TR Forums

Hi, I have not built a rig in a long time and I started asking around, etc. Anyway I'm in need of a new mother board for this new rig I'm working on. Currently I have the following, and I know its complete overkill on some things:

EVGA 1000w Supernova G2 Power Supply
EVGA Geforce GTX 770 GPU
2 8GB Ballistix Elite Ram Sticks
Intel i-7 4820 LGA 2011 Processor.

The case I am using is the Cooler Master Storm Trooper [new model is based on the Storm Stryker]

It was recommended for me by a friend to get the ASUS P9X79 LE Mother board, would you have a better recommendation? This machine is meant for gaming / streaming, as well as some video editing.

Thank you in advance for your time.

The P9X79 line is an excellent 2011 choice.

My P9X79 Deluxe has been a great workhorse the past two years.

To take advantage of the quad channel design of 2011 chips you need four memory modules.

The system will work with two, but that will only give you dual channel.

Purchasing two more memory modules is no problem to take advantage of it, I'm only worried with the P9X79 LE because a friend of mine purchased one from new egg..it came, and we couldn't get it to post at all.

All X79 boards run that risk if they ship with an old UEFI firmware. They must have the IB-E firmware update already on them.

According to the listing on Newegg the P9X79 LE ships with the IB-E firmware.

Dead on arrival hardware will sometimes happen too. No assembly line produces 100% perfection.

I'm not shocked, but the one he received did not come with that, so we attempted to USB flash the bios with the latest firmware..which according to the manual had suceeded, but we still could not get the motherboard to post. He has since RMA'd that motherboard to newegg, and got the ASUS X79 Deluxe. I am just kind of leery at looking at that one again..

It is quite possible that something was wrong that we could not see, but I couldn't tell you what it was.

There is some owner feedback in the Newegg comments stating they had to do the USB flashback. Those comments are dated Dec 11th. So despite the green title, it's possible the P9X79 LE may still need the UEFI update.

The X79 Deluxe your friend got was released with IB-E, so it has the UEFI update already. It's also considerably more expensive.

Checking around the other boards in that price range it seems they need the same UEFI updates on the Gigabyte GA-X79-UD3. The top comments on the ASRock X79 Extreme6 seem to complain about dead on arrival issues.

I'd consider the hassle worth the price savings - that is unless money is no object.

Money really isn't an object, as you can see with some of the other purchases, it is kinda overkill. I just want the best performance out of what I buy...so I figured I'd come ask the pros .

The Asus X79 Deluxe seems to be out of stock at Newegg except for open box deals.

Amazon only has the Asus X79 Deluxe through resellers.

I did some digging through the handful of X79 offering Newegg has and I keep finding comment stating that UEFI update had to be done to get the board IB-E ready. So it doesn't seem like you can really dodge this on any of the models that debuted with SB-E (which is nearly all of them).

My preference is for Asus with the X79 line. Mine has treated me very well and I've been pleased with the support (19 UEFI updates in two years shows a product with active development/support). I also feel the actual UEFI interface and options are top notch. The P9X79-LE saves some cash and the Sabertooth, P9X79-WS, or the X79 Deluxe would all be great higher end choices.

I'm pretty sure we have some ASRock X79 and Gigabyte X79 users who are happy too. So it's a roll of the dice at this point.

I'm going to bow out at this point and see if anyone else relays their X79 experience.

Thank you very much for your time and effort. I decided to go with the Asus X-79 Deluxe. It worked well once and heres to another successful build.

I have the X-79 WS; After a six-month burnin, it's been running CPU and GPU folding 24/7 since July.

I would buy it again except that I am now looking at 2P servers for more folding and graphic rendering horsepower.