With the "entry level" of its socket LGA2011 lineup, ASUS is making a return to its signature gold-colored PCB with the C1X79 EVO. Based on the Intel X79 Express chipset, the board provides a basic feature-set sticking to whatever the chipset provides. The LGA2011 socket is powered by a simple 6+1 phase VRM, the two DDR3 DIMM slots are located on either sides of the socket in groups of two, and are powered by a 4-phase VRM.

Expansion slots include three PCI-Express 3.0 x16 (electrical x16/x16/NC or x16/x8/x8, depending on whether the third slot is populated), two PCI-E x1, and an open-ended PCI-E x4. All 10 of the SATA 6 Gb/s ports provided by the X79 chipset are assigned as internal ports, apart from four additional 3 Gb/s ports. That aside, there's little in terms of connectivity, with just the 8+2 channel HD audio, dual gigabit Ethernet, and a couple of USB 3.0 ports. The board uses ASUS' UEFI setup program with EZMode. We're not entirely sure if the production version of this board sticks to the golden PCB color, let's hope it does.