The flagship mainboard from the microprocessor giant doesn’t strike you with unique design, specific features or functionality. However, it is phenomenally energy-efficient in its category, of course.

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<p><span style="font-size: small;">When you pay more for a product, you expect a better level of everything - performance, features, support. In a motherboard, I'd want all the upgrades - top line audio, overclockability, superior software, better USB 3.0 / SATA 6 Gbps controllers, and so on. The ASRock X79 Extreme9's party piece is the bundled 'Game Blaster' - a PCIe x1 card with Creative Sound Core3D Audio powered by a quad core audio processor and an additional Broadcom Gigabit LAN port. All in at $360 MSRP, today we review the Extreme9 to see if it fits into the enthusiast of enthusiast price segments.&nbsp;</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.anandtech.com/show/5434/asrock-x79-extreme9-review-price-for-performance" target="_blank">Read more...</a><br /> </span></p>

Together with the new platform Gigabyte introduced new technologies called “3D Power” and “3D BIOS”. At this time, there is still room for improvement, but even now you can enjoy broad functionality and rich feature set of the high-quality mainboard designed according to the high standards.

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<p><span style="font-size: small; ">Llano is still selling strong for AMD, as shown by the relatively&nbsp;recent reports&nbsp;of representing a major aspect of their CPU profit margins. Building on our Llano and A75 review base, ASUS gave us the opportunity to look at their F1A75-M Pro motherboard - e-tailing at the time of writing for around&nbsp;$110.&nbsp; Here at AnandTech we have reviewed other offerings from ASUS in A75, in full ATX from the&nbsp;F1A75-V Pro, and the mini-ITX&nbsp;F1A75-I Deluxe. This time, it's the turn of micro-ATX.&nbsp;</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small; "><a target="_blank" href="http://www.anandtech.com/show/5432/asus-f1a75m-pro-review-microatx-llano-at-110">Read more...</a></span></p>

<p><span style="font-size: small; ">Over the past 12 months I have covered a number of ECS boards, from the Sandy Bridge and Fusion range, including one with a Hydra chip.&nbsp; Looking back on those, there was a distinct running theme &ndash; a willingness to offer the consumer perhaps something different. My tour of the ECS headquarters back in June, and a Q&amp;A session with an ECS VP, gave credence to ECS pushing more into the consumer market rather than their roots in OEM. X79 was a focus for this, and today we are seeing the fruits of that perseverance, in the X79R-AX (Black Extreme) motherboard.&nbsp;</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small; "><a target="_blank" href="http://www.anandtech.com/show/5360/ecs-x79rax-black-extreme-review">Read more...</a></span></p>

SUSTeK mainboards are the leading brand today that is why this particular model seems to be an ideal choice for opening a series of articles dedicated to the new platform. We will dwell on absolutely everything about it: package, accessories, technical specifications, EFI BIOS functionality, new programs and utilities, overclocking potential, performance and power consumption.

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<p><span style="font-size: small;">Over the years, Gigabyte has given us some interesting products. More recently in the past 18 months, Rajinder gave their H55N-USB3 motherboard a well deserved recommendation, and more recently, I have scrutinized their Sandy Bridge range. For X79, Gigabyte is uncharacteristically launching only a few motherboards, of which we are looking at their cheapest model, the GA-X79-UD3. We are also for the first time introduced to what Gigabyte believe should be a graphical BIOS compared to their competitors.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;"><a target="_blank" href="http://www.anandtech.com/show/5271/gigabyte-gax79ud3-review">Read more...</a><br /> </span></p>

We will discuss the package, accessories, PCB layout and features of this Socket AM3+ mainboard from Gigabyte. We will check out its BIOS functionality, operational and overclocking specifics, performance and power consumption in nominal and overclocked mode.

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To study the design and functionality of the mainstream and entry-level chipsets for the AMD Bulldozer platform we decided to go with two mainboards from Asus: Asus M5A99X EVO and Asus M5A97 EVO, based on AMD 990X and AMD 970 chipsets respectively. In our today’s review we are going to compare them against one another as well as against the previously tested mainboards on the top Socket AM3+ core logic set.

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<p><span style="font-size: small;">At first glance Biostar mainboards are exactly the same as all others, but if you take a closer look at them you will find a lot of peculiarities and distinguishing features. Biostar TA990FXE is based on a combination of AMD 990FX North Bridge and AMD SB950 South Bridge, so it will be interesting to find out how it is different from similar products from other mainboard makers available today.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;"><a target="_blank" href="http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/mainboards/display/biostar-ta990fxe.html">Read more...</a><br /> </span></p>