<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>