| ASUS P9X79 WS LGA2011 Workstation Motherboard |
| Reviews - Featured Reviews: Motherboards | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Written by David Ramsey | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Tuesday, 17 January 2012 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ASUS P9X79 WS LGA2011 Motherboard Review
Manufacturer: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Full Disclosure: The product sample used in this article has been provided by ASUS. Generally when we here at Benchmark Reviews get a motherboard in to test, it's aimed at a specific market: it might be an enthusiast-oriented motherboard for gaming, or a micro-ATX motherboard designed for a HTPC, or even just an inexpensive motherboard for users on a budget. Today, though, we have one of ASUS' "Workstation" motherboards: the ASUS P9X79 WS. How does it differ from other X79 motherboards, what's the performance, and should this board be on your short list for your X79 rig? ASUS' line of "workstation" motherboards was introduced with Intel's X58 chipset and LGA1366 socket. In fact, ASUS had three versions: the WS Professional, the WS Revolution, and the WS Supercomputer, each tailored to a specific market segment. These motherboards were qualified for Xeon processors as well as Core i7 processors. ASUS followed up with the P7P55 WS Supercomputer for Socket LGA1156 systems and the P8P67 WS Supercomputer board for socket LGA1155 systems.
The details differed but one of the main points of the various Workstation motherboards with the ability to run quad graphics systems. In the case of the LGA1155/1156 based boards, this necessitated the use of an NVIDIA NF200 PLX chip to compensate for the lack of PCI-E lanes in these chipsets. No such help is needed with the P9X79 WS, though, since the Sandy Bridge Extreme CPUs it uses have more than enough PCI-E lanes. ASUS P9X79 WS SpecificationsSpecifications supplied by ASUS.
The six PCI-E x16 slots on the motherboard are your first clue that this board's aimed at people with specific needs. Even the most rabid gamer with a triple-monitor setup would find it hard to justify a quad-GPU system...but there are people that can. Closer Look: ASUS P9X79 WS MotherboardThe "30% graphics boost with 4-way SLI" ASUS touts on the box is in comparison to a 3-way SLI (or, presumably, 3-way CrossFireX) system. In reality, of course, you'll rarely see perfect scaling in performance when adding more graphics cards, especially when going from three to four.
The P9X79 WS accessories bundle includes several SATA cables, a Molex->SATA power adapter, external backplates for USB and FireWire as well as a DB9-P connector for the serial port, a manual and driver CD, and last but certainly not least SLI connectors for two, three, and four-GPU setups. 
The design and board layout are fairly standard for an X79 board. There's the large CPU socket bracketed by four DIMM slots on either side, the X79 chipset under a heat sink, and the admittedly unusual six PCI-E x16 slots. But something about this motherboard still looks slightly odd...what could it be?
The size! The ASUS P9X79 WS motherboard is a "CEB" form factor motherboard. This means instead of the ATX standard size of 12" by 9.6", the motherboard is 12" by 10.5"...almost an inch longer, front to back. While smaller than the E-ATX dimensions of 12" by 13" or even the various XL-ATX permutations, you'll want to be sure your case can handle the extra length. Below I show the P9X79 WS motherboard on the left and an ATX-standard P8Z68 motherboard on the right.
The I/O panel has standard PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports, which have all but vanished from enthusiast motherboards. Working towards the right, we see four USB 2.0 ports (the white, bottom port is also used by ASUS "USB BIOS Flashback" feature, which allows you to update the motherboard BIOS directly from a USB key, even if the existing BIOS is damaged), a "Back to BIOS" flashback button to start that process, the optical audio port, two Intel-powered gigabit Ethernet ports, a FireWire 400 port, four more USB 2.0 ports and two USB 3.0 ports, and finally a standard analog audio panel.
One difference between the P9X79 WS motherboard and ASUS' other X79 Express-based motherboards is the layout of the power circuitry. The WS motherboard moves some of the power circuitry to the front of the board, positioned between the DIMM sockets and the ATX power connector, while other ASUS X79 motherboards have this circuitry in the back, between the DIMM sockets and the I/O panel. As they have in most of their new motherboards recently, ASUS provides two CPU fan headers, visible to the lower right of the CPU socket in this image.
ASUS uses their digital 8+2 phase power design for the CPU and a 2+2 phase power design for the memory. Unlike the more consumer-oriented ASUS motherboards, the power circuitry heat sinks are workmanlike finned radiators, rather than fancy anodized aluminum castings. I suspect these heat sinks perform better, too. Let's take a closer look at this board in the next section. P9X79 WS Detailed FeaturesPast the last PCI-E slot, ASUS equips the P9X79 WS with a SPDIF out connector, an internal FireWire (IEEE 1394) connector, the Turbo Power Unit (TPU) on/off switch, the jumper to clear CMOS, a serial port connector, and the Trusted Platform Module connector.
Continuing along the edge of the board, a PWM fan header (there are six fan connectors, all of the four-pin PWM variety, and under the control of ASUS' Fan Expert utility); Power and Reset buttons, two standard USB headers, a four-pin USB connector, and the front panel header. The four-pin USB connector, normally seen on the outside of a system, looks odd here. What's it for? ASUS calls this "Quick Gate", and if you're running a $4,000 CAD/CAM program that requires a USB dongle to function, you'll probably feel better if it's locked inside the case rather than dangling from a USB port on the back of the computer. Just above the blue USB headers you can see the bottom of the 2-digit POST code display, which can inform you of dozens of different conditions. As on almost any other motherboard, the POST code display and all these connectors will be covered if you use a graphics card in the last slot. Granted this would only occur in the case of four-card systems, but that's what ASUS is specifically promoting this board for. The four-pin USB connector may prevent a long double slot graphics card from seating fully-- it just touches the end of a reference design Radeon HD6850.
Near the main ATX power connector are the internal USB 3.0 header, the EPU on/off switch, another fan header, the MemOK! button (which will set the memory back to its SPD settings), and the EZ-PLUG which supplies extra power to the PCI-E slots. ASUS recommends connecting the EZ-PLUG if you're using three or more graphics cards, but its location at the opposite corner of the board from the PCI-E slots is odd.
No legacy PCI slots here: the P9X79 WS is PCI-E 16x all the way. With 40 lanes from the Sandy Bridge Extreme CPUs, there's no need for an NVIDIA PLX chip as on previous WS-series motherboards. If you have two GPUs, each blue slot will provide the full 16 lanes, plus a nice buffer space between the cards for cooling. For a triple card setup, using both blue slots and the first black slot will provide 16x8x8, while a quad card setup will use both blue and both black slots in an 8x8x8x8 configuration. The two white slots provide four lanes (x4) each. Curiously, the information on PCI-E lane allocation and which slots to use for two, three, and four-card systems is nowhere to be found in the P9X79 WS manual; I got it off the specifications page on ASUS' web site. 
This black plastic module between two of the slots will glow an angry, pulsing red if you've enabled the "AI Tweaker" overclocking interface in the UEFI BIOS. If you haven't, it will glow blue (normal mode) or green (power saving mode). It's an interesting feature, but will be obscured even in a two-GPU system, and if you're not running at least two graphics cards, you've no business buying this motherboard.
You're going to want to make sure you have some airflow over the power circuitry heat sinks. Normally, air from the CPU cooler would blow over the circuitry near the rear of the case, but this motherboard moves a lot of that circuitry up front. 
OK, let's start running some actual tests. Motherboard Testing MethodologyMotherboards based on the same chipset, even from different vendors, will tend to perform similarly when equipped with the same hardware (processor, memory, video card, et cetera), so vendors strive to distinguish themselves on features. And as you might expect from ASUS, this motherboard is jammed with proprietary goodies: ASUS TPU and EPU, auto-overclocking, SSD caching, fully digital power circuitry, Quick Gate, various diagnostic LEDs, and a complete suite of software and utilities to let you make the most of it. You can even overclock the CPU and tweak the power settings from within Windows, without rebooting, with the included Turbo V Evo utility. Unfortunately, I didn't have four identical graphics cards to really give the system a workout; so you'll have to be satisfied with our standard test suite. I'll compare the ASUS P9X79 WS motherboard against some of the other X79 motherboards that Benchmark Reviews has tested previously. I tested the P9X79 WS at both the stock clock speed of the Intel Core i7-3960X processor as well as the highest stable overclock I could achieve, which was 4.5GHz. I'll go into more detail on my overclocking experience with this board in a separate section. Note: You'll notice the Intel DX79SI motherboard turns in consistently lower scores in most of these tests. At the time we tested this motherboard, it was only available with a beta BIOS, which probably contributed to the lower scores. Intel X79 Express Test Platforms
Benchmark Applications
AIDA64 Extreme Edition TestsAIDA64 Extreme Edition is the evolution of Lavalys' "Everest Ultimate Edition". Hungarian developer FinalWire acquired the rights to Everest in late November 2010, and renamed the product "AIDA64". The Everest product was discontinued and FinalWire is offering 1-year license keys to those with active Everest keys. AIDA64 is a full 64-bit benchmark and test suite utilizing MMX, 3DNow! and SSE instruction set extensions, and will scale up to 32 processor cores. An enhanced 64-bit System Stability Test module is also available to stress the whole system to its limits. For legacy processors all benchmarks and the System Stability Test are available in 32-bit versions as well. Additionally, AIDA64 adds new hardware to its database, including 300 solid-state drives. On top of the usual ATA auto-detect information the new SSD database enables AIDA64 to display flash memory type, controller model, physical dimensions, and data transfer performance data. AIDA64 v1.00 also implements SSD-specific SMART disk health information for Indilinx, Intel, JMicron, Samsung, and SandForce controllers. All of the benchmarks used in this test- Queen, Photoworxx, ZLib, hash, and AES- rely on basic x86 instructions, and consume very little system memory while also being aware of Hyper-Threading, multi-processors, and multi-core processors. Of all the tests in this review, AIDA64 is the one that best isolates the processor's performance from the rest of the system. While this is useful in that it more directly compares processor performance, readers should remember that virtually no "real world" programs will mirror these results. 
The Queen and Photoworxx tests are synthetic benchmarks that iterate the function many times and over-exaggerate what the real-world performance would be like. The Queen benchmark focuses on the branch prediction capabilities and misprediction penalties of the CPU. It does this by finding possible solutions to the classic queen problem on a chessboard. At the same clock speed theoretically the processor with the shorter pipeline and smaller misprediction penalties will attain higher benchmark scores. Like the Queen benchmark, the Photoworxx tests for penalties against pipeline architecture. The synthetic Photoworxx benchmark stresses the integer arithmetic and multiplication execution units of the CPU and also the memory subsystem. Due to the fact that this test performs high memory read/write traffic, it cannot effectively scale in situations where more than two processing threads are used, so quad-core processors with Hyper-Threading have no real advantage. The AIDIA64 Photoworxx benchmark performs the following tasks on a very large RGB image:
Not unexpectedly, the ASUS P9X79 WS motherboard returns scores pretty much identical to the other ASUS X79 motherboard. We'll see this repeated through most of the remaining tests. 
Well, except in the Hash test. This is one of two tests in which the P9X79 WS turned in a noticeably lower score than the other X79 motherboards. My guess is that this result is due to the very early, C0 version of the Intel Core i7-3960X CPU I was using this time-- previous benchmarks were run with a C1 revision CPU. Intel's Clarksdale and subsequent CPUs have dominated the AES test due to their Advanced Encryption Standard New Instructions (AES-NI), which dramatically accelerate AES code. Again, we see similar results turned in by all the ASUS boards. 
Let's move on to the PCMark Vantage benchmark. PCMark Vantage TestsPCMark Vantage is an objective hardware performance benchmark tool for PCs running 32- and 64-bit versions of Microsoft Windows Vista or Windows 7. It's well suited for benchmarking any type of Microsoft Windows Vista/7 PC: from multimedia home entertainment systems and laptops, to dedicated workstations and high-end gaming rigs. Benchmark Reviews has decided to use a few select tests from the suite to simulate real-world processor usage in this article. Our tests were conducted on 64-bit Windows 7, with results displayed in the chart below. TV and Movies Suite
Gaming Suite*
Music Suite
* EDITOR'S NOTE: Hopefully our readers will carefully consider how relevant PCMark Vantage is as a "real-world" benchmark, since many of the tests rely on unrelated hardware components. For example, per the FutureMark PCMark Vantage White Paper document, Gaming test #2 weighs the storage device for 100% of the test score. In fact, according to PCMark Vantage the video card only impacts 23% of the total gaming score, but the CPU represents 37% of the final score. As our tests in this article (and many others) have already proven, gaming performance has a lot more to do with the GPU than the CPU, and especially more than the hard drive or SSD (which is worth 38% of the final gaming performance score). 
The TV and Movies suite concentrates on video playback and transcoding, but only uses two threads at a maximum, so most of the cores in these high-end processors are sitting idle. The Gaming benchmark relies on the hard disk and video card for over 50% of its score (see the Editor's Note above), and we're using the same HDD and video card for all platforms, so the results for all these motherboards are directly comparable. CINEBENCH R11.5 BenchmarksMaxon CINEBENCH is a real-world test suite that assesses the computer's performance capabilities. CINEBENCH is based on Maxon's award-winning animation software, Cinema 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. Maxon software has been used in blockbuster movies such as Spider-Man, Star Wars, The Chronicles of Narnia, and many more. CINEBENCH Release 11.5 includes the ability to more accurately test the industry's latest hardware, including systems with up to 64 processor threads, and the testing environment better reflects the expectations of today's production demands. A more streamlined interface makes testing systems and reading results incredibly straightforward. The CINEBENCH R11.5 test scenario comprises three tests: an OpenGL-based test that models a simple car chase, and single-core and multi-core versions of a CPU-bound computation using all of a system's processing power to render a photo-realistic 3D scene, "No Keyframes", the viral animation by AixSponza. This scene makes use of various algorithms to stress all available processor cores, and all rendering is performed by the CPU: the graphics card is not involved except as a display device. The multi-core version of the rendering benchmark uses as many cores as the processor has, including the "virtual cores" in processors that support Hyper-Threading. The resulting "CineMark" is a dimensionless number only useful for comparisons with results generated from the same version of CINEBENCH.
Overclocking helps a bit (+14%) in the Multi Core Rendering test. CINEBENCH is a good benchmark to thrash multi-core CPUs since it will keep every core fully saturated. Let's take a look at some CPU-limited gaming results in the next section. CPU-Dependent 3D GamingStreet Fighter IV uses a new, built-from-scratch graphics engine that enables CAPCOM to tune the visuals and performance to fit the needs of the game, as well as run well on lower-end hardware. Although the engine is based on DX9 capabilities, it does add soft shadows, High Dynamic Range lighting, depth of field effects, and motion blur to enhance the game experience. The game is multi-threaded, with rendering, audio, and file I/O all running in different threads. The development team has also worked to maintain a relatively constant CPU load in all parts of the game so that on-screen performance does not change dramatically in different game scenarios.
I ran the Street Fighter IV benchmark at its lowest resolution (640x480) will all graphical features turned down to the minimum possible settings. This makes the video card much less of a factor in the results, biasing towards processor performance. This is the other test in which the P9X79 WS turned in a noticeably lower score than the other ASUS motherboards. The difference is only a little over 7%, but that's still much larger than the differences we see in the other benchmarks. Again, I suspect my revision C0 3960X CPU. PassMark PerformanceTest 7.0The PassMark PerformanceTest allows you to objectively benchmark a PC using a variety of different speed tests and compare the results to other computers. PassMark comprises a complete suite of tests for your computer, including CPU tests, 2D and 3D graphics tests, disk tests, memory tests, and even tests to determine the speed of your system's optical drive. PassMark tests support Hyper-Threading and systems with multiple CPUs, and allow you to save benchmark results to disk (or to export them to HTML, text, GIF, and BMP formats). Knowledgeable users can use the Advanced Testing section to alter the parameters for the disk, network, graphics, multitasking, and memory tests, and created individual, customized testing suites. But for this review I used only the built-in CPU tests, which aren't configurable. The CPU tests comprise a number of different metrics. The first three I'll look at are integer performance, floating point performance, and a benchmark that finds prime numbers.
Overclocking the system helps quite a bit here, picking the scores up by 15% in integer performance and 16% in floating point performance. Although the smaller bars in the Prime benchmark make the difference less apparent, overclocking adds 17% to the score there.
SSE stands for "Streaming SIMD Extensions", and describes instructions that handle multiple chunks of data per instruction (SIMD = Single Instruction Multiple Data). SSE instructions work on single-precision floating point data and are typically used in graphical computations. SSE was Intel's response to AMD's "3D Now", which itself was a response to Intel's MMX instructions. Don't you love competition? Again we see virtually identical scores for the three ASUS motherboards.
The Compress and String benchmarks are both integer-based, and overclocking the P9X79 WS brings the scores up by 15% and 12% in these tests. But enough with the synthetic benchmarks; let's move onto some more real-world applications. Handbrake Media EncodingIt's a truism that consumer-level computer performance reached the "fast enough" point years ago, where increases in system performance don't make thing any faster for most people. Web browsing, e-mail, word processing, and even most games won't benefit dramatically from a super-fast CPU. There are some exceptions, though, and media encoding is one of them: transcoding video, especially high-definition video, can bring the strongest system to its knees. Fortunately, media transcoding is one of those things that (depending on the design of the code, of course) that scales really well with both clock speed and the number of cores, so the more you have of both, the better your results will be. The free and open-source Handbrake 0.95 video transcoder is an example of a program that makes full use of the computational resources available. For this test I used Handbrake 0.95 to transcode a standard-definition episode of Family Guy to the "iPhone & iPod Touch" presets, and recorded the total time (in seconds) it took to transcode the video.
Not much to see here. Overclocking reduces the encoding time in this benchmark by 13%. x264 HD Benchmark 3.19Tech ARP's x264 HD Benchmark comprises the Avisynth video scripting engine, an x264 encoder, a sample 720P video file, and a script file that actually runs the benchmark. The script invokes four two-pass encoding runs and reports the average frames per second encoded as a result. The script file is a simple batch file, so you could edit the encoding parameters if you were interested, although your results wouldn't then be comparable to others.
As expected, similar scores for the ASUS boards again... 
...and in the last two runs as well. On average, overclocking increased the scores by about 12% across all runs. SPECviewperf 11 testsThe Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation is "...a non-profit corporation formed to establish, maintain and endorse a standardized set of relevant benchmarks that can be applied to the newest generation of high-performance computers." Their free SPECviewperf benchmark incorporates code and tests contributed by several other companies and is designed to stress computers in a reproducible way. SPECviewperf 11 was released in June 2010 and incorporates an expanded range of capabilities and tests. Note that results from previous versions of SPECviewperf cannot be compared with results from the latest version, as even benchmarks with the same name have been updated with new code and models. SPECviewperf comprises test code from several vendors of professional graphics modeling, rendering, and visualization software. Most of the tests emphasize the CPU over the graphics card, and have between 5 and 13 sub-sections. For this review I ran the Lightwave, Maya, and Seimens Teamcenter Visualization tests. Results are reported as abstract scores, with higher being better. LightwaveThe lightwave-01 viewset was created from traces of the graphics workloads generated by the SPECapc for Lightwave 9.6 benchmark. The models for this viewset range in size from 2.5 to 6 million vertices, with heavy use of vertex buffer objects (VBOs) mixed with immediate mode. GLSL shaders are used throughout the tests. Applications represented by the viewset include 3D character animation, architectural review, and industrial design. MayaThe maya-03 viewset was created from traces of the graphics workload generated by the SPECapc for Maya 2009 benchmark. The models used in the tests range in size from 6 to 66 million vertices, and are tested with and without vertex and fragment shaders. State changes such as those executed by the application- including matrix, material, light and line-stipple changes- are included throughout the rendering of the models. All state changes are derived from a trace of the running application. Siemens Teamcenter Visualization MockupThe tcvis-02 viewset is based on traces of the Siemens Teamcenter Visualization Mockup application (also known as VisMockup) used for visual simulation. Models range from 10 to 22 million vertices and incorporate vertex arrays and fixed-function lighting. State changes such as those executed by the application- including matrix, material, light and line-stipple changes- are included throughout the rendering of the model. All state changes are derived from a trace of the running application.
The SPECviewperf suite is a good example of a real-world test of applications that would normally be the province of a high-end workstation: the individual tests comprise code and models from real applications, running scripts that do real work. SPECapc LightwaveSPECapc (Application Performance Characterization) tests are fundamentally different from the SPECviewperf tests. While SPECviewperf tests incorporate code from the various test programs directly into the benchmark, the SPECapc tests are separate scripts and datasets that are run against a stand-alone installation of the program being benchmarked. SPECapc group members sponsor applications and work with end-users, user groups, publications and ISVs to select and refine workloads, which consist of data sets and benchmark script files. Workloads are determined by end-users and ISVs, not SPECapc group members. These workloads will evolve over time in conjunction with end-users' needs and the increasing functionality of PCs and workstations. For this test, I ran the SPECapc "Lightwave" benchmark against a trial installation of Newtek's Lightwave 3D product. The benchmark, developed in cooperation with NewTek, provides realistic workloads that simulate a typical LightWave 3D workflow. It contains 11 datasets ranging from 64,000 to 1.75 million polygons and representing such applications as 3D character animation, architectural review, and industrial design. Scores for individual workloads are composited under three categories: interactive, render and multitask. The benchmark puts special emphasis on processes that benefit from multi-threaded computing, such as animation, OpenGL playback, deformations, and high-end rendering that includes ray tracing, radiosity, complex textures and volumetric lighting. The test reports three scores: Animation (multitasking), Animation (interactive), and Rendering. The numeric scores represent the time it took to complete each section of the benchmark, in seconds, so lower scores are better. I've found the SPECapc Lightwave 3D test to be an excellent indicator of overclock stability. In many cases, overclocked systems that will make it through every other benchmark here will crash in this test. It's also one of the most "fun" benchmarks to watch, as multiple windows with various complex rendering tasks appear and disappear on your screen. 
This is one of the most "real" benchmarks, since it's just a set of scripts that control a standard Lightwave installation (SPECviewperf uses embedded Lightwave code). BlenderBlender is an open-source, free content creation suite of 3D modeling, rendering, and animation capabilities. Originally released in 2002, it's available in versions for Mac OS X, Windows, Linux, and several Unix distributions. It supports rigid and soft-body objects and can handle the draping and animation of cloth, as well as the rendering and animation of smoke, water, and general particle handling. Our Blender test renders multiple frames of an animation of a rotating chunk of ice, with translucency and reflections. Rendering of this model uses ray-tracing algorithms and the program reports the rendering time for each of the animation's 25 frames. The results are a summation of the rendering times for all frames and the lower the score, the better. Bear in mind, though, that Blender can dispatch a maximum of eight threads, so the full power of the 980X and 3960X isn't being used here. 
The P9X79 is about 6% slower than the P9X79 Pro and 3% slower than the Sabertooth X79. This is about the limit of what I'd consider the "margin of error" for this benchmark. POV-RayThe Persistence of Vision ray tracer is a free, open source 3D modeling program that uses ray-tracing algorithms to generate realistic three-dimensional images. Ray tracing is very computationally intensive, and the POV-Ray program has a handy built-in benchmark to let you check the performance of your system. Although AMD again brings up the rear, the FX-8150 really does pretty well, coming very close to the performance of the 2600K. But unlike Blender, POV-Ray can use as many threads as a CPU will give it, so the six core CPUs win again.
Let's see how well ASUS "USB 3.0 Boost" feature works in the next section. USB 3.0 BoostUSB 3.0 Boost is a proprietary ASUS feature that's available on most of their X79 Express motherboards. It's their implementation of USB Attached SCSI Protocol (UASP), and ASUS has an informative web page on exactly how it works here. While the traditional USB Mass Storage protocol, also known as BOT for "Bulk Only Transfer", is limited to one command at a time, UASP can handle multiple commands simultaneously, and does not have to wait for the results of one command to be returned before issuing another command. You can turn this feature on and off in ASUS' AI Suite program: 
Selecting the Normal or Turbo button will determine whether USB 3.0 Boost is used. However, there's little reason to turn it off, since it will never harm performance and the protocol even auto-negotiates which UASP commands are supported when you connect a USB device. To see what difference this makes, I connected a Patriot Pyro SE SATA 6G SSD via a USB 3.0 dock, and ran the AIDA64 disk read benchmark test in both modes. 
The upper set of results is with USB 3.0 Boost disabled, while the lower set it with it enabled. While the performance of this SSD connected via USB 3.0 is far below its performance when connected to a SATA 6G port, performance still increased by over 20% with USB 3.0 Boost enabled. In fact, the read performance of a USB 2.0 thumb drive was increased by almost 10%, illustrating the advantages of this feature even for non-USB 3.0 devices. P9X79 WS OverclockingOverclocking is less important to the professional user than it is to the gamer or enthusiast; professional users are understandably more interested in stability and reliability than in wringing the last iota of performance out of a CPU. That said, ASUS includes their standard one-button overclocking on the motherboard as well as "tuned" overclocking facilities in both the BIOS and AI Suite utility, so we might as well test it. Overclocking is of course never guaranteed; that said, Benchmark Reviews has found that Intel's Sandy Bridge CPUs, in both "regular" and "extreme" flavors, overclock very well. But a number of components can impose limits on overclocking, which is why we test motherboards as well. With the ASUS P9X79 WS, I was able to obtain only a 4.5GHz maximum Turbo Boost frequency on all cores with a CPU core voltage of 1.35 volts (as set in the BIOS).
I say "only" because I've had better results with every previous ASUS X79 motherboard I've tested, ranging from 4.6GHz to 4.8GHz at just over 1.5 volts. However, in this case, I wasn't able to get past 4.5GHz; at 4.6GHz, the board would crash in the SPECapc Lightwave test. Raising the voltage didn't help, and CPU temperature didn't appear to be an issue, since I was using an Antec Kühler 920 equipped with two high-speed Delta fans and CPU temperature didn't get over 80 degrees Centigrade under load at 4.6GHz. I suspect the overclocking limits were those of the processor, a very early C0 revision of the 3960X (my previous tests had been run with a C1 revision CPU). Since the power circuitry on all the ASUS motherboards I've tested has the same specifications (albeit the Sabertooth uses "military spec" chokes, capacitors, and MOSFETs), I think the overclocking ability of the P9X79 WS will be the same as other ASUS X79 motherboards using the same CPU. X79 Express Motherboard Final ThoughtsA few months have passed since Intel's introduction of the X79 Express chipset, the LGA2011 socket, and the new Sandy Bridge Extreme processors. The new platform brings performance and features (like extra PCI-E lanes) that appeal to the enthusiast, but X79 motherboards are much more expensive than their Z68/LGA1155 cousins. At $380, the ASUS P9X79 WS motherboard is almost double the price of the top-rated ASUS P8Z68-V Pro LGA1155 motherboard. This is why system builders will want to carefully consider which X79 Express motherboard they choose for their next rig.
The ASUS P9X79 WS is, as the name implies, aimed at professional users: those who really use four GPUs' worth of rendering prowess or need to set up a Tesla-based desktop supercomputer. The P9X79 WS motherboard eschews consumer and enthusiast features such as Bluetooth, remote overclocking, THX-certified audio, powered eSATA ports, and the like, and instead adds dual gigabit Ethernet ports, PS/2 keyboard and mouse connections, FireWire, and unique features like Quick Gate. But the defining feature of this board, and the one ASUS touts the most heavily, is its ability to hold four dual-slot graphics cards. And that's where this board's one real weakness comes in: since it's the same 12" width as any other ATX motherboard, even a single slot card in the last PCI-E slot will cover the POST code display, all the headers, the power and reset buttons, and probably the Quick Gate USB connector. The Quick Gate connector and ASUS' "Q Connector" quick connect device for the front panel header may interfere with long graphics cards; even the reference design Radeon HD6850 I used, not a particularly long card, just touched the Quick Gate connector when I put it in the last slot. You could reasonably point out that this is a consequence of the ATX/CEB form factor, and that no board could be designed within these constraints to do better. This would be true, but why couldn't ASUS have made the board 13" wide and eliminated the problem? Granted, that would make the board a non-standard form factor, but it's not as if ASUS hasn't done that before: their Rampage series of motherboards, at 12"x10.6" to 10.7", is a non-standard form factor; other vendors such as EVGA also have non-standard form factor motherboards. You'll need an 8-slot case, at a minimum, to use this board with four GPUs anyway and most such cases could easily handle the extra inch of width. However, I must admit that even motherboards that are 13" wide and support four GPUs, such as EVGA's X79 Classified, put the extra space between the first card slot at the CPU, rather than between the last card slot and the end of the motherboard. All that said, this is still an excellent motherboard with features the professional user will appreciate. Gamers and enthusiasts, however, will be happier with one of ASUS' other X79 offerings. ASUS P9X79 WS ConclusionIMPORTANT: Although the rating and final score mentioned in this conclusion are made to be as objective as possible, please be advised that every author perceives these factors differently at various points in time. While we each do our best to ensure that all aspects of the product are considered, there are often times unforeseen market conditions and manufacturer changes which occur after publication that could render our rating obsolete. Please do not base any purchase solely on our conclusion, as it represents our product rating specifically for the product tested which may differ from future versions. Benchmark Reviews begins our conclusion with a short summary for each of the areas that we rate. I admit to mixed feelings about this motherboard. Its feature set lines up well with its intended audience, and it has the quality ASUS is known for, but the space limitations that affect the fourth graphics card could be a problem in real-world use. With the exception of the Rampage IV Extreme, this is the most expensive X79 motherboard ASUS makes, matching the price of the P9X79 Deluxe. You'll see relatively little, if any, performance differences between different motherboards using the same chipset. With modern processors integrating the memory controller, PCI-E lanes, and such onto the CPU die, there are fewer opportunities for vendors to distinguish their motherboards on stock performance (although well-designed power and cooling systems can certainly help overclocking). What this means is that vendors must distinguish themselves with features, and this is especially true of enthusiast-level and professional motherboards that cost $300 and more. The ASUS P9X79 WS is marketed to a very specific demographic, and with the exception of the space issues afflicting cards in the last PCI-E slot, it's an excellent match for professional users such as video editors and scientists running Tesla clusters. 
ASUS' quality is apparent in this board. All the components are high-grade and placed perfectly. The board performed flawlessly during testing, turning in the same performance as other ASUS X79 Express-based motherboards. Functionally, the P9X79 WS disposes with consumer and enthusiast features in favor of those more likely to be used by professionals. Dual gigabit Ethernet ports, Quick Gate, and the absence of legacy PCI slots define this motherboard's intended audience. However, the lack of some of ASUS' popular consumer features makes it less attractive to most other users. Still, the board is replete with useful features you'd expect from ASUS, such as Fan Expert, Overclocking Assistant, and Turbo V Evo. These features allow the knowledgeable user to fine-tune their system so that it better fits their needs. Cosmetically, this board is almost staid compared to the other X79 models in ASUS' lineup. But this isn't the type of motherboard you build into a windowed case, anyway; and professional users don't care. This board is a good value, although a $379.99 (Newegg) motherboard isn't inexpensive by any measure; it's one of the cheapest X79 Express motherboards I know of that will support four dual-slot graphics cards. If you fit the demographic ASUS is targeting with this board, I think you'll like it. All the other four-GPU X79 motherboards I know of are aimed at the enthusiast market and cost substantially more than the P9X79 Pro. Pros:
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Comments
Please read chapter 2.3.11 "USB BIOS Flashback".
/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=4&Itemid=61
Also, I don't know of anyone who builds workstation machines in a rackmount case. Servers are usually fitted into a rack, and workstations are usually on a desk.
My point was simple, Audio Engineering being my profession and game stations my hobby, there is a market for rack mount Case reviews. There are dozens of Turn-Key Rack Mount WS for Pro applications used in Broadcasting, Film, and Recording Industries; its been that way for years. Laboratory applications also used machine racked WS. I have friends that travel with their lab in shock mounted road cases. Many engineers build a lot of what they used, including the Mother Ship. Enough with the HTPC cases, I would like to see some pro 19" machine racks chassis, so I can utilize a PX979 and the USB 3 and SATA 6Gb/s features, not mention keeping the WS cool.
And yes I would happy to build 64GBDDR work station for audio/video production.
Rack Mount Cases
Unloaded examples:
ANTEC 4U22EPS650 4U Rackmount with ATX12V v2.0 PSU
ARK TECHNOLOGIES 4U/IPC-4550
Loaded Pro Audio examples:
Sweetwater CSRackXT Creation Station Rack Extreme Core i7 CPU, 6GB DDR3 RAM, Seagate 500GB and 1TB Hard Drives, GeForce 9500GT Video Card
Or check this sexy thing:
#raincomputers.com/products/ion/
And Peter thank you for also noticing the need for a pro level chassis for an exciting pro-level motherboard like the PX979.
And always remember, don't sell yourself short on PSU's, buy big wattage and let the gaming begin.
That's not to say that there aren't suitable rackmount cases out there...but these don't seem to be them.
Could you try again, using small words and simple concepts, so I can understand?
As Peter and I agree there have been many benchmarkviews.com articles on HTPC cases, mini's and of course our fav gaming towers, but with recent bus advancements and the increase capabilities of higher end high RAM motherboards, such as the P9X79, there is a need for 19" rack mount chassis cases that can incorporate these high RAM hotrods. It had little to do with the P9X79 performance, and more to do with real world application. There is a need and as I asked, and Peter agreed, it would be great to see reviews on some 19" racks to match the P9X79, of which I cannot recall any 19" RU enclosure reviews in recent times. I only use the Antec and Ark Tech as examples that manufactures do understand the need for such products and there are AMD Black and i7 rack mount machines for professional level application (Rain Recording). The rendering of A/V productions re: Film, Game Design, etc., crunches numbers just as hard as when I throw Crysis, Dragon Age or X3 on my Gigabyte/AMD game rig in a Windstorm tower. I have Macs for in-house a/v production but use PC notebooks on the road for particular reasons, one being cost. I have not bought a PC tower in over 15 years and have no plans to buy one when I can build my own. Why not, Fry's is 15 minutes away?
That said, your comment stating the examples I referred to, do not match the example's specs,(Antec), I replied "exactly, that's the point." I, and probably Peter too, would like to see newer 19" RU's enclosures fitting of newer bussing technologies i.e. SATA6 and USB3, and physical WS board dimensions as they come available and I hope they do. In fact I going to shoot Antec an email on the subject.
David, thank you for another in depth review. The site offers the best information I can usually find and I appreciate the articles,,, keeps me thinking.
Once again thanks and all the best.
The "30% graphics boost with 4-way SLI" ASUS touts on the box is in comparison to a 3-way SLI (or, presumably, 3-way CrossFireX) system. In reality, of course, you'll rarely see perfect scaling in performance when adding more graphics cards, especially when going from three to four.
endQuote"
I keep hearing that presumption ( U Will Not See CLOSE TO near perfect Scaling! ) when in my experience ( with tri sli admittedly ) I see very good scaling making 3 27 inch Acer Monitors in 3D and surround bearable.
I see comparison arguments/charts where SLI x16 vs x8 vs x4 speed do not make a 7 percent difference until surround/eyefinity resolutions are used. And knowing that! The same reviewers do not add 3D on top of that were the difference is suddenly OVER 10% and make quite a big difference when yer trying to turn everything up in Battlefield 3 and Metro 2033.
Between Maya and Zbrush and Photoshop open at the sametime and 3dSurround playtime in Arkham City, I have to wonder? Are there really that many secretaries reading an enthusiast review of a $350 motherboard? What does anyone use a computer for otherwise that does not require more power than will be available in my lifetime.
I know indie and lo fi trendy is perty hip nowadayz but I got a billion tris werth of creativity and openworlds as big as states in my handicapped imagination ready to bring yer strongest computer to it's knees! I want mo POWER~!
You just explained why you see good scaling - you put a good load on your cards.
SLI scaling depends on your load versus the SLI overhead.
Run a single display, 2D, at 1920x1080 or less, low AA (or none).
Then look at your scaling, it will be OK from 1 card to 2, meh from 2 to 3, and probably negative from 3 to 4.
You could say 'so what, because no one will get quad SLI for that rez'.
But some people want to go with 120hz displays, 2D, and maintain a MINIMUM fps of 120, basically valuing supreme smoothness over appearance.
Then you find your options limited.
Say 1 card is too slow to give you minimum of 120 fps.
2 might do it with some conservative settings.
And if you still can't get there, adding more cards will only hurt your performance.
So you're basically stuck until a next gen card that can perform faster.
-scheherazade
Consider, possibly lowering the Value score for this board? And maybe increasing the appearance score? Probably this will have no overall effect to the total score, but this might be more in line with the reviewer's actual written conclusion: "At $380, the ASUS P9X79 WS motherboard is almost double the price of the top-rated ASUS P8Z68-V Pro LGA1155 motherboard. This is why system builders will want to carefully consider which X79 Express motherboard they choose for their next rig."
Also, Sandy Bridge E processors are so powerful that the need for multi-CPU motherboards is reduced, even in workstation situations. 12 threads can handle a lot.
The P9X79 WS motherboard does cost almost twice as much as the P8Z68-V Pro, but that's the cost of getting into Sandy Bridge E right now. The big win for workstation applications is the 40 PCI-E lanes you get from that CPU (as compared to the measly 16 you get from a 2700K), which is something that multi-GPU rigs can use.
Lastly, although you and I would probably find a thorough review of a multi-CPU workstation motherboard interesting, it probably wouldn't appeal to the vast majority of our readers.
It appears to me that for one to be interested in this board, one must either need it for its phenomenal thruput in order to make a living with it, or have a bunch of cash to build something they can boast to their friends about. Few if any have have 8 channel memory like this one does. Few if any have 40 PCI-E lanes. I have built some of the P8 series boards that really cooked and did a fine job, but they don't hold a candle to this P9 in video editing and CAD. Hooking up an SSD as a drive casche makes this board jump out in front of most. Yes, sombody will say "mine is better because--- ", but that's OK. Don't speculate, build it. Prove your point. Yea, and rack mount it.
-- It has four channel memory (like all X79 boards), not 8 channel memory
-- Total PCI-E lanes: 48, 40 from CPU and 8 from X79 chipset. This compares to 42 total lanes for an AMD FX system and 40 in an X58 system.
I plan to use two Tesla cards, plus a single Quadro K600 for video output. Which slots should I put them into to maximize Teslas performance?
I'm thinking two blue slots for Teslas in x16/x16 configuration, and K600 into a white slot (x4).
Can mixing PCIE 3.0 and 2.0 cards on the same board cause issues? I really don't want K600 to bring Teslas down to 2.0 level.
What do you think?
As best I know, each card will run at its PCI-E level...that is, a 2.0 card will not "drag down" the 3.0 cards.
Of course it's relatively easy to simply try both configurations and see which works best for you.
On the other hand, are you saying K600 would not work right in x4 slot? I need it to drive two 2560x1440 monitors (typical desktop apps/youtube videos)?
The K600 will work find in the x4 slot...depending on how much data you're moving through it. You'd see performance bottlenecks if gaming on multiple monitors but "typical desktop apps" should be OK.
Note, again, that I'm just making educated guesses here. You'll likely want to experiment to find out which configuration works best for you, or if there's any noticeable difference at all.