ASUS P9X79 DELUXE LGA 2011 Intel X79 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard with UEFI BIOS

Pros: beautiful motherboard. quality packaging and more than decent accessory bundle.

Cons: DOA. purchased 7/2012, just getting around to the build now.

Other Thoughts: thinking the i7 I recently bought wouldn't be supported by a near year-old BIOS, I flashed using USB Flashback. went well but wouldn't POST (brief power-on then off, cycles over and over). figured I bricked the BIOS, so ordered one with newest version from ASUS e-store. BIOS chip didn't fix the issue. Swapped power supply, still no-go. removed motherboard from case and tried with only CPU and cooler, video card, and a single memory card... still didn't fix it. no apparent physical damage including contacts in CPU receiver. RMA in process.

4th ASUS build in 4 years, 1st time I've ever had a problem. Eggs taken away for e-store shipping SNAFU, ineptitude of ASUS tech support (he really was that bad), and paperweight but pretty motherboard.

As usual, Newegg ordering and shipping was problem-free.

Pros: Built a nice system (first build ever) about 4 years ago. Being my first build I had some issues but most of those issues turned out to be customer service issues. There is NO SUCH THING as customer service. Not one of these companies, including newegg has a clue what customer service is. You are left to the mercy of luck. Hopefully you don't get a bad part from ANYONE of these manufacturers because you will not get good help.

Having said that. I really want to build a new 6 core system but reading reviews of socket 2011 MBs I'm left with a very uneasy feeling of what might happen if the MB or any other of the parts isn't working properly when it arrives. The horror stories you can read all day about people who receive defective items and lose hundreds of dollars when newegg or the manufacturer fails to give you the working part(s) you paid for.

When I see that the majority of these X79 boards have a 1 star rating by more than 10% of the raters (in the case of this board it's 26%!) I just can't see setting myself up to lose hundreds of dollars. I really need a new computer since a Windows 8 upgrade crashed my Gigabyte board in Nov. and I have been unable to get it working again. As all of these reviewers have stated, I got no help from Gigabyte. They must not even read the questions I pose to them because they ask questions that have already been answered if they would just read my post.

I've been reading reviews for several months now and I have yet to see satisfactory reviews on any of these socket 2011 boards.

All in all, I'm just bummed that I can't build what I want. Hopefully something happens soon because no computer for over six months is driving me crazy.

Cons: Too many negative reviews for 2011 boards.

Other Thoughts: We all know that electronic parts aren't perfect but 26% of buyers give less than 2 stars! Shameful. Still can't understand why ANY company can't provide decent cusomer service.

While the internet provides an easy way to shop it's a nightmare when it comes to returns and such. I would give anything to have a brick and mortar store where I could see, touch and return to if needed. These internet stores are able to hide and not offer you the service you need when a bad part is received. How many boards would be denied a return if the box could be opened and we could check to see if pins were bent before we bought it. Newegg has treated me very badly in the past. I probably won't ever buy from them again, especially reading all these reviews blaming customers for damaging products that came to them damaged.

People can bragg about the ease of the internet until you spend over $2500 to build your machine only to find out that the $400 MB or $500 CPU came to you defective and no one will help you. What then? Play roulette with your money again?

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

Sorry to hear that the 2011 sockets are giving you second thoughts of purchasing this board. I believe they will be coming out with newer boards this summer.

If you have already purchased all your parts, then maybe you can look into our other X79 boards such as the Rampage IV Extreme; Formula; and Gene. You can also look towards our sabertooth version as well as the Pro.

All boards named are higherend model boards compared to the Deluxe.

If you have any questions or comments you can email me at cl-jeffrey@asus.com which I reside in the U.S

ASUS strives to meet and exceeds our customer expectations within our warranty policy.

Regards,

Jeffrey

Pros: Newest, Greatest Asus MB

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: I wanted this board, but after reading so many negative reviews, I almost was afraid to buy it. One person wrote an awesome review all in CAPS on Newegg and it inspired me to try...anyway, build went smooth, no problems with boot and everything installed without a hitch...Asus P9X79 Deluxe, core i7 3930K, Nvidia 670 GTX FTW, Corsair AX1200i PSU, Corsair Hydro-Series H90, 2 sets of 32GB Corsair Dominator Ram (64GB total) Samsung 840 Pro 512GB SSD. I don't know what some of this people are building with, but my system operates perfectly!

Pros: I'm an ASUS motherboard fanatic, but I've always been dubious about "Deluxe" versions since I have to run at least one Linux distro and I have no idea how the Wi-Fi or Bluetooth driver situation will blow up with their chipset(s). I lucked out with this one (again). N-mode wireless works with the standard AR9285 (Ath9K) drivers without too much configuration. Had to throttle the channel width on the router to 20MHz but the bandwidth is still definitely more than 54Mb/s, verifying that it operates at N-mode.

The default clock setting on this mobo with G. SKILL F3-14900CL9D-8GBSR is DDR3-1600. I know from reading around that these sticks can operate at 1866 no problem. Also it says it right on the label, lol. So you have to either manually set up an overclock or use the mobo's XMP profile.

Looks like this mobo has two XMP profiles vaguely labeled #1 and #2. So onto the stress tests: I selected profile #1 and put up some quick, standard tests. The computer crashed immediately and the motherboard (surprisingly) reported an overclock failure. So I switched to #2 and after several days of stress testing, nothing crashed. It was nice that I didn't need to go through the whole jazz of setting frequencies and voltages myself.

Finally, when I was researching this mobo, I was aware of several posts around the internet of people complaining about having to flash new firmware onto the mobo to rectify compatibility issues. I ordered this motherboard after an out-of-stock period, and the latest firmware was already on it. So I had no issues there.

Cons: None. Everything works as expected and this is refreshing.

Pros: worked out of the box; no issues. Matched with the G-Skill Model F3-19200CL10Q-32GBZHD -- plug and play.

Cons: minor annoyance, but it would have been nice if the bluetooth wifi dongle was attached to the board already. then i would not have had to undo everything myself because i forgot to put it on...

Pros: Plenty of USB 3.0 ports
Wireless card with bluetooth included
Ample ways to tweak the boards performance

Cons: Damaged DIMM slots on arrival

Other Thoughts: Buy the Replacement plan with ADH. Save yourself from having an almost $400 paperweight just in case any of the CPU pins bend (and they do very easily). No Return will be accepted with any bent pins and ASUS doesnt cover bent pins in their warranty either.

Pros: 8 Memory slots

Cons: I don't want a very elaborate review, this is a great board. But I am very dissapointed in the person who has been assigned to my support case. BT GO does not work with Windows 8. The person who has been trying to get this to work for me replies in short 2 sentence requests only once a day if I'm lucky, and asks me to spend at this point hours sending print screens and responding to the procedures I'm using to get it to work.

Other Thoughts: BT GO really blows and doesn't work and should not factor into your decision to buy this MB

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

Thank you for your feedback on this motherboard. We're sorry to hear that you were not satisified with email support. Regarding BT Go!, was it installed successfully with AI Suite? Is there an error when brining up the interface? Please try Atheros Bluetooth Driver V8.0.0.200 for Windows 8 32bit & 64bit.(WHQL) (or BETA Atheros Bluetooth Driver V8.0.0.214 for Windows 7/8 32bit & 64bit), and ASUS AI Suite II V2.00.01 Install Program for Windows XP/Vista/7/8 32bit & 64bit from the motherboard download page: http://usa.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_Socket_2011/P9X79_DELUXE/#download. Any changes? To continue support, please contact me below. Thank you.

For support information, please visit http://support.asus.com. For service, visit http://service.asus.com. For motherboard warranty, visit http://www.service.asus.com/warranty.aspx#!Motherboard%20Warranty/c1c20; Refurbished products/accessories: http://www.service.asus.com/warranty.aspx#!refurbished-warranty/c16us. For RMA status, visit: http://am.eservice.asus.com/rmaweb/search/rmCustomerQueryAction.do?.

Regards,
Benson
ASUS Customer Loyalty
cl-benson@asus.com

Pros: A Well laid out Motherboard, plenty of connectors for whatever you want to do. A great board. Have had it since April last year and have not had a single problem. In the 10 yrs of buying Asus boards have only had 1 problem on the old P6 boards. Highly recomend this board.

Cons: fewer SATA II connectors and more SATA III with raid ability.

Other Thoughts: My big problem is with the included Asus software disc that is full of drivers and software to use with motherboard including the bluetooth and ASUS Suite. However, you can't install any of it on a Server OS without copying the disc to a hard drive and editing the config files. I mean Win7x64 and W2008R2 from a driver standpoint is identical and for software, it will install just fine. Just don't like having to take so much of my time when simply adding a couple of lines in the config files makes most of it work. Still can't the bluetooth drivers to install.

Pros: Install went smoothly. No problems whatsoever*. BIOS is sweet. More bells and whistles then I know what to do with. Haven't even cracked the surface of what it is cabable of.

Cons: *I did forget to install the Bluetooth module (which is in a separate bag) so I had to take it all apart again to plug it in.

Pros: For the life of me, I can not beleive the problems you guys are having; the guy with the bios problem-get hands on help, and Marc well things have changed sense the P5 big time!
If their was a way I could help I would! I too loved XP, but 7 is light years ahead. Maybe newegg can give you a link to me?
PS; Mine boots less than 20sec using a ssd with 8 hotswaps and esata.

Cons: none

Other Thoughts: 13 months and no problems, best board I have had the pleasure..