titleIt seems almost like it was yesterday when I took a close look at Gigabytes Assassin, flagship motherboard on the X58 chipset. Here we are less than a year later with a new chipset and socket available. That means it’s time once again to take a look at Gigabyte’s flagship gaming motherboard, the Assassin 2 X79. With a lower price point, smaller form factor, and all of the features of the original we loved the Assassin 2 should be a great board. Of course we won’t know that for sure until we dig in a little farther, so let’s jump in!

Product Name: Gigabyte Assassin 2

Review Sample Provided by: Gigabyte

Review by: Wes

Pictures by: Wes

 

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Specifications

CPU

Support for Intel® Core™ i7 processors in the LGA2011 package

L3 cache varies with CPU

(Please refer "CPU Support List" for more information.)

Chipset

Intel® X79 Express Chipset

Memory

4 x 1.5V DDR3 DIMM sockets supporting up to 32 GB of system memory
* Due to Windows 32-bit operating system limitation, when more than 4 GB of physical memory is installed, the actual memory size displayed will be less than 4 GB.

4 channel memory architecture

Support for DDR3 2133/1866/1600/1333/1066 MHz memory modules

Support for non-ECC memory modules

Support for Extreme Memory Profile (XMP) memory modules

(Please refer "Memory Support List" for more information.)

Audio

1 x Creative CA20K2 chip

Support for Dolby® Digital Live and DTS™ Connect

Support for X-Fi Xtreme Fidelity® and EAX® Advanced HD™ 5.0 technologies

High Definition Audio

2/4/5.1/7.1-channel

Support for S/PDIF Out

LAN

1 x Bigfoot Killer E2100 chip (10/100/1000 Mbit)

Expansion Slots

2 x PCI Express x16 slots, running at x16 (PCIEX16_1/PCIEX16_2)
* For optimum performance, if only one PCI Express graphics card is to be installed, be sure to install it in the PCIEX16_1 slot; if you are installing two PCI Express graphics cards, it is recommended that you install them in the PCIEX16_1 and PCIEX16_2 slots.

1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x8 (PCIEX8)
(All PCI Express x16 slots conform to PCI Express 3.0 standard.)

2 x PCI Express x1 slots
(All PCI Express x1 slots conform to PCI Express 2.0 standard.)

1 x PCI slot

Multi-Graphics Technology

Support for 3-Way/2-Way AMD CrossFireX™ / NVIDIA SLI technology.

Storage Interface

Chipset:

2 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors (SATA3 0/SATA3 1) supporting up to 2 SATA 6Gb/s devices

4 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors (SATA2 2~SATA2 5) supporting up to 4 SATA 3Gb/s devices

Support for RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, and RAID 10
* When a RAID set is built across the SATA 6Gb/s and SATA 3Gb/s channels, the system performance of the RAID set may vary depending on the devices being connected.

2 x Marvell 88SE9172 chips:

2 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors (GSATA3 6/GSATA3 7) supporting up to 2 SATA 6Gb/s devices

2 x eSATA 6Gb/s connectors (eSATA/USB Combo) on the back panel supporting up to 2 SATA 6Gb/s devices

Support for RAID 0 and RAID 1

USB

Chipset:

Up to 14 USB 2.0/1.1 ports (8 ports on the back panel, including 2 eSATA/USB Combo, 6 ports available through the internal USB headers)

2 x Fresco FL1009 chips:

Up to 4 USB 3.0/2.0 ports (2 ports on the back panel, 2 ports available through the internal USB header)

Internal I/O Connectors

1 x 24-pin ATX main power connector

1 x 8-pin ATX 12V power connector

4 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors

4 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors

1 x CPU fan header

4 x fan headers

1 x front panel header

1 x front panel audio header

1 x S/PDIF Out header

3 x USB 2.0/1.1 headers

1 x USB 3.0/2.0 header

1 x Clear CMOS jumper

1 x Trusted Platform Module (TPM) header

Back Panel Connectors

1 x PS/2 keyboard/mouse port

1 x CPU overclocking button

1 x BIOS switch button

1 x Clear CMOS button

1 x optical S/PDIF Out connector

6 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports

2 x USB 3.0/2.0 ports

2 x eSATA/USB Combo connectors

1 x RJ-45 port

5 x audio jacks (Center/Subwoofer Speaker Out, Rear Speaker Out, Side Speaker Out, Line In/Mic In, Line Out)

I/O Controller

iTE IT8728 chip

H/W Monitoring

System voltage detection

CPU/System temperature detection

CPU/System fan speed detection

CPU overheating warning

CPU/System fan fail warning

CPU/System fan speed control
* Whether the CPU/system fan speed control function is supported will depend on the CPU/system cooler you install.

BIOS

2 x 64 Mbit flash

Use of licensed AMI EFI BIOS

Support for DualBIOS™

PnP 1.0a, DMI 2.0, SM BIOS 2.6, ACPI 2.0a

Unique Features

Support for @BIOS

Support for Q-Flash

Support for Xpress BIOS Rescue

Support for Download Center

Support for Xpress Install

Support for Xpress Recovery2

Support for EasyTune
* Available functions in EasyTune may differ by motherboard model.

Support for Smart 6™

Support for eXtreme Hard Drive (X.H.D)

Support for ON/OFF Charge

Support for Cloud OC

Support for 3TB+ Unlock

Support for TouchBIOS

Support for Q-Share

Bundle Software

Norton Internet Security (OEM version)

Operating System

Support for Microsoft® Windows 7/Vista/XP

Form Factor

E-ATX Form Factor; 30.5cm x 26.4cm


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garfi3ld's Avatar
garfi3ld replied the topic: #23933 16 Mar 2012 12:05
Gigabyte Assassin 2 X79 Motherboard

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