If you haven’t taken a look over at Tom’s Hardware, they tested 5 different high end X79 motherboards and the two victors came out to be the ASUS P9X79 WS and the ASUS P9X79 Deluxe. Both of which won by default due to severe firmware issues with all other motherboards.
While I’m still sticking with recommending Z68 boards and i7 2600K’s for mainstream users looking to build, those of you who seriously do need the insane multithreading power of the x79 platform should hop on over to Tom’s Hardware to take a look.
Though we had a reasonably broad selection of candidates, firmware issues left us considering only the two products that came closest to our expectations. Asus’ P9X79 WS had the best performance, best overclocking, lowest power consumption, and greatest number of expansion slots. Meanwhile its P9X79 Deluxe followed closely behind the WS version, but added a bunch of lifestyle-oriented features like Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and a greater number of USB 3.0 rear-panel ports (even though several ports share bandwidth). The added features are surely worth a little more than the miniscule differences in performance. And yet both boards are priced the same.
Source: Tom’s Hardware
