Asus X79 Deluxe Motherboard Unboxing & Overview
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2014-05-07
·
1,722 words · ~8 min read
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Corsair RM series power supplies are optimized for silent operation click now
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to learn more welcome to my unboxing of the ASUS
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x79 Deluxe yes they have changed their naming scheme which isn't the only thing
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that they've changed about this x79 board it's lgaa 2011 which means it's
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not going to work with the latest Haswell processors but it will work with
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the latest IV Bridge e processors so
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that is quad core and six core processors on the 2011 platform even the
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all new 4960x extreme Edition so what
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makes the new x79 Deluxe different from the older P9 x79 Deluxe well mostly it
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comes down to updating the feature set because there's actually been a couple
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of board technology refreshes on the consumer side so that is on the LGA
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115x line of boards since ASUS
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originally launched the P9 x79 Deluxe so it's gotten a little bit long in the
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tooth they are also adding imple they've also implemented specific optimizations
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for Ivy Bridge e to make sure that their newer refresh board works a little bit
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more optimally with the new processors than the older boards because quite
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frankly you know when you were building a board you know a couple years ago you
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didn't necessarily uh have the knowledge to optimize it for a processor that
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isn't going to be released for a very long time so without further Ado here's
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everything that is in the Box we get 10 SATA cables five right angle five
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straight we get a flexible SLI bridge this is a channel series board so you
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don't get the sexy black SLI Bridge it's got an IO plate it's got their Q
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connectors it's also got ah yes another updated feature so Wireless AC just like
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the Z87 boards and Bluetooth 4.0 it's
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also got this funny it comes with an Rog 3way s Bridge though because they
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probably didn't have like an ugly three-way SLI Bridge because most people
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don't run three-way SLI unless they want like you know a sexy bridge on it also
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has a users manual and that's funny there's no disc in here I wonder if
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that's because uh ASUS just stopped bothering because you might as well
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download the latest or if maybe this is a reviewer board so it didn't include a
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disc cuz they know that I'll just download the
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latest all right now the board itself
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just like the Z87 boards it's been updated with their new black and gold
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color scheme which on this particular one actually looks quite sharp the power
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delivery system not only looks better but it's also been completely overhauled
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with Superior performing components including new inductors new mosfet and
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driver power stages and I mean this is important because as Intel moves the
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manufacturing process down so going from Sandy brid e to Ivy brid e operating
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voltage goes down so tolerances actually get tighter as you go they've also added
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their new T topology so new dam topology
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which basically amounts to how the traces are connected to the pins on the
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CPU because that's where the memory controller is these days for better
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performance now when you couple that with the fact that IV Bridge e has a
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much stronger memory controller than Sandy Bridge e you should be seeing
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better memory speeds on this platform than you got on previous Edition boards
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and running the previous Edition processors in terms of the overall
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layout we've got our eight pin connector and its ideal location along the top
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left we've got our 24 pin connector on the top right Edge in its ideal location
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the memo K button is also here this is important if you're running sort of
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high-spec memory and you want to make sure that it posts long enough to
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actually set up the memory the way you want it to run just in case it doesn't
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post it's less of an issue these days but it's good to have just in case
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you've also got your USB 3 front panel connector and its optimal location but I
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would prefer to see a right angle connector if they could arrange that 12
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SATA ports okay so two of which are SATA 36 GB per second running off the Intel
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controller four of which are SATA 2 3 GB
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per second running off the Intel controller and the rest of them are
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running off of a new generation third party controller so ASUS is using one
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that has a PCIe Gen 2 Link which means
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better overall throughput it also supports their latest SSD caching which
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allows an unlimited size SSD to cash your mechanical storage which is great
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because Intel rst only allows up to a 60 gig SSD for that in fact you can even
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use three separate ssds to cash your mechanical volumes which is H very very
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cool so there's a lot of connectivity options here you've also got your front
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panel connectors as well as an epu switch so remember that's the processor
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that allows for better power consumption for the system as well as TPU which
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allows for maybe not quite as good power consumption but higher performance
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you've got four USB 2.0 front panel headers a clear Simo switch as well as
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their direct key which is actually super handy it um when when the system's
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turned off you just press it and then it boots up directly into the UEFI so you
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can make any changes you want onboard reset and power switches as well as a
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post indicator which makes this a pretty uh feature-rich board even from an
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overclocking or operating outside of a case standpoint which isn't necessarily
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its intended Market the PCI Express Lanes are distributed in pretty much the
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normal way so there's no funny switching going on with uh you know uh plx
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switches or anything like that so basically what you see is what you get
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remember there's 40 lanes available and with the new ivybridge e CPUs and an
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optimized board and optimized components you can run at PCIe 3.0 speed so the top
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one is a PCIe 16x slot followed by a 1x
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a 16x that is wired for 8 a 16x that is
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wired for eight a 16x that is wired for 16 and a 1x so the way that these are
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going to run is they can run in 16x 16x in the gray slots or can split up to 8X
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8X 8X 8X if you wanted to run a four-way SLI or Crossfire configuration however
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the bad news about that is because of the spacing it's not really optimized
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for it it's only got six PCI expansion slots and because most cards these days
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are dual slot even if you install water blocks on them there's not a whole lot
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that can be done about it they're using an updated USB 3 controller So speaking
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of USB 3 it's got six USB 3 ports on the
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back and what that allows is uasp Operation even in Windows 8 the older
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boards only supported us uasp in Windows 7 or just the regular turbo mode in
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Windows 8 with that said uasp does perform a little bit better than turbo
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you can go back we did an old NC Tech tips about it but it's not that not of a
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difference and both of them are better than running in the default configuration it also has four USB 2.0
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ports includ four USB 2.0 ports two GB
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Ethernet ports including a new Intel NYX so it's the latest I series controller
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which gives you better throughput reduced CPU utilization all that usual
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stuff you'd expect as well as their Network eye control which you can control through AI Suite my personal
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experience with it isn't that great but in theory it allows you to prioritize
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traffic depending on what is more important to you there is their BIOS
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flashback button which allows you to flash the BIOS even if the board is pretty much bricked two EA ports so that
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brings the total SATA connectivity up to 14 the Dual antennas for the wireless AC
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and Bluetooth 4.0 as well as 7.1 audio out and optical audio out so what does
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all this mean in real terms that was a lot of specs and a lot of improvements
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but what does it amount to well you get a more updated feature set so you've got
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fan expert 2 which allows you to have full granular control of all of the fan
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head headers through the software whether you're plugging in three pin or four pin fans in fact there are six fan
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headers 1 2 3 4 five and six located all
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around the board you get their of course most modern UEFI implementation and you
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get just generally better overall operations so ASUS is saying that the
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autot tuning which actually is excellent their board's autot tuning is
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outstanding it's better than a OneTouch overclock that just loads a profile it
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actually runs through and tunes the different components they're saying with
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their autot tuning they're seeing overclocks around up to 4.6 4.7 GHz and
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RAM overclocks up to 2133 running 64 gig
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configurations or up to 2400 MHz in
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lower density configurations this is all automatic tuning so there you go it's
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tuned better especially for Ivy brid e it's the x79 deluxe from ASUS don't
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think that JJ was probably watching this video and figured that I probably missed
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something about his board and is going to send me an
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email