These new Blitz high-end Intel motherboards from ASUS come loaded with an almost endless list of features, as one might expect. The list of features includes Firewire, dual Gigabit LAN, Crosslinx (CrossFire support), SupremeFX (8-Channel Audio), Fusion Block System (water-cooling) and an LCD Poster. Of course there is also a great deal more packed into this board and we will cover all these features shortly. These new ASUS motherboards not only use the P35 chipset, but they also come with the ICH9R south bridge. First let’s look at the chipset features…
In order to support the latest DDR2 memory types, the Memory Controller Hub (MCH) features wider buses that support Dual-Channel DDR2 at 533/677/800MHz, for up to 8.5 GB/s of peak memory bandwidth. ASUS supports native DDR2-1066 memory with the Blitz Formula, while the Extreme makes use of DDR3 memory technology. The Blitz Extreme can use either DDR3-1067 or DDR3-1333 memory, which is one of the only key differences between these two motherboards.
Another chipset feature is the Intel High Definition Audio (Intel HD Audio). This technology features eight independent DMA audio engines that support multiple audio streams with audio codecs. This integrated audio solution should rival the performance of high-end sound cards. The onboard 8-channel HD audio (High Definition Audio, previously codenamed Azalia) codec enables high-quality 192KHz/24-bit audio output.
Other audio features include jack-sensing, re-tasking functions and multi-streaming technology that simultaneously sends different audio streams to different destinations. The Dolby Digital Live technology from Dolby Lab encodes the multi-channel audio source into AC-3 bit-stream and outputs it to S/PDIF port in real time. The ADI AD1988B audio controller is a nice addition to both of these motherboards and should work very well.
In an effort to remove the conventional IDE ATA standard, the P35 chipset removes IDE support all together. The ICH9R Southbridge offers up to six Serial II ATA ports, boasting data transfer rates up to 300MB/s. Intel also offers RAID functions for these four SATA ports, supporting RAID 0 for performance and RAID 1 for protection, along with RAID 5 and RAID10. Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI) further boosts performance with Native Command Queuing (NCQ), and provides native hot plug for drive swaps.
This is where these two boards again differ ever so slightly. The Blitz Extreme features two external SATA ports thanks to the inclusion of the JMicron JMB363 controller. The Blitz Formula on the other hand only uses the JMicron JMB368 controller which supports a single IDE port for up to two devices. The JMicron JMB363 controller on the other hand not only supports a single IDE port, but also dual SATA ports.
Both motherboards support IEEE1394a (FireWire 400), offering bandwidth up to 400 Mbps. This technology supports longer distances and is a much higher-powered bus, making it more suitable for bandwidth-intensive applications like digital video (DV), professional audio, and hard drives, which often consume hundreds or even thousands of megabytes of data per file. The board provides 2 x 1394a ports. Of course the P35 chipset also supports USB 2.0 and therefore these boards do support a total of twelve ports.
The dual Gigabit LAN design allows a PC to serve as a network gateway for managing traffic between two separate networks. This capability ensures rapid transfer of data from WAN to LAN without any added arbitration or latency. No more bottleneck to handle large amounts of data such as video, audio, and voice. Both these Blitz motherboards use Marvell PCIe 88E8056 Gigabit LAN controllers and a PCI-based Marvell 88E8001 controller.