ASUS X79 Sabertooth motherboard detailed

To join its top of the range X79 Rampage IV extreme ASUS has releases pictures of its Sabertooth Motherboard. This is one of the more gamer orientated motherboards, ASUS will be releasing cheaper ones like the upcoming P9X79 Deluxe. The TUF Sabertooth series is based on the idea of rock-solid stability and component durability, these motherboards are built to last not to break records like the ROG boards.

The Sabertooth X79 uses an ASUS-designed Digi+ VRM to power the CPU whilst using a heatsink and 40mm fan combination to cool the X79 chipset. The rest of the non-CPU VRM are cooled passively by heat sinks covered in a special coating which improves heat dissipation. The area around the IO area is cooled also by another 40mm fan, this has heatpipes leading from the CPU VRM so this is intended to cool those components. The Sabertooth X79 provides eight DDR3 DIMM slots supporting quad-channel memory.

Expansion slots include two PCI-Express 3.0 x16 wired to the processor, one PCI-Express 2.0 x16 (electrical x8), and two PCI-Express 2.0 x1, wired to the PCH. There are eight internal SATA ports, including two SATA 6 Gb/s (brown) from the PCH, four SATA 3 Gb/s (black) also from the PCH, and two SATA 6 Gb/s (white) from a third-party controller. There are two eSATA ports on the rear-panel, one of which is power-eSATA.

Other connectivity includes 8+2 channel HD audio, one gigabit Ethernet connection, four USB 3.0 ports on the rear panel, two USB 3.0 ports by internal header, USB 2.0, and Firewire.

Source: TechPowerUp