ECS X79R-AX Black Extreme Motherboard pictured

ECS may not be the biggest motherboard manufacturer on the market, but they still make well priced quality motherboards and they are doing this for Intel’s upcoming X79 platform. The ECS X79R-AX Black Extreme Motherboard is due out for the Intel launch next month and the board is well equipped for a entry or mid level X79 system. The first look at the system shows only passive heat sinks with no heat pipes which implies at board orientated at a stock use of the LGA 2011 processors, hefty overclocking is not intended here. There are also only four DIMM slots supporting quad channel memory up to 2400MHz, this is contrary to a lot of Gigabyte, MSI and ASUS motherboards released with eight DIMM slots. The I/O panel is reasonably well equipped for an entry priced motherboard:

• Clear CMOS button;
• Two e-sata 6GB/s;
• Bluetooth and WiFi;
• Four USB 3.0;
• Dual Gigabit LAN;
• 7.1+2 Channel HD Audio.