Sandy Bridge-E and X79 – The ASUS P9X79 PRO Review
by Ian Cutress on November 14, 2011 3:01 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Asus
- X79
Test Setup
| Processor |
Intel Sandy Bridge-E i7-3960X 6 Cores, 12 Threads, 3.3 GHz (3.9 GHz Turbo) |
| Motherboards | ASUS P9X79 Pro |
| Cooling | Intel All-In-One Liquid Cooler, made by Asetek |
| Power Supply | Silverstone 1000W 80 PLUS Silver |
| Memory | G.Skill RipjawsZ DDR3-2133 9-11-9 28 4x4 GB Kit 1.65V |
| Memory Settings | XMP (2133 9-11-9-28 2T) |
| Video Cards | XFX HD 5850 1GB |
| Video Drivers | Catalyst 11.8 |
| Hard Drive | Micron RealSSD C300 256GB |
| Optical Drive | LG GH22NS50 |
| Case | Open Test Bed - CoolerMaster Lab V1.0 |
| Operating System | Windows 7 64-bit |
| SATA Testing | Micron RealSSD C300 256GB |
| USB 2/3 Testing | Patriot 64GB SuperSonic USB 3.0 |
Due to the ASUS BIOS implementing a 39x multiplier when XMP is selected, for testing we have manually set the Per Core CPU ratios to Intel Specifications for true comparison – otherwise the P9X79 Pro would score more on the multithreaded scenarios due to a pure MHz advantage.
G.Skill have come up trumps again by sending us one of their premium RipjawsZ kits (F3-17000CL9Q-16GBZHD). This quad channel 16 GB kit comprises of four modules with an XMP rating of DDR3-2133 9-11-9-28 at 1.65 V. Due to the ‘ZHD’ at the end, it is geared for high-performance, tight timings, and comes with two active coolers.
Power Consumption
Power consumption was tested on the system as a whole with a wall meter connected to the power supply, while in a dual GPU configuration. This method allows us to compare the power management of the UEFI and the board to supply components with power under load, and includes typical PSU losses due to efficiency. These are the real world values that consumers may expect from a typical system (minus the monitor) using this motherboard.
In comparison to boards I have tested this year, overall power consumption at the wall is increased signicantly, primarily due to the CPU being rated at 130 W, compared to the 90-95W parts such as the i5-2500K on P67/Z68 and the A6-3650 on A75.
CPU Temperatures
With most users running boards on purely default BIOS settings, we are running at default settings for the CPU temperature tests. This is, in our outward view, an indication of how well (or how adventurous) the vendor has their BIOS configured on automatic settings. With a certain number of vendors not making CPU voltage, turbo voltage or LLC options configurable to the end user, which would directly affect power consumption and CPU temperatures at various usage levels, we find the test appropriate for the majority of cases. This does conflict somewhat with some vendors' methodology of providing a list of 'suggested' settings for reviewers to use. But unless those settings are being implemented automatically for the end user, all these settings do for us it attempts to skew the results, and thus provide an unbalanced 'out of the box' result list to the readers who will rely on those default settings to make a judgement.
Despite using Intel's liquid cooler for this test, the temperature difference during OCCT is astounding for this platform. It's good to see little change between Idle and Video temperatures, however.
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OblivionLord - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
Better question... why use a dual 5850 setup to test a dual 16x pci-e 2.0 when you could have done a dual 5990 or better yet dual 590 or 6990? The main benefit with this release is to answer the lack of pci-e lanes which if you had highend cards, your only option was x58 until this release since dual 8x just wouldn't cut it on a dual 590 or dual 6990 solution.Also when running those cards in sli/crossfire, lets see how stressed the 4 core sb is vs the new 6 core or even nehalem or westmere.
Beenthere - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
No disrespect to Asus but there's no way in Hell I'd pay $300 for any desktop mobo no matter how many "features" it has.In addition the X79 chipset with more RAM channels is a waste for anything but server use, which is not what this mobo/platform is being hyped for. As other website reviewers have noted, the X79 mobos are basically hacked server mobos being hyped as an enthusiast desktop upgrade, which it really is not.
With the price of the mobo and CPUs, Sandy Bridge-E and X79 are a fail as far as many if not most enthusiasts are concerned. Basically this is a rushed-to-market product that doesn't fit well in either the enthusiast or server segments. That's why many folks are saying: PASS just as they are with "Ultrabooks" that ain't Ultra at all except in price - just like this deal.
This deal looks like an opportunistic cash cow that may die quickly?
Mikuni - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
Why anand never mentions in ASUS reviews about the long standing memory leak present in their AI suite? atkexComSvc grows up to a few GB after just a few days, this is totally unacceptable and should be made aware in every post and review about ASUS until they fix it.ASUSTechMKT - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - link
Feel free to send me information i continually use this application and have not seen this issue. It is a possibility an attached driver or system could be causing the issue. Regardless we are interested into looking into it if there is an issue.
vol7ron - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
Ian,I'm curious how this would fair for computational games like Starcraft II, which relies less on video rendering in FPS and more on model layouts.
Thx
mdzcpa1 - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
I'm concerned to see the review says there is no long crossfire cable included. Obviously anyone wanting to run crossfire on this board and have the X16 X16 slots is going to need a long CF cable. Is it possible the reviewer is incorrect and the long ribbon cable is for CF?ASUSTechMKT - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - link
The extended cable is SLI. As AMD cards include crosshair cables it is up to the vendor you purchase from to opt in those cables. On our triple slot cards we do offer a extended length cable. Regardless this is good feeback i will pass along to HQ but it is also another cost aspect to consider. As most of the dual GPU market uses SLI it was a decision made on that factor.On a secondary note we do have availible for pruchase extended crossfire bridges from our estore.
bradcollins - Tuesday, November 15, 2011 - link
Do your X79 boards support Xeon E5 series cpu's? I have a pair of E5-2670's here and I am trying to choose between the Gigabyte X79-UD5 and your P9X79 Deluxe. Because you have taken fan speed control seriously, I will most likely get the P9X79 Deluxe, but would like to know if it will support my cpu.Beenthere - Tuesday, November 15, 2011 - link
No disrespect but what's the big deal with fan control? I've been building high end PCs for 20 years and never had any issues with fan speed control.bradcollins - Tuesday, November 15, 2011 - link
There has never been a board that has automatically done what I want it todo, until now by the looks of that picture in this article. I want my pc to be silent during normal operation and don't care too much about the noise when I'm playing games. At the moment the loudest thing in my PC which is an i7 975EE at 3.73ghz is the hard drives, and I want my SB-E system to be just as quiet. With an E5-2670 at (hopefully) around 4.2ghz or so I am worried about how loud it will be.Ohh and by the way Asustechmkt, I did read this from an earlier post, but you don't specifically say if the other boards will boot or what will happen: "Our P9X79 WS is qualified to support Xeon series CPUs. Other baords may potentially offer microcode support but will not be officially validated for use with Xeon CPUs. "