X79's Last Hurrah Before Ivy Bridge
The editors of Tom's Hardware do our best to cover the broadest selection of hardware that finds its way into your PC, but some components fall through the cracks whenever the steady march of technology pushes us to move on to the next new thing. Such was the case for a few X79 Express-based motherboards priced over $380.
Reader John Case wrote in a few weeks after our premium X79 motherboard comparison to tell us that one of the products we missed wouldn't support any of his high-end memory at its rated frequency, no matter how much time he spent trying to optimize timings and voltage levels. After several successful RMAs, he was ready to ship us his board for testing. That’s when the manufacturer stepped in to provide a full refund.
We contacted that manufacturer (along with one of its closest competitors) to see how two of today’s top-rated enthusiast-oriented boards would compare to each other in terms of overclocking ease, stability, and features.
| X79 Motherboard Features | ||
|---|---|---|
| Row 0 - Cell 0 | Asus Rampage IV Extreme | EVGA X79 FTW 151-SE-E777-KR |
| PCB Revision | 1.02 | 1.0 |
| Chipset | Intel X79 Express | Intel X79 Express |
| Voltage Regulator | Eleven Phases | 14 Phases |
| BIOS | 1202 (03/22/2012) | 035 (03/08/2012) |
| 100.0 MHz BCLK | 100.1 MHz (+0.10%) | 100.0 MHz (+0.00%) |
| Internal Interfaces | ||
| PCIe 3.0 x16 | 4 (x16/x8/16/x0 or x16/x8/x8x8) | 5 (x16/x0/x4/x16/x0 or x8/x8/x4/x8/x8) |
| PCIe 2.0 x16 | None | None |
| PCIe x1/x4 | 1 | 1/0 |
| Legacy PCI | None | None |
| USB 2.0 | 2 (4 ports) | 3 (6 ports) |
| USB 3.0 | 2 (4 ports) | 1 (2 ports) |
| IEEE-1394 | None | 1x Firewire 800 |
| Serial Port | None | 1 |
| Parallel Port | None | None |
| SATA 6.0 Gb/s | 4 | 2 |
| SATA 3.0 Gb/s | 4 | 4 |
| 4-Pin Fan | 7 | 7 |
| 3-Pin Fan | None | None |
| FP-Audio | 1 | 1 |
| S/PDIF I/O | Output Only | Both |
| Power Button | Yes | Yes |
| Reset Button | Yes | Yes |
| CLR_CMOS Button | Yes | Yes |
| Diagnostics Panel | Numeric | Numeric |
| I/O Panel Connectors | ||
| P/S 2 | 1 | 1 |
| USB 3.0 | 4 | 8 |
| USB 2.0 | 8 | 2 |
| IEEE-1394 | None | None |
| Network | Single | Dual |
| eSATA | 2 (1 Powered) | 2 |
| CLR_CMOS Button | Yes | Yes |
| Digital Audio Out | Optical | Optical |
| Digital Audio In | None | None |
| Analog Audio | 5 | 5 |
| Other Devices | Bluetooth Transceiver, ROG Connect | Bluetooth Transceiver, EVBot Header |
| Mass Storage Controllers | ||
| Chipset SATA | 2 x SATA 6Gb/s 4 x SATA 3Gb/s | 2 x SATA 6Gb/s 4 x SATA 3Gb/s |
| Chipset RAID Modes | 0, 1, 5, 10 | 0, 1, 5, 10 |
| Add-In SATA | 2 x ASM1061 PCIe2 x SATA 6Gb/s2 x eSATA 6Gb/s | 88SE6121 PCIe2 x eSATA 6Gb/s |
| USB 3.0 | 3 x ASM1042 PCIe | 2 x ASM1042 PCIe 2 x VL810 Hub |
| IEEE-1394 | None | XIO2213B PCIe1 x FireWire 800 |
| Gigabit Ethernet | ||
| Primary LAN | WG82579V PHY | 88E8059 PCIe |
| Secondary LAN | None | 88E8059 PCIe |
| Audio | ||
| HD Audio Codec | ALC898 | ALC898 |
| DDL/DTS Connect | Not Specified | Not Specified |
Asus and EVGA committed to this article with their Rampage IV Extreme and X79 Classified. We were a little surprised when EVGA instead sent its X79 FTW, but noted that this still fell within the $380+ ultra-premium market that was so scantly covered by only one board in our previous round-up.
