Stefan Mileschin

The extreme end of Intel’s performance platform is a relatively small end-user market, but despite this we had requests back at Sandy Bridge-E launch to test a good number of X79 motherboards due to the large and differing array of available features on offer. Our best of the bunch was the ASUS Rampage IV Extreme, part of the ROG range and received my best ever award given to a motherboard (which is actually our second highest award at AnandTech - my standards are that high that I doubt anyone will ever achieve the top award and I'm not entirely sure what would qualify, until I saw it).

When Ivy Bridge-E rolled around, I expected an uptake on the motherboard side to incorporate many of the new features Z77 and Z87 development had brought to the game, despite the age of the chipset holding the ecosystem back somewhat (no native USB 3, limited native SATA 6 Gbps). What happened at Ivy Bridge-E launch was almost a non-starter: very few motherboard manufacturers announced updates, most of them delayed, and some decided not to bother even updating the BIOS on old boards to support the new processors.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7498/a...on-coming-1119