Asus Sabertooth X79 Motherboard Review

The TUF series has always stood for a few vital things and one of the main ones focusses on the thermal aspect of the boards and one part of this is the new generation TUF thermal armor that the X79 board includes.

There are two new thermal features on this board which include two active cooling solutions, one covering the X79 chipset, whilst the other covers the rear I/O panel but has a fan that can easily be removed to function as a passive cooling solution.

The rear I/O cooling system utilises heat-pipe technology and a stacked-fin heatsink underneath the thermal armor to help direct the heat towards the rear of the board. The active cooling fans then blow the heat away with turbo fans which assists in exhausting the directed heat out of the chassis and away from the motherboard.

The below diagram shows a clear design of how the heat-pipe technology works together with the active turbo fan on the rear I/O panel. It allows the heat to be pushed along the heat-pipe towards the thermal armor, where the turbo fan can then take over and exhaust the heat from there.

Looking under the other cooling area, which helps to cool the X79 chipset, we find a stacked-fin sink design which helps to conduct the heat away from the chipset, and the turbo fan then exhausts it towards the bottom of the board.

To assist the cooling further, the way that the rear I/O panel has been designed, helps with the exhausting of the heat and gives extra room for circulation. The X79 chipset cooler also includes a vented design so that heat can escape much more easily.

Asus also conducted some tests to show the effectivness of utilising the TUF Thermal Armor in three different areas. They focussed on the VRM area, USB 3.0 & Back I/O ICs and the PCH area where we find the X79 chipset. After measuring the temperatures with and without the thermal armor, they saw a massive 11% difference, showing that their cooling solution isn’t just a load of marketing and media hype.