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

Pros: None - Over $300 wasted, still not functional

Cons: Motherboard dead on arrival, its been 3 months (feb thru mid-apr 2013) and still have not received complete replacement.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

Please provide me with your RMA number and serial number so I can check why it's taking so long.

If you have any questions or comments you can email me again 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: Great board with a lot of options. This series always seems to be a little expensive, but the features are well worth it.
Yay for 4x SATA 6G/s ports, but board makers need to get with the program and make all SATA ports that way.
Eight RAM sockets for future expandability, which I probably won't use. I already have G.SKILL Ripjaws Z Series 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR3 1866 (PC3 14900) and I don't get close to using it all.
Plenty of USB ports. Some people were complaining about the extra software, such as auto-tune and USB 3 Boost. I use both with no problem. I am running my Intel Core i7-3820 at 4.2 (4.8 boost) with auto-tune. USB 3 Boost works like is says, giving me over 100 Mbps at times when copying files to My Passport USB 3 drive which is much faster then normal operation.
I always buy Asus or EVGA boards, and I am STILL not disappointed.

Cons: None!

Pros: Enjoying 2 G.Skill SSD's in Raid 0 with TRIM on this board using modded bios and 11.7 intel drivers. Google it. It's a great board and a great overclocker. Installed 16gb 2400mhz memory with the Raid 0 SSD's and this thing is so fast everything loads instantly. Boot time is 2-3 seconds. Smokinnnnn

Cons: None

Pros: This board works great and the north/south bridge heat pipes work great. Very easy BIOS for overclocking and comes with SLI adapters.

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: Has a great manual if your unsure of something.

Pros: Future proofs your build for years to come. With USB 3.0, plenty of PCIe slots, allowance for serious RAM, and space for CPU premium after market fan or liquid cooling for your system.

Cons: Keep in mind this board has no PCI slots only PCIe, so any old tech you may have will not fit this board.

Pros: running great on my 3820 overclocked to 4.625, only need 1.3V

Cons: P9X79 - $269, P9X79 PRO - $325,
WHY ASUS CANNOT DELETE THAT STUPID NORTH BRIDGE HEATSINK AND GIVE ME A PCI EXPRESS THERE LIKE P9X79, ITS VERY HARD TO 3 WAY SLI/CROSSFIRE ON MOTHERBOARD LOOKS LIKE THIS, THIS ONE REQUIRES PUT CARD 2+2+2 INSTEAD OF 3+2+2, IT MAKES HEAT REDUCATION HARDER THAN ITS REGULAR MODEL - P9X79, I WILL NOT BE ABLE TO PUT 3x 7950 with its factory heatsink, I NEED A LIQUID COOLING BLOCK.

Other Thoughts: PLEASE GIVE THIS TO ASUS

Pros: Bottom line it is a great board for the price. It had the options I felt were important to me without paying for stuff I didn't need and I saved over the more premium boards. I must say I don't feel like I got a below premium product. It works great. Very stable and hits the benchmarks for performance. Once I got by the initial boot problem (see other thoughts) it was easy. Operationally the board runs cool. The BIOS is second to none. Advanced mode is intuitive and flexible. The ability to flash from USB and boot from there was great.

CPU: i7-3820 Sandy Bridge-E @ 36Mhz
Mem: G.Skill Intl F3-17000 CL9-4GBZH XMP@1000Mhz
GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 480
SSD: Samsung 840 Pro (256GB) Win7 64bit
HDD: WD Blue 1TB Intel Raid 1 (program & user data) / Toshiba 2TB (backup)
Case: Cooler Master HAF Advanced
PS: Thermaltake 850

Cons: This board may not be for the first time PC builder but that can be said for any board of this genre. The forums are a necessity to make an LGA 2011 build. Follow the guides and the build will go smoothly. Do your research then build it.

The hardest part about this build was weighing the small option differences to chose just the board I needed with the options and price I wanted. Can you say product proliferation? I guess they are just tailoring to the diverse market WS, ROG, PRO, ....

Other Thoughts: Had a problem with my 2TB back up drive being in the boot chain and NOT formatted in UEFI mode. The system would not boot whenever it was connected and gave a cryptic (not assigned) error. But the forums helped resolve that.

Pros: I was looking for at least 8 DIMM slots and this is great. The board passive cooling will help keep components from over heating. The board placement for items is great and finally allows my 5 HD's to fit comfortably with my large ATI HD 7950.

Cons: It did have issues booting because I have 44 gigs of different speed RAM. I was trying to use the auto-overclock features. I may have to manually overclock if I want to do that with my new i7

Other Thoughts: The SATA ports are hard to plug into once the board is in your machine. They point to the side and you have to fumble around to get your cables in.

Pros: Attractive specs

Cons: Dead on arrival and ASUS won't fix in timely manner

Other Thoughts: The motherboard was dead on arrival - how do I know?. After finding out that I could not get refund/replacement without going thru ASUS repair, I orderd an Intel Motherboard on 2 day delivery and Powersupply, CPU, RAM, etc all worked just fine. So it WAS a bad motherboard - red light indicated it could not verify processor - e.g. NOTHING WORKED.

Now, at my own expense, having shipped it to ASUS on an RMA (took several days), its been sitting in status of "Received" for 9 calendar days - no other status.

So now its been 4 days to receive, 1 day to find out its dead, 4 days to ship to ASUS, and 9 days 'sitting at ASUS' = 18 days with no status/end in site.

I will never willingly buy another ASUS.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

We're sorry to hear for RMA turn-around time. Can you provide me your RMA # to my email below so that we can look into your case? 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: Very versatile mb. ASUS's pro line, always feel right for the money and feature wise - no nonsense features for everyday user like myself. Some high end boards only have 4 memory slots (probably due to high OC purpose) - and some have non PCI-E (not 3.0 - but old PCI-E 1.0) - but this boards have all the features I could ask for.

With Ivy Bridge E coming out, (and probably will be compatible with this board) - I'll be all set for next few years.

Cons: pro line packaging feels little cheaper than other premium X series boards.