ASUS P9X79-E WS LGA 2011 Motherboard Gets Launched

The ASUS WorkStation (WS) series of motherboards have taken off in popularity recently as they offer consumer platforms (such as LGA 1155/2011 with Z77/X79) but with workstation features and reliability. ASUS’ latest motherboard is no exception and they have just recently announced the P9X79-E WS motherboard for the LGA 2011 socket and X79 Intel chipset.

This new motherboard from ASUS is ready to tackle Intel’s Ivy Bridge-E processors that are coming in Q3-Q4 of this year. There will probably be a BIOS update required, although the boards may just come with “unadvertised” support for Intel’s Ivy Bridge-E CPUs. This motherboard uses the X79 chipset and an SSI-CEB form factor which measures in at 305 by 267mm. The LGA 2011 socket is powered by a healthy 10 phase VRM and has a 2+2 phase memory VRM (thats 2 phase for each memory allocation either side of the CPU socket).  These eight memory sockets support up to 64GB of memory in quad channel running up to DDR3 2133MHz.

Furthermore the motherboard has seven PCI Express X16 slots and supports 4 Way Nvidia SLI or AMD CrossFireX. Storage connectivity is relatively abundant with ten SATA ports of which six are SATA III 6Gbps and four are SATA II 3Gbps. Of the SATAs everything is provided by the PCH with the exception of four SATA III ports which are provided by a Marvell AHCI/RAID controller. There are also an additional two eSATA 6Gbps ports from an ASMedia controller. There are four USB 3.0 ports on offer from ASMedia controllers and there is dual Intel Gigabit LAN too. 8 Channel HD audio, a PS/2 port, an RS232 COM header and some overclocking BIOS features top off the rest of the connectivity. Apparently pricing for this unit is USD $499.99.

Image courtesy of TechPowerUp