Stay TUF, Stay Sharp
While unveiled a few months ago, ASUS’ TUF series motherboards finally gets its other entry, the X58 Sabretooth, into the shops.
Even though the LGA1366 socket and X58 chipset was launched back in 2008, but thanks to Intel’s awesome Core i7-980X CPU that’s reinvigorated the market, ASUS decided to put the effort into another TUF part. Because of their design requirements and thorough testing behind that though, it takes time to get the X58 Sabretooth to market.
The Sabretooths use military standard components and the whole board is tested in extreme environments – like the thermal shock test of -40C to +85C – to guarantee a motherboard that’ll work anywhere it’s thrown at. Even though the unique aesthetics are appealing enough for use in home PCs (and there’s nothing stopping you!), the TUF motherboards are designed to work where other boards simply would not: in highly-demanding environments where performance cannot be compromised. If you do often go for LAN parties in the desert sun, the X58 Sabretooth will certainly outlast your drinks supply!
CeraM!X it up!
ASUS not only specially picks hardware like the heavy duty alloy chokes, caps and MOSFETs, but they are certified in an independent laboratory to ISO and IEC/IECQ military standard. Yea, there’s actually scientific backing to the claim! Even so, it’s crowning feature is the exclusive CeraM!X heatsink coating.
Ceramics are very dense materials that provide great thermal transfer properties while crucially being non-conductive. Specifically, the branded CeraM!X uses a rough, textured finish that creates a much larger surface area to improves heat dissipation into the environment – even low/zero airflow. That ultimately means better stability and reliability of your hardware.
Tech wise it’s not as stacked up in the features list as the Republic of Gamers series, but that means at least there’s choice and you can buy according to what you need. Having said that, it still has all the latest bits, like SATA 6Gbps ports, Gigabit LAN, USB 3, Nvidia SLI and AMD CrossFireX, as well as support for a massive 24GB of DDR3 memory so it has enough hardware to suit most people’s needs.