Opinions on this fancy Asus board.

[~El~Jefe~]

https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/P1 ... fications/

Check that out.

It is fancy because it is a workstation class board with everything i would use on it for gaming.

The question is this: Notice the 3+2 phase power. That is on every server board i have seen. Supermicro, tyan (not many tyans), and all asus's workstation motherboards. I have a feeling that these big phase numbers on our regular motherboards are gimmicky. I would imagine a 3.8 ghz 4+4 core xeon pumping 24/7 has more electrical wear and tear than average gamer playing a few hours a night. And, the xeon and board is meant to perform at that level. Then why do they all (from what I can see) have 3 phase for CPU and 2 for IGP setups vs the many phases on a 80 dollar MSI board?

[Revanssi]

Seems like marketing to me, p10ws is overkill if you only play games.

[CA_Steve]

The question is this: Notice the 3+2 phase power. That is on every server board i have seen. Supermicro, tyan (not many tyans), and all asus's workstation motherboards. I have a feeling that these big phase numbers on our regular motherboards are gimmicky. I would imagine a 3.8 ghz 4+4 core xeon pumping 24/7 has more electrical wear and tear than average gamer playing a few hours a night. And, the xeon and board is meant to perform at that level. Then why do they all (from what I can see) have 3 phase for CPU and 2 for IGP setups vs the many phases on a 80 dollar MSI board?

Z series boards have to allow for overclocking with overvolting. That can double the power sourcing required. Do they really need 8 or 10 phase power? <shrugs> Do they need more than 3 phases for the CPU to support the overclocking? Yep.

[~El~Jefe~]

the motherboard has some cool parts on it. like the nic/lan ports are above average parts, a few things on the board seem to be as well. I guess a server rack doesnt need more than 3 phase power even on 24/7 for a few years under stress. I wonder why not toss a few more phases on it to lighten the load. Must be a reason for a moderately expensive board. Figure that would be a tiny cost to add for how much they sell them for.

[magu2k]

First things I'd say #1 I'd wonder if my HSF can fit that with any sort of higher performance ram. chances are something like Kingston fury would be ok Dominators? Not so likely.
Second thing is I sorta expect any upcoming motherboard I purchase to have 2 M.2 slots. 1 for system and one for games.
Thirdly, and this will get much less I'm agreement I'm sure, but I only really have use for ATX and this is mATX. I know lots build silent with mATX, and it's fine, but in my box, ATX is all that is worth bothering with.

EDIT: Scratch #2 and 3, I pulled up an image of the x99-M WS when I did a GIS, my bad!

[phobus]

I'm actually looking at the Micro ATX version of this board for my build. Would have preferred Mini-ITX, but I wasn't impressed with the C236 chipset boards out there and C232 is missing a few other features I wanted.

I think that unless you really want ECC or something else specific to the server chipset (like the NIC or SATA controllers) it's a waste of money.

One bonus of the mATX version (for me) is the placement of that first x16 slot. Being an extra space away from the CPU means better compatibility with my chosen case and extra room for CPU or GPU cooling.