Gadgetory

offering only the finest in PC enthusiasts apparel awesomesauce shirts are not only threaded they're hyper threaded and come factory over cloth get yours today at the awesomesauce store wuzzle guys so if you happen to catch my recent gtx 980ti 2-way SLI video you probably also heard my big announcement that i'm currently planning my first ever custom water-cooled build which will also feature the same beastly duel card setup now having a powerful graphic solution is key to building an epic gaming PC sure but as we all know all components of a computer should be more or less on par with each other in terms of quality and performance in order to achieve a cohesive and well balanced rig perhaps that's explanation enough as to why I have this wickedly built and feature packed motherboard sitting pretty in my office say hello to the AC saber-tooth x99 and give him a warm welcome to the awesomesauce family because I've officially selected it to go inside of my custom water-cooled PC not only are you going to get to see this board in action but today I'll be conducting a proper full review of it as well so you can learn or be reminded of what makes this board special while much of its charm is obscured within the details of its specs and server grade componentry the rest of what sets this board apart can be seen at a glance aces tough branded thermal armor is nothing new to there sabertooth line but I'm glad to see the aggressive military cover plate make its return to their x99 board the two-tone plastic shroud in black and gunmetal gray looks combat-ready with its bold edges and diamond plate pattern surely this kind of design is a lover hate affair but based on the circumstances you can probably guess which way I swing stop not only does this give the board a truly unique aesthetic it offers thoughtful dust protection while creating a channel for airflow with the included but optional 40 millimeter assistent fan this implementation funnels fresh air to the pipe connected heat sinks of your 10 phase digi+ vrm creating a direct method of heat dissipation not found on most boards the fan can also spin in Reverse to eject dust upwards via the special dusty fan feature in thermal radar to which we'll touch on later if you need full access to the board's PCB for cleaning and maintenance the thermal armor is easily removable using the nine screws on the back this is you will also find the tough fortifier a rigid metal backplate that keeps the PCB from bowing and potential trace damage went up holding heavy graphics cards or CPU coolers a much-needed support system for my two gtx 980ti s like the thermal armor asus has engineered the fortifier with versatility in mind doubling its use as a cooling mechanism via an underlying layer of thermal padding effectively reducing the board's temperature by up to 6 degrees celsius with the board exposed here's a quick look at the integrated audio chip with dedicated amplifier and trace separation to help reduce electromagnetic interference up front and center we get our 2011 - 3 socket for Intel's latest haswell-e CPUs tightly sandwiched between 8 dimm slots with support for up to 64 gigabytes of ddr4 at 2400 megahertz the slots are painted alternately in black and dark beige a neutral color scheme that's also been implemented across the boards many connectors apart from an X 4 and an X 1 PCIe slot you get 3 x16 slots for 3-way crossfire or SLI configurations the 210 slots being PCIe gen3 and the bottom slot running at Gen 2 if you're using a 40 PCIe Lane CPU like the 59 30 K or the 59 60 X single and dual card setups will run at x16 across the board whereas triple card configs have the bottom card running at x8 a 28 linked CPU I'm talking about you 5820k will run a single card at x16 2 cards at x16 and x8 and three cards at x16 8 and for removing the small cover plate between the bottom 2 PCIe slots reveals access to your CMOS battery and to stealthy m2m key slot for SSDs of varying lengths well I like the clever orientation here m2 support is limited to PCIe drives only meaning the slower but cheaper SATA m2 drives are in this case unusable with less expensive board supporting both protocols this is an unfortunate limitation but ASA scores big points back for having full SFF 86 39 support when paired with a hyper kit meaning you'll be able to utilize the full speed of PCI 3.0 x4 drives like Intel's wickedly fast 750 series nvme SSD the storage frenzy continues with SATA Express and 10 SATA 6 ports eight of which are natively controlled by the X and ix chipset other notable i/o on the board includes two USB 2 and one USB 3 port mm okay button which bypasses memory issues that keep your system from booting three temperature leads to connect the included temp nodes for tracking your systems thermals and 11 for pin pwm fan headers hopefully my new computer doesn't fly away managing 11 system fans is no easy task which is why asus has brought a ton of functionality to tune and monitor your system parameters in thermal radar to the control room if you will found in AI suite 3 in addition to providing the temperatures of 10 built-in sensors and the three nodes that you place manually you can also set custom fan curves for each fan based on the thermal status of those sensors for a more automated approach we're all used to seeing the pre-configured silent standard and performance modes in similar applications but Thermal radar too goes a step further by giving you the ability to run a one-time test on your fans to figure out each of their unique parameters like spin up voltage and max rpm the software then uses that information to individually program the fans various profiles for finer grain tunability a super handy feature that optimizes your case cooling with minimal effort though I've only just scratched the surface of this extensive software it might actually be best for me to show it in action when the water cooled build is finally finished so let me know in the comments if you'd like to see a dedicated video on AI suite 3 and thermal radar - getting back to the hardware asus has decked this board out with a feature-rich IO for starters you get 5 USB 2 ports one of which is reserved for the tough detective feature a technology that lets you monitor and control your system using a connected android mobile device through the downloadable app you can check details on your current post codes monitor temps voltages and fan speeds or perform basic functions like power your system on and off or clear the CMOS while this ability does seem like it could prove useful having the Android device tethered to the PC certainly limits the number of scenarios where it might be handy moving on you get two USB 3.1 type-a ports that yield speeds up to 10 gigabits per second or twice the throughput of USB 3 as an added bonus these along with 4 USB 3 ports support USB 3.1 boost which speeds up the transfer rates of connected ua SP devices plus all of the USB ports on the back support ái charger plus allowing you to charge your portable B C 1.1 mobile devices three times faster than a standard USB port the bottom right USB 3 port also supports BIOS flashback with the dedicated button rounding off the i/o are your Intel and real tech Gigabit Ethernet LAN ports optical s/pdif out and your 3.5 millimeter audio jacks with the board you also get some nifty accessories like these little dust defenders which plug up just about every unused port on your motherboard the three temperature nodes a Q connector for easy installation of your front panel connectors six SATA cables half of them straight to the other half right angle a ribbon style sli bridge IO shield stickers documentation and driver CD and a certificate of reliability recognising that the board has passed a handful of server grade tests which make it live up to the tough moniker by putting it in the ranks of an enterprise level product this along with a five-year warranty from Asus demonstrates their utmost vote of confidence I also took a tour of the board's latest UEFI which by default boots you into easy mode where you get a comprehensive look at basic system stats and some useful options for setting XMP profiles enabling Intel rst boot priority and even a custom fan curve for any connected fans in advanced mode I had no problems finding certain settings as everything is clearly labeled and well organized one big gripe I have is the clunky sideswipe transition when going from tab to tab waiting for the transition to finish before the selected tab is highlighted slows down the navigation process and can get annoying rather quickly on the bright side I was impressed by the clear descriptions for each of the settings in AI Tweaker which should make the overclocking experience for novice users less intimidating in case you were wondering I did take the time to do some overclocking on this board and was quickly able to get my 59 60 X up to 4.5 gigahertz at 1.3 volts that's a full 100 megahertz faster than I've ever been able to do on my x99 gaming g1 Wi-Fi so where does all of this leave my conclusion of the sabre-tooth x99 well the tough grid componentry and attention to detail make this board feel like a quality product that exhibits toughness in the traditional sense not only can it withstand a high-end system teaming with some of today's bleeding edge hardware but it comes packaged with easily the most customizable and intuitive tuning software I've seen the features in thermal radar - were so useful I almost wish I had a third monitor just to have it up 24/7 in this way Asus has not only delivered a finished product they delivered an experience during my time at the board I found myself tuning a system in ways I hadn't before granting me a higher level of tunability that other enthusiasts are sure to geek out on for days this along with more features than you can count make this x99 board a great bang for the buck option at just north of $300 well it does have some inherent flaws the pros definitely outweigh the cons here and I'm even more thrilled having done this review to start using it in my first custom loop system but let me know you guys think of this board in the comments below and feel free to toss me a like on this video if you enjoyed it before you go