The AMD® 970+SB950 chipset-based ASUS 970 Pro Gaming/Aura motherboard is the world’s first AMD 970 motherboard that has been officially certified by NVIDIA to offer SLI support, and features Aura RGB LEDs for users to create a customizable look and feel for their PC build. It features gaming-grade SupremeFX and Sonic Radar II audio, as well as Intel Gigabit Ethernet with ASUS LANGuard and GameFirst technologies for fast, safe, and lag-free networking. ASUS 970 Pro Gaming/Aura also features a dedicated onboard water-pump header, and is future-proof with NVM Express (NVMe) M.2 and two USB 3.1 ports.
They could have killed two birds with one stone and made it mATX. Oh well.
This is an astonishing release, really. A high-end 970 motherboard rated for multi-GPU and NVMe, with aesthetics and features pointed dead-center at the enthusiast market. I'll wait for the pricing and availability numbers before passing too much judgement, but as nice as this board is, it's a bit too late.
Unless ASUS knows something we don't, the FX platform is on life-support at this point, and the argument for their value has been losing steam rapidly. It's a nice gesture to not leave AMD purists in the proverbial dust at least.
Oh, and thank all that is high and mighty for a 970 board that has more than a 4+1 VRM!
I was about to tease it for not having a M.2 port, but then I saw it, and also read it supported NVMe.
When ASRock offered some updated models with M.2 ports, I thought it was cool. When Gigabyte released their R5 of their UD3 and UD5, and then their Gaming boards for AM3+, I thought it was definitely a bit much. This is just over the top.
I think what really takes the cake is how they used the original AM3 socket retention bracket. Amazing.
On the bright side, in terms of features it looks like it will be the best AM3+ board.
I myself have pestered JJ and I'm sure thousands of people have already. there should of been a High Performance mATX board. no one wants to make one. so nope. don't care for this board. the platform is dead already..
2 and a half years ago, while choosing between an Intel based PC and an AMD based PC. what stopped me was simply not having a quality Micro ATX option on the AMD side. that's all I wanted. I didn't even care if the Intel CPU was faster. I wanted more cores in a small form factor.. BUT NOPE. not MSI, not Gigabyte, Not even ASUS will make one even though it's been asked thousands of times already..
Who cares? AM3+ is old tech, and just doesn't keep up with current gen intel stuff. I'm going to make a bet that this board is going to be like $110, because its new and shinny. And that would make it completely redundant in terms of price in the AM3+ Market.
im probably going to get one if it isnt expensive as hell for a budget cpu heavy pc for the family. this + a decent 8xxx series amd cpu and a lower end gpu will give them a decent fast pc for regular use, light photo shop work, and not have to be replaced for ages. iffffffff it's cheapish.
Less likely that Zen is delayed, more likely that companies are just trying to get the last dollar out of a dying platform. MSI and ASUS did the same thing for AM2+. And ASUS (again), Gigabyte, ECS, and ASRock did it for LGA775. Even after the new sockets and chipsets came out, slam all the new features onto a dead or dying platform and rake in a few extra bucks.
I think that had more to do with 775 extreme performance. There are processors from 775 and 771 that can still go blow for blow with intel core i3s from intel latest architecture they would use way more wattage but still do good. Saw a singel socket 771 intel xeon benchmark really close to my intel core i5 4440 in a dd3 set up.
I wouldnt be suprised if zen will be delayed yet again. Otherwise i realy dont see any reason why company should botter with making new am3+ boards. It realy makes no sense with zen right on the corner, especialy for Asus which allready has their top of the line ROG board.
From an engineering/manufacturing stand point it makes a lot of sense. Assuming that this board could be the basis for Zen motherboard. The main reason would be that most manufacturers haven't released/designed a new AMD motherboard for quite sometime. This allows them to possibly nail out most of the manufacturing issues that would be involved with manufacturing a new motherboard. I would expect these boards to have teething issues.
