Introduction

Just over a month ago, on November 14th, Intel released its latest High-Performance platform, based on their new X79 Express chipset. The launch not only brought new motherboards, but also two new CPUs, the i7 3960X, and the i7 3930K, both of which are 6-core CPUs with Hyper-Threading. Over the next several weeks we'll be taking a closer look at supporting motherboards, and today we explore the first, from none other than ECS. ECS has been a big supporter of TechPowerUp, and they were first to have a board on our doorstep, but it did take us several weeks to get a sample CPU and get our testing underway. Now that we have in our hands a i7 3960X, we spent the last week putting our sample motherboards under the microscope, and pushing it to the limit.

The ECS X79R-AX is from ECS's high-end "Black Extreme" series of products, which in their latest incarnation boasts quite a few unique features. The "Black Extreme" story centers around a tale of two defeated dragons who turned themselves into black holes in order to torment humanity, and have now returned looking to meet the heroes destined to slay them. An epic tale for what may very well prove to be a legendary board. ECS has a mini-site dedicated to the X79R-AX, referring to the board as "The One"; will the X79R-AX be the board to finally banish those pesky dragons once again?

Specifications