REVIEWS / MOTHERBOARDS / ASUS TECHNOLOGY PVT. LTD

Asus SABERTOOTH X79 Review

15 Feb, 2012, 11:17 am IST | by Roydon Cerejo | Motherboards

Motherboards


Good cooling solution
Expansion slots
SATA connectors face outwards making it easy to add drvies
The testbench

PRICE IN INDIA

22,000

TECH2 RATING

6.5

AVERAGE USER RATING

7.5

How we test

CONTACT

ASUS Technology Pvt. Ltd

 reachus@asus.com

 +91 22 6766 8800 / 18002090365

 www.asus.in

We had the opportunity of getting a sneak peek at Asus’s X79 line-up, back in October 2011, first hand and we came back quite impressed at what they had achieved. Along with the features of Intel’s X79 chipset, Asus has thrown in their own flavour to the mix, making it one of the most feature-rich boards in the market. Today, we’ll be taking their SABERTOOH X79 motherboard for a spin in our labs. This board hails from their TUF series, which focuses on strengthened components, better cooling, etc. It’s also designed to work under extreme temperatures without failing. 

Design and Layout
The SABERTOOTH is based on the LGA Socket 2011, so only the new Sandy Bridge-E CPUs are compatible. Unlike the previous TUF series boards from Asus, the X79 ditches the full “thermal armour”, which is a plastic covering over the entire motherboard to channel air flow to all the components. The reason for this was the lack of space on the motherboard to fasten a full shell properly. Instead, we have cooling for just two areas on the motherboard, the CPU VRM area and the PCH chip at the bottom. Both the heatsinks are made of aluminium with copper pipes, along with low profile fans from Delta used to blow air outwards, away from the motherboard. In order to make room for larger 3rd party heatsinks near the CPU area, the heatsinks around the CPU are connected to the ‘Thermal Armor’ via heat pipes, which exhausts all the hot air directly outside the case through vents in the I/O shield. The design is quite clever and makes the best use of the little space that’s available.

Good cooling solution

Good cooling solution

 


Coming to rear I/O ports, we have a PS2 combo port, 4x USB 3.0 ports, 6x USB 2.0 ports, FireWire, eSATA, powered eSATA, Optical (S/PDIF) out, 6x audio jacks, Gigabit LAN and BIOS Flashback button. The VRM area is completely covered by the ‘Thermal Armour’ heatsink and you have the choice to fit an optional fan, as well for added cooling. There is sufficient space around the CPU area for third party coolers and we didn’t have a problem installing a water cooler as well. There are four RAM slots on either side for a total of 64GB DDR3 memory in quad-channel mode. The RAM slots also have the fastening clips only on one side, so it’s easy to swap RAM sticks, after you’ve installed a graphics card. 

A good selection of ports

A good selection of ports

 


For expansion slots, we have 2x PCI-E 3.0 slots that are capable of x16 speeds even in SLI or CrossFire mode. The third PCI-E slot is also x16 but runs in x8 mode if you run three cards together. The same applies to the first two slots as well. We also have two PCI-E x1 slots and a legacy PCI slot. For storage, Asus has provided two SATA III ports, four SATA II ports with support for RAID 0, 1, 5 and 10. Onboard headers include 1x USB 3.0, 4x USB 2.0 and 4x chassis fan connectors. There aren’t any power or reset buttons on the motherboard itself, just a MemOK! button to test the memory. In the box, you get a user's manual, driver disk and utilities, two SATA II cables, four SATA III cables, SLI bridge, Q-connectors, I/O shield, TUF certification and 5yr warranty.

Features
The SABERTOOTH X79 features Asus’s UEFI BIOS, giving you full mouse support and a very easy to use graphical user interface. The X79 boards also come with their new Digi+ VRM for better power distribution amongst components. You can even take a screenshot of the BIOS page you’re in, simply by hitting F12. Since this is from their TUF series, the Choke, Capacitor, MOSFETs are certified by military standard.

Expansion slots

Expansion slots

 


The SSD caching feature was one of the highlights of the Z68 platform, but that’s been omitted from the X79 platform. However, Asus have added their own utility, in order to make this work. It also has their new USB BIOS Flashback feature, which lets you flash the BIOS by simply pressing a button, you don’t even have to go into the BIOS or use a Windows utility for it.

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Design and Layout


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Would you buy it?




 


How We Test

The Tech2 Labs receives many products every single week and each of them is tested with the utmost care and highest level of objectivity. There’s a constant effort to reduce and totally eliminate subjectivity. Each product is tested according to set test processes so the same test scenario is used.

Verdict
The ratings awarded to a product are derived from a number of tests and calculations, keeping certain important factors in mind. These factors consist of features, performance, quality and value for money. In case of software and some other categories, build quality might be replaced with ease of use or ease of installation. Products are compared with other products in a similar price range or product category.


Features
The features component of the score is rated based on the kind of features present on a particular product. Features are a big part of what people look for when they’re buying a new product such as a phone or a camera.

Performance
The performance score is derived from the benchmarks and tests run on the product. In case of the subjective scores, an average of the scores given by the group of reviewers is considered.

Build Quality
The build quality of a product is important so that it doesn’t fall apart after some use. The build quality scores from the way the product is designed and the kind of materials used in the product.

Value
Value for money comes from the fact that a cheap product is able to provide most of the performance of a higher priced product. Once again, value for money is judged by comparing pricing and performance of products in a particular price range or category. 

There are many other aspects of the product that are looked at such as the bundled software and accessories. All of these scores are aggregated together to form the final score.

What do the ratings mean?

Ratings are simple - higher the score, the better the product. A brief listing of the features and what they mean are given below.

1 - 3

The product is bad in almost every aspect. We strongly advise against purchasing this product.

4 - 6

An average product that isn't the best you can buy, but isn't the worst either.

7 - 8

Product with this rating is highly recommended because it's priced sensibly, has a good set of features and performs well.

9 - 10

Exceptionally excellent product with features and performance unlike any we've seen in the past. A must-have for everyone!

What is the Average User Rating?

We at Tech2 take product reviewing very seriously and every product is tested with the utmost care and level of objectivity. The end user who buys a particular product and uses it over an extended period of time has his own take on a product and there might be nuances that he or she can shed light on. The Average User Rating is present to help readers get the complete picture of how good or bad a product is. The Average User Rating is calculated by averaging the ratings by the thousands of readers visiting Tech2.com every single day. To record your own rating of a product, simply click on the user rating bar. If you disagree with our ratings or our community's product rating, please don't hesitate from voicing your opinion in the comments section below the review.

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