ASUS SABERTOOTH X79 Pro Reviews

We'd like to thank our friends at ASUS for providing the X79 Sabertooth motherboard for our review today. The X79 Sabertooth lives up to its "TUF" name in both looks and performance. The integrated UEFI BIOS gave us plenty of options for configuring everything on our system and did it with a user friendly interface. The board's support for quad GPU graphics configurations from both NVIDIA SLI and AMD CrossfireX is a huge plus and expected for high-end motherboards in this class. The X79 Sabertooth's bundled software was very stable and useful during testing and increased the overall value that consumers look for in all their PC hardware upgrades. Overall, the ASUS X79 Sabertooth has earned PC Perspective's Gold Award for original design, outstanding bundled software, and detailed overclocking features.

The ASUS Sabertooth X79 didn’t induce awe with its benchmark scores, but it was very consistent, and the scores were closely clustered anyway.

Summing up our experience with the ASUS Sabertooth X79 mainboard, we don’t want to recall the few minor shortcomings of this product we’ve noticed. They are mostly limited to BIOS options and are typical of many other ASUS mainboards. The overall impression from this mainboard is highly positive, so we want to talk about its highs rather than lows: the high-quality packaging, rich accessories, user-friendly design, broad functionality, and the special 5-year warranty of the TUF series. We didn't have any problems running this mainboard and it turned out to be good for CPU and memory overclocking. In fact, the single serious downside we can find about it is that its cooling system employs nonstandard fans. It's going to be difficult to replace them if you need to. On the other hand, these small fans may last the whole service life of the Sabertooth X79 – the full five years or more – without giving you any hard time.

When we received the Sabertooth X79 we were a little perplexed as to where this unit could be placed in the market. The military spec components means that it should last a long time no matter the condition. That it goes through extended testing for reliability and durability by a third party testing team tells us that the claims are more than just that. Also, the fact that we were able to achieve 5GHz overclocks lets us know it is capable. Add to that the fact that the board goes through server grade compatibility testing and we are thoroughly convinced that this board could serve not just as a workstation or number crunching machine but also any extreme gaming rig. There are some things we felt a little perplexed about as they were simple omissions or design aspects that simply could be better. One was the omission of onboard power/reset buttons, and also the lack of an LED POST display which could easily help with a failure to POST condition. While this was not an issue for us, it could arise for someone else, and having the POST display would help immensely. We also feel the color scheme could be better, though we acknowledge that it has been a mainstay of the Sabertooth line.

Similar to the Rampage IV Extreme, we found it difficult to find much to complain about with the Sabertooth X79. ASUS has done an excellent job with their X79 boards and competitors will have to up their game to even stay close. The only points of contention for us was the degree to which LLC overvolts and relatively long POST times. At 1.5v and the Extreme setting we saw nearly 1.7v, a death sentence for a CPU with prolonged use. At around $350, this board is certainly not cheap but with the extra warranty included, the ASUS BIOS and a great feature set we would find it difficult to say the Sabertooth is not worth the money. Taking all this into consideration we are happy to award the Sabertooth X79 a well-deserved DAM Good award.

There's a lot to like; the generally good layout, super-slick BIOS, SSD caching technology and excellent fan-control and general monitoring features add real value, if you can call £250 value. However, X79 boards will make a lot more sense as prices begin to drop and the quad-core Core i7 3820 chip is released. Until then, if you want a performance board for that shiny Core i7 3930K or Core i7 3960X processor just begging to be put in the online basket, we recommend taking a good, hard look at the ASUS Sabertooth X79 TUF.

The Asus Sabertooth X79 is a treasure trove of useful and interesting features. It might cost more than other manufacturers' offerings but it has the best cooling, EFI and overclocking and monitoring software of any LGA2001 board we've seen. The Thermal Radar software alone is worth the premium cost over other boards and is akin to bundling the board with a premium fan controller; it really is that effective. Combined with a decent water-cooling system, we have no doubt that overclocking would further improve. Despite our praise for the Sabertooth X79, however, it's worth remembering that if you're not dealing with professional multi-threaded applications all the time, an LGA1155 system remains the better option. For those determined to build a PC with the absolute best components, though, the Sabertooth X79 justifies its price premium over competing boards. Competing boards may be far cheaper, but have several limiting factors such as half the number of DIMM sockets, a less slick EFI and adequate rather than awesome cooling. Given that a Sandy Bridge E CPU will cost the better part of £500, spending £249 on the Sabertooth X79, as opposed to £190 on a cheaper board, isn't a huge extra expense, but it's one that's definitely worth making.

This board is packed with incredible features that Asus has done a lot of work developing and I’m sure we’ll see even more with their X79 ROG board. I have to say that that board is one that I’m really looking forward to testing and putting through our gamut of benchmark applications. This board represents the sweet spot currently in terms of performance versus cost and therefore it will probably be a favorite among those looking to upgrade to this new platform. If you haven’t made up your mind yet about being an early adopter of this new platform I hope that this review has helped to ease your mind a little and that you take a serious look at this motherboard.

As X79 boards go, the Sabertooth is competitively priced, has all the crucial features and looks built to las.

The ASUS Sabertooth X79 TUF motherboard delivers a solid Intel X79 Express LGA2011 platform for new Sandy Bridge Extreme Edition Core-i7 processors. It's my recommendation that for anyone seeking out the most reliable and stable motherboard, only the ASUS Sabertooth X79 will be capable. ASUS enjoys a build quality second to none, which translates to fewer RMA's and longer product lifetime, but should any failure occur you'll be covered under a five year warranty.