Asus has released a new workstation class motherboard based on the X79 chipset. The P9X79-E WS Motherboard comes packed with a number of interesting features, the most notable one being the arrangement of the expansion slots. Asus' new motherboard supports up to four-way SLI or CrossfireX, with four slots that each support up to sixteen PCIe lanes. If users choose to do so, they can install up to seven single slot graphics cards.
Another interesting feature is that the P9X79-E WS carries two server grade Ethernet ports, each powered by Intel's i210 Ethernet controller.
Furthermore, the motherboard features other generous connectivity as well. It comes with four USB 3.0 ports (two on the rear I/O and two on a front header), along with a handful of USB 2.0 ports, a legacy PS/2 port, a clear CMOS switch on the rear I/O, and audio that is done by 7.1 analogue audio as well as an optical TOSLINK port. Regarding storage, the motherboard features six SATA3 ports, and the included Asus SSD Caching II software can make use of SSDs as caching SSDs.
The motherboard will be available in late April or early May, with no word on pricing yet.
