Asus puts all four of the P9X79’s USB 3.0 ports on the rear panel, eliminating the possibility of a front-panel header. The board does, however, retain eSATA and IEEE-1394 ports from its more-expensive siblings, along with Asus’ USB BIOS Flashback and Quick BIOS Screen Capture features.
USB BIOS Flashback uses a custom IC to enable firmware flashing from a USB drive with no other hardware installed. That’s particularly beneficial to users who actually need a firmware update to simply support hardware they bought with the board. As you'll see shortly, this is a very real concern, and a competitor was affected by its inability to accommodate our C2-stepping processor right out of the box.
The P9X79 beats several competing products in maximum memory support by including eight slots. While the board also gives up any additional SATA ports, most enthusiasts will expand beyond four modules long before they see the need to expand beyond the X79 Express' six SATA ports.
The P9X79 includes switches and a button for Asus’ EPU, TPU, and MemOK modes. EPU is an automatic underclocking routine for enhanced power savings under low loads, TPU is an automatic overclocking routine, and MemOK temporarily underclocks memory to ease booting with improperly-programmed modules.
Like most other entry-level X79-based platforms, the P9X79 relies on Sandy Bridge-E’s 40 PCIe 3.0 lanes to support up to three graphics cards with x16-x16-x8 connections. Asus pushes the x8 slot to the bottom of the board, however, where installing a dual-slot graphics card requires an eight-slot case (in addition to smashing flat any cables connected to headers along the board’s bottom edge). This is particularly frustrating for users who hoped to take advantage of Asus’ Q-Connector cable bundling feature. Dual-card users fare better, since the board provides an extra space between its two x16 slots for improved airflow.

Though the P9X79 supports three graphics cards, it does not include a three-way SLI bridge. A two-way SLI bridge, I/O shield, and four SATA cables complete its installation kit.
- Can LGA 2011 Be Made More Affordable?
- ASRock X79 Extreme4
- X79 Extreme4 Firmware
- Asus P9X79
- P9X79 Firmware
- Biostar TPower X79
- TPower X79 Firmware
- ECS X79R-AX Black Deluxe
- X79R-AX Deluxe Firmware
- Intel DX79TO
- DX79TO Firmware
- MSI X79A-GD45 (8D)
- X79A-GD45 (8D) Firmware
- Test Settings And Benchmarks
- Benchmark Results: DiRT 3
- Benchmark Results: Metro 2033
- Benchmark Results: StarCraft II
- Benchmark Results: Audio And Video Encoding
- Benchmark Results: Productivity
- Power, Heat, And Efficiency
- Overclocking
- Which X79-Based Motherboard Offers More Value?


Since the boards all have vastly superior profit margins, your statement is misleading. Why is everyone too afraid to reveal the truth about motherboard pricing?
A comparison of the time between the power button being pressed and the installed bootloader starting would be very interesting to me. I was thinking it might be easiest to measure this by having no OS on the boot media and measuring the time to the "please insert boot media" message, but I'm sure you can think of other ways of doing it.
I'm also informed that on some boards the boot time varies dramatically dependent on whether any Overclocking is enabled, as compared to the stock settings - that would also be worth knowing.
not anymore, asrock is no longer affiliated with Asus and is owned by Pegatron Corp.
But I'm wondering why AMD continues the ATI brand on the ASrock motherboard? Seems odd. They had everyone replace the CCC as soon as they rebranded and here we are looking at the ATI logo on the ASrock board.
Also, even though there is so little difference when comparing boards using the same architecture, why no BF3 in the gaming section of the review? I thought this was one of the games mentioned in the 2012 goals for Tom's when reviewing gaming performance?
I settled on the ASRock Extreme4-m. I did have to wait for a new BIOS chip to arrive in order to make use of it though. They overnighted one to me last week and I got my system up and running over the weekend. So far so good. I've been quite happy with it now that it's working. I can't say that I've tried the overclocking features.
With the ASRock Extreme4-m the memory slots and CPU 8-pin power connectors are very close to the radiator. I went with the Intel liquid cooler for my build. It's a 120mm fan and radiator. I placed these in a Silverstone FT03 as exhaust from the top of the case. It's important to pick out RAM that doesn't have any crazy fins or spikes on it. I went with some Kingston HyperX DDR3 1600 4x4GB that were on the official support list. There is a 4 to 5 mm gap between the RAM and radiator. it is plenty of room for the 8-pin wires to clear without touching the RAM or radiator. It's tight, but it works. I originally was going to buy GSkill RAM that was $20 cheaper, but there's no way the big red fins on those sticks would have fit.
I don't blame them for skipping BF3. Since the most recent video drivers I've been having all sorts of issues with BF3. It's the only game on my machine to display a "Something went wrong" error and crash the entire system. I'd imagine it's hard to benchmark such an unstable game. My Extreme4-m, i7 3820, and Radeon 7950 system has no trouble with Just Cause 2, GTA IV, Crysis, and others, but BF3 has this remarkable capability to come up with the most ridiculous of error messages and strange behavior. That game still has issues.