00:13:13,120 i was a little bit i was a little bit unclear before but i've done i've read 189 00:13:10,639 --> 00:13:18,000 my notes on this board so it's mostly optimized for using 190 00:13:15,120 --> 00:13:21,680 two caching ssds and two storage drives now while the controller itself may be 191 00:13:20,079 --> 00:13:25,360 capable in the future of something like a raid 5 with an SSD cache or something 192 00:13:23,839 --> 00:13:29,760 like that raid 5 on consumer level 193 00:13:27,760 --> 00:13:32,880 integrated chipsets is not really the most ideal thing in the world because it 194 00:13:31,440 --> 00:13:36,639 doesn't give you the option to recover it in the event of a hardware failure or 195 00:13:34,639 --> 00:13:40,079 anything like that unless you happen to have an identical board or identical 196 00:13:38,160 --> 00:13:44,000 chipset handy so it's not really ideal but using them as a cache is definitely 197 00:13:42,160 --> 00:13:48,880 like recommended thumbs up kind of configuration so these are marvel 198 00:13:45,519 --> 00:13:50,880 controllers these are Intel controllers 199 00:13:48,880 --> 00:13:56,000 all right moving right along front panel connectors usb 2.0 front panel headers 200 00:13:54,160 --> 00:13:59,199 there's your clear cmos button is there another one on the back of the board no 201 00:13:57,600 --> 00:14:03,920 no clear cmos on the back of the board that's kind of interesting but there's one here so it's not the end oh i forgot 202 00:14:01,920 --> 00:14:07,600 the mok button so if you're using high speed memory which is far more of a 203 00:14:05,600 --> 00:14:12,160 factor now on iv bridge platforms where we're seeing up to three gigahertz 204 00:14:09,519 --> 00:14:15,519 memory kits being released you want to make sure if you plug those 205 00:14:13,600 --> 00:14:19,600 in you can use the if it doesn't post you can use the memo k button to run it 206 00:14:17,440 --> 00:14:23,600 out to to force the board and the memory at a super safe setting so that you can 207 00:14:21,760 --> 00:14:28,639 post configure all your voltages and settings correctly and then reboot 208 00:14:26,079 --> 00:14:32,720 okay here's your post uh diagnostic led readout which by the way 209 00:14:30,639 --> 00:14:37,360 not all boards have this but ASUS has taken the liberty 210 00:14:34,240 --> 00:14:38,959 of including a comprehensive list 211 00:14:37,360 --> 00:14:44,000 um oh yeah this is another thing they do on their higher end boards you see a 212 00:14:40,560 --> 00:14:44,959 much more comprehensive validated memory 213 00:14:44,000 --> 00:14:51,120 section um okay comprehensive list of aha all of 214 00:14:48,800 --> 00:14:55,199 the error codes that you might see off that so how many times have you guys had 215 00:14:52,639 --> 00:14:59,760 a board that has one of these error readouts and then actually doesn't sorry 216 00:14:57,839 --> 00:15:02,160 guys the battery died but i what i was i don't want to harp on it for too long 217 00:15:00,880 --> 00:15:06,000 but how many times have you guys had a board that has one of these but you 218 00:15:04,079 --> 00:15:10,160 google around into no avail can you even find out what the stupid postcode on it 219 00:15:08,000 --> 00:15:14,720 even means so there you go they tell you what it means thank you ASUS it's basic 220 00:15:12,720 --> 00:15:18,880 stuff like that that really sets apart the products that are good from the ones 221 00:15:16,320 --> 00:15:23,600 that sort of are trying to be good tpu and epu buttons are right here hardware 222 00:15:20,959 --> 00:15:26,880 uh built in power and reset switches are here there's your front panel audio as 223 00:15:24,880 --> 00:15:31,279 well as your spit if out and that pretty much covers it for the layout of the 224 00:15:29,519 --> 00:15:34,639 board however we got to talk a little bit about these PCIe slots first though 225 00:15:33,199 --> 00:15:38,320 let's have a look at the fan headers so what good is a bunch of really cool 226 00:15:36,800 --> 00:15:46,720 software features to do with your fan configuration if you don't have lots of pwm fan headers one two three four five 227 00:15:43,680 --> 00:15:48,160 and i believe i saw sixth six pwm fan 228 00:15:46,720 --> 00:15:52,320 headers are built into this board and they're all 100 configuration 229 00:15:51,440 --> 00:16:01,360 this is cool stuff this is the bee's knees because this is compatibility with up to 230 00:15:57,839 --> 00:16:03,680 and these are PCIe gen 3 those leds show 231 00:16:01,360 --> 00:16:09,839 you which ones are active in gen 3 mode and that is a very expensive chip right 232 00:16:06,160 --> 00:16:13,600 there so this board supports up to 8x 8x 233 00:16:09,839 --> 00:16:16,160 8x 8x pci e3 234 00:16:13,600 --> 00:16:21,199 now even in the event of because remember these two these cpus only 235 00:16:18,320 --> 00:16:25,600 technically support 8x8x but that plx switching chip allows it to achieve 236 00:16:23,440 --> 00:16:29,680 better balance basically it's a it's a switch so it manages where the data 237 00:16:27,360 --> 00:16:33,680 needs to go to to give you effectively more bandwidth for running more graphics 238 00:16:31,279 --> 00:16:39,680 cards not only that but unlike the last generation less expensive PCIe 2.0 plx 239 00:16:36,959 --> 00:16:43,040 chip this will run even in a worst case scenario like if you were going to go oh 240 00:16:41,279 --> 00:16:48,240 well you know blah blah i'm a naysayer of plx chips and i think that if you've 241 00:16:45,360 --> 00:16:56,480 only got 16x PCIe 3 effective bandwidth here then you can only have 4x 4x4 x4 x 242 00:16:51,279 --> 00:16:58,480 even if you only had PCIe 3 4x 4x4 x 4x 243 00:16:56,480 --> 00:17:03,279 that would still be equivalent to PCIe 2.0 8x8x8x8x 244 00:17:01,360 --> 00:17:08,079 which is more than enough for four of any high-end graphics card today so even 245 00:17:05,679 --> 00:17:14,400 worse case scenario this thing is going to be fully unleashed fully functional 246 00:17:11,600 --> 00:17:17,760 for four-way sli and four-way crossfire with four high-end graphics cards which 247 00:17:16,160 --> 00:17:22,480 is very cool they also throw in a couple PCIe 1x slots just in case you need them 248 00:17:20,319 --> 00:17:26,079 and remember guys if you want to run at a two card configuration you're gonna 249 00:17:24,480 --> 00:17:30,960 go here and here they're conveniently color-coded four-way configurations will 250 00:17:28,319 --> 00:17:36,160 go here here here and here and three-way will be one two three uh don't forget 251 00:17:32,880 --> 00:17:39,600 guys you can also plug in uh PCIe 1x 252 00:17:36,160 --> 00:17:41,840 cards into 16x slots or 2x or 4x or 8x 253 00:17:39,600 --> 00:17:44,160 into a 16x slot no problem other than it'll have less bandwidth available 254 00:17:43,120 --> 00:17:48,240 which won't matter unless you're running like really high end raid cars or anything like that 255 00:17:47,280 --> 00:17:52,080 okay moving right along aha okay so 256 00:17:50,720 --> 00:17:57,440 back port two esata ports 257 00:17:54,320 --> 00:17:59,280 one two three four usb 3.0 ports optical 258 00:17:57,440 --> 00:18:03,120 audio out uh okay two usb 2.0 ports presumably 259 00:18:01,760 --> 00:18:07,200 under this sticker which i think was actually supposed to be up here but uh 260 00:18:05,280 --> 00:18:10,160 whatever there's two usb 2.0 ports under there trust me there 261 00:18:09,280 --> 00:18:15,280 ha i can reapply stickers ASUS can hire me 262 00:18:13,280 --> 00:18:20,480 to work as applying a sticker applier okay usb 2. two Intel gigabit Ethernet 263 00:18:18,480 --> 00:18:25,440 ports can't emphasize that enough dual Intel gigabit lan 264 00:18:22,400 --> 00:18:27,280 uh 7.1 audio we've got HDMI and 265 00:18:25,440 --> 00:18:31,440 displayport out for the onboard video built into your ivy bridge or sandy 266 00:18:28,559 --> 00:18:34,640 bridge processor and right there last but not least 267 00:18:32,919 --> 00:18:38,240 Thunderbolt so besides all the BIOS tuning and 268 00:18:36,320 --> 00:18:42,799 software hooha that ASUS has to go through to get a solution like this 269 00:18:39,520 --> 00:18:45,039 working they also had a very special 270 00:18:42,799 --> 00:18:48,720 approach that they took to the traces as well as the location of the Thunderbolt 271 00:18:47,360 --> 00:18:53,039 chip on the board itself so you see those curved traces as opposed to here 272 00:18:51,039 --> 00:18:56,000 let's find a more traditional trace ha over here i hope you guys can see this 273 00:18:54,799 --> 00:19:00,640 in the lighting but can you see how these traces go at 45 degree angles 274 00:18:59,200 --> 00:19:06,080 right here and they're kind of sharp angles these ones use a curved shape that ASUS 275 00:19:04,080 --> 00:19:11,440 found was better for the transmission of data at very very high speeds and the 276 00:19:09,200 --> 00:19:16,960 physical proximity of the Thunderbolt chip to the Thunderbolt port is also 277 00:19:13,679 --> 00:19:19,679 conducive to allowing it to have better 278 00:19:16,960 --> 00:19:23,919 well data integrity between these two points here not only that but ASUS also 279 00:19:22,160 --> 00:19:28,000 hasn't taken any of these traces and routed them through the different layers 280 00:19:25,760 --> 00:19:33,200 of the boards this also once again reduces interference and increases data 281 00:19:30,480 --> 00:19:37,840 integrity so as far as solutions go for modern generation products this is as 282 00:19:35,200 --> 00:19:40,880 good as it gets guys where they've taken everything that they know about 283 00:19:39,120 --> 00:19:44,480 designing motherboards and they're ASUS 284 00:19:42,880 --> 00:19:50,480 just saying and put it here to make this Thunderbolt solution as 285 00:19:47,440 --> 00:19:52,320 fast and reliable and pain-free as 286 00:19:50,480 --> 00:19:56,240 possible so guys we're gonna have lots of Thunderbolt stuff coming on ncix tech 287 00:19:54,400 --> 00:19:59,840 tips over the next little bit we've got cool stuff like this which is 288 00:19:57,840 --> 00:20:03,360 Thunderbolt ready we've got cool stuff like thank you slick this which is also 289 00:20:01,840 --> 00:20:08,720 Thunderbolt ready and don't forget guys Thunderbolt looks the same as the mini 290 00:20:05,840 --> 00:20:13,440 displayport but it's not it is capable of carrying mini displayport or carrying 291 00:20:10,799 --> 00:20:17,840 displayport signals but you need a specific Thunderbolt cable in order to 292 00:20:16,160 --> 00:20:21,760 run Thunderbolt because it actually has processors at either end of the cable in 293 00:20:20,240 --> 00:20:26,720 addition to the processors on the devices in order to make the 10 gigabit 294 00:20:24,240 --> 00:20:30,320 per second throughput a possibility remember guys Thunderbolt will also 295 00:20:28,400 --> 00:20:34,960 continue to scale so we are going to take these storage devices and this 296 00:20:32,880 --> 00:20:40,960 monitor and we're going to show you guys what Thunderbolt is all about in terms 297 00:20:37,200 --> 00:20:42,640 of cabling convenience and uh no fuss no 298 00:20:40,960 --> 00:20:46,320 mass it's great on the desktop great for notebooks and i think that pretty much 299 00:20:44,559 --> 00:20:49,200 covers ah usb BIOS flashback don't forget about that great feature you 300 00:20:47,760 --> 00:20:52,559 don't even have to have CPU or memory installed you just throw a usb stick 301 00:20:50,799 --> 00:20:56,960 into this port right here press the button and it'll flash that BIOS to the 302 00:20:54,720 --> 00:21:00,400 board making it so that even if new cpus come out or whatever else your BIOS 303 00:20:58,320 --> 00:21:05,600 isn't compatible no big deal you can get that taken care of no problem 304 00:21:04,000 --> 00:21:09,760 and don't forget to subscribe to Linus tech tips for unboxings reviews and 305 00:21:07,520 --> 00:21:15,880 other computer videos oh yeah and the sexy matte black pcb oh 306 00:21:12,559 --> 00:21:15,880 so nice