Intel DX79SI Motherboard

Alongwith this board, we also received Intel's RTS2011 Liquid cooling solution. DX79SI is loaded with features. It is the first board to come with Bluetooth/WiFi and the 'Back-to-BIOS' switch. While the first lets you save money, the latter is the one every manufacturer should adopt. By pressing this 'Back-to-BIOS' switch, DX79SI boots into BIOS the next time you restart the machine. Other notable features of this LGA2011 socket-based motherboard are, eight DDR3 DIMM sockets and POST display (for quick troubleshooting).

Setting up the board for performance testing was a bit difficult primarily due to the cumbersome liquid cooling installation. However, once properly installed, the cooling is quite effective and would attract those who want extreme performance from this board. We ran three benchmarks on this board on a test bed that also comprised Intel Core i7 3.30 GHz processor, 4 GB RAM, Windows 7 Ultimate 32 bit OS, an SSD drive, and Nvidia's GeForce GTX 590 graphics card. The score of 27,500 3DMarks at 1920x1080 and 21,832 PCMarks is very good. But this is primarily due to the usage of a high-end graphics card and an SSD instead of the regular HDDs.

Bottomline: A truly feature-rich motherboard for those who want extreme performance.