ASUS SABERTOOTH X99
RRP: $329.99 | Website: www.asus.com
Test Machine
• INTEL Core i7 5960X
• CORSAIR Dominator
Platinum DDR4 3200 C16
• SAMSUNG PX941 512GB
• CORSAIR AX1500i
• Windows 8.1 x64
(1702 BIOS)
I
t may come as a surprise,
but ASUS has relatively
few X99 motherboards
compared to what its immediate
competitors offer. ASUS has six
boards (barring the four
additional SKUs which have USB
3.1 as their single distinguishing
feature) compared to ASROCK
and GIGABYTE for instance,
which have sixteen respectively.
MSI, offering fourteen boards in
total. Even if one had to count
the USB3.1 variants from ASUS,
the company would still have the
least number of X99 offerings.
Why I bring this up is simply
because at face value, you’d
think or at least be led to
26 The OverClocker Issue 34 | 2015
believe that the comparatively
slim line up speaks poorly on
the part of ASUS and their
offerings. Alas, you’d be gravely
mistaken. What this lineup
actually illustrates is a higher
hit rate per board than the
competition. Indeed, one could
include EVGA in there as well,
such that it would be the vendor
with the highest hit rate at only
three boards in total. However,
those boards have not had their
“renaissance”, via an OC-Socket
revision. A change that at least
two vendors have undergone
(excluding ASRock) thus far.
What that means in simple
terms, is that ASUS for the most
part got their X99 boards right
from day one.
The competition may have
moved on, but when X99 was
initially launched, the ASUS
boards were the ones by which
all others were measured. To
some degree this remains so.
the latest addition to the
family, coming in at a relatively
affordable $329.99. This is a
fair price in comparison to
what competitors have as
alternatives. At the very least
it is a justifiable price, which
is lower than I had initially
anticipated. It was in light of this
that I ended up having to reevaluate my verdict as it does
offer some good value despite
some of the more quirky aspects
regarding it’s features list.
For instance the absence of a
POST code LED. This omission,
which most vendors are guilty
of on at least one or more of
their motherboards is puzzling.
There’s simply no reason to not
have it. If there are $119 boards
that can have the LED, including
the small but mighty IMPACT
series. Then there’s no excuse
for it being absent on an ATX
board at over $300. Such is the
situation with the SABERTOOTH.
The SABERTOOTH represents
It is laden full of features
and it’s component list as a
result is exhaustive, but one
could easily forgo any of the