A wealth monitoring options are available in the BIOS and through PC software in real-time thanks to the NUVOTON NCT6791D Super IO chip.
A single BIOS chip is provided which if corrupt during the flashing process can be removed and sent for a re-flash rather than sending the whole board. Next to this is the on-board CMOS clear button.
We loved the feature of being able to flash the BIOS with nothing more than a PSU and flash drive. This is done with another on-board button and is perfect for those who do not have the latest BIOS installed for the new I-BE CPU's. So in essence, you no longer need a working PC to flash the BIOS!
The TPU switch is an automatic overclocking switch. There are three positions, off, I and II. The first setting will overclock the CPU ratio while the second will also increase the CPU baseclock. Neat if you do not like to fiddle with a BIOS.
The second switch is for the EPU setting of which there are two options: Off (default) and on. With the switch turned to on, the motherboard will 'intelligently monitor power consumption'. Being a 'green' device we can only assume this may interfere with our overclocking efforts but if you leave your PC idling then this switch will certainly appeal to you as it may save your electricity bill and in turn, prevent the polar ice caps from melting.
The very useful digital readout display is included on this model which is invaluable when trying to fault find. Also included are on-board power and reset buttons and furthest left is the direct key BIOS re-flash button we discussed earlier.
Among the wealth of other on-board chips we found the majority to be biased towards ASMEDIA. Above we can see twin USB 3.0 controllers along with the PCIe 3.0 controller sandwiched between. There is also a further smattering of the 1042 controllers around the board controlling both internal and external USB 3.0.
Along with the 6 Intel SATA ports (2 x SATA 6Gb/s ports, 4 x SATA 3Gb/s ports) There are further SATA ports made available by both MARVEL (4 x SATA 6Gb/s ports) and ASMEDIA (2 x SATA 6Gb/s ports &
2 x Power eSATA 6Gb/s ports).
Finally, Audio is provided by the REALTEK ALC1150 8-Channel High Definition Audio CODEC and the wireless by the Broadcom chipset.
