Asus Zeus Concept Motherboard displayed...

[DeltrusDisc]

HOLY MOTHER!!!

I want it.

They just shared these pictures on their Facebook - will update this thread as info presents itself. As for now - we can speculate and discuss this awesome new board! Specs are below.






ASUS Zeus Concept Motherboard

Dual 28nm PCIe Gen-3 GPUs
Dual Intel Thunderbolt
LGA2011 socket
128GB DDR3 Max, Quad Channel
Anodized in gold and silver colour

[BicycleMafioso]

I saw that a week (?) ago. It's looking really cool, but it is a concept.
I also have doubts that the incidental air flow is good enough for HD7800+ 650+ GPUs.

[e] This video, albeit in Swedish, looks at some of ASUS' stuff, incl their updated OEM computer aimed at gamers. The Motherboard is in the immediate beginning.

[DeltrusDisc]

jeez, sweclockers gets stuff before Asus even shares it on their own Facebook! D:

[BicycleMafioso]

Transcribition from the movie, translated as it's on the go.

We've stumbled into ASUS large showcase at this years Computex-fair, and here, here you could say there's a little of everything.
They are showing a whole bunch of things, and there's no way we can cover all of it.
So we've rummaged around and picked out the candy.
To my left is the concept motherboard "Zeus". The rumour mill has been turning about it on the Internet, so a lot of people probably have an idea what it's about.
Anyway, it's a Sandy Bridge-E system, where ASUS has chosen to integrate two GPUs on the motherboard itself, from the latest generation with PCI-Express 3.0.
And, yea, that limits the choices of what kind of GPUs it could be, a bit.
Rumours on the Internet suggests 7900-series from AMD.
ASUS on-place would rather not mention anything about anything, but they are very clear about this only being a concept, today.
We questioned, for instance, this heatsink which is on the motherboard, that it perhaps is on the small side to cool double 7900-cards[what he said], and there they were very quick to say that "Once again, it's only a concept, we'll have to see what it will be", but at the same time, he was saying that "Yes, but if you only have good airflow through your computer, it should sort itself out".
So well, one simply has to take it for what it is.
Other things about this motherboard, up to 128GB RAM, double Thunderbolt.
Yes, simply a really, really, really bad-ass thing.

I thought we'd roll on a bit, and I also know there's a bit of exciting Graphics cards, computer systems, tablets, portable computers [what notebooks are called in Swedish].
Yes, a bit of everything here.

A bit further on in the showcase, we find this one. Z77 Wolverine.
Even here, it's an early concept, that ASUS don't know if it ever will reach production.
The special thing about, or rather, the only thing that is special about this motherboard is power delivery to the CPU.
Which is in 40 phases. Normally, we're usually talking about 8 and 12, and upwards 20 maybe, which is pretty cool.
Eh. 40, anyway. We asked ASUS if there's, well, any point in having this many phases, or if it's rather overkill for the sake of overkill, so to speak.
And they think it's going to be significantly higher degree of efficiency, which is nice. And they mean that it's probably not for an end-user, a normal user that is.
But probably for people who are into overclocking and things like that, that it might be interesting.
Anyway, Z77 Wolverine, 40 phases to the CPU. I've always wanted one at home. [slight irony in his voice.]

ASUS also have a few extreme Graphics cards on show here behind me. And regrettably, we can't shoot in there, because they've pulled out Battlefield 3 AND the Diablo III-trailer at the highest volume at the same time. Completely inaudible. [talking about how they would not be heard, not how the BF3/Diablo III wouldn't be heard]
Anyway, this is about ASUS' MARS III, which has been -rather- anticipated, one could say.
MARS II was, evidently, a real beast with double 580 on the same PCB.
And a lot of people have expected ASUS to do the same thing with GTX 680.
We actually don't know a whole lot about MARS III. There is a card on display here.
ASUS is being extremely clear, even here and back home in Sweden, that this is a concept-concept.
It's not the final cooler, it's a hand-painted example, the colours don't look like they're supposed to.
And yea, there's actually nothing that indicates that the card will look like this when it finally is done, but it exists in any way.
And yea, it's clearly about extreme-extreme things.
There's also a HD7970 MATRIX in-place. Power delivery in 20 phases. VGA hotwire.
It's the same MATRIX-treatment that previous cards have gotten.
And it's first and foremost about a better PCB, a special cooler, and really brining it up to another level, as good as you can get it, really with a lone GPU.
And that's rather tough, that too.
Maybe we should look at some desktop systems while we're already running around here.

Just like with the Graphics cards, we regrettably couldn't stand at the actual object we were filming, because, yes, they have high volume in there, and I can't hear myself think.
Eh, pre-built desktop computer systems, on the other hand, is something that we might not raise our eyebrows at, but, in ASUS showcase there's a new system, called Titan.
The Titan-series has existed since before, but now the've upgraded it with a new case, yes and, with new hardware, then.
The Top model, CG-8890 comes with a core i7-3960x, that is, the extreme-extreme Sandy Bridge-E, a GTX690, yes, a lavish computer system that performs really well.
What is a bit more special with this case, is that it reminds a bit about a Transformer.
It opens up like two gills on the sides if you press a button that is called "Speed".
What the "Speed"-button does, is that it overclocks the CPU in three different levels.
Either 3.8, 4.0 or 4.2 GHz.
When you then press that button, overclock the computer, the gills open up and the cooling system turns on to the full extent.
It also opens up a latch in the back that exhausts the air.
It looks pretty rad, it probably makes a whole lot of noise - hard to hear because there's a lot of noise in there - but a cool concept in any event.
But I thought we'd skip along, there's plenty of tablets, ultrabooks and God knows what, in ASUS' showcase.

If we move along in ASUS showcase, and up in the portable area, yes, as you can see there's a brutal amount of people who wants to be up and touch and squeeze here, so we'd have to run a bit general, and try to find a few cut-in images.
In any case, we start with Taichi, which has had a fair bit written about it, the last few days.
What is it then? Well, it's basically about a portable computer with dual screens.
On one side, there's a 13" screen. If you close the lid, there's an 11" screen with touch panel.
The thought is, according to ASUS, partly that you're supposed to sit and work on the inner side, at the same time you can show pictures or movies or something at the external screen.
Run presentations(?) on the external panel for a smaller amount of people or alternatively, obviously fold it, and use it as a little bit thicker, but still a tablet.
The OS is Windows 8, so it's the Metro interface that's running on this touchpad, and yes, it seems to work rather well when ASUS are showing it.
A few things that are bugging, like for example, it sometimes ends up being upside down, this interface, but we'll have to assume that ASUS manage to figure it out to the launch, which is projected toward the end of the year, then. After Windows 8.
CPU alternatives will be, core i3, core i5 or core i7, it is Ivy Bridge it's about, of course.
ASUS are also showing off a special version of UX21, one of their Zenbooks, where they have integrated a touch screen.
Even here, there's a line in the Windows 8 investment, where they want to integrate touch screens a bit of everywhere.
And that is a lot because it fits great with this Metro-interface.
So, yes, there aren't really any oddities. A regular UltraBook, but with a TouchScreen, so you can point, click and swoosh about a bit like you'd want there.

We were swooshing a bit, it worked out fairly nice, but it had a bit of a trouble registering all the presses, sometimes.
But even here we'll have to assume it's something they'll solve. Because even here it's about a launch later, after Windows 8 is on the market.
That concerns, speaking of which, a whole lot of things here today.




(whenever they say "and yes" or something, it's used much in the same way as a "well" is filling a gap between things in spoken. And the word "ju" is completely untranslatable to get things into context [just like "do/does" is to Swedish])

[e] Now accurate up to 6.40.

[Mythricia]

Integrated GPUs seem like a bit of a limiting factor, considering the trend in later years has been that motherboards and CPUs tend to outlive a GPU generation or two, especially if you're not that interested in keeping up to date on the CPU/chipset side of things, which frankly isn't required for a lot of gaming, unless something changes significantly in the upcoming generations. And this is clearly a gaming related piece, so.

I'm using an old x58 board at the moment myself (w/ i7 960), and this machine has seen both 4xx and 5xx series Nvidia cards, 6xx series now available - that's 3 generations - and I frankly still can't motivate upgrading to Ivy. A GPU upgrade would mean more in the vast majority of games still.

Sure it's a concept, but I'm not sure it's an attractive one.

[sizzlinsauce]

thing is, if you got a waterblock on half the bottom of that board and the cpu as well, dual built in 680's will be bat s**t crazy.I'd pay $1000 for this thing. seeing as its the mobo and 2 gpu's together. only difference is the gpu is built in, and not seperate.

[Ryuukon]

The board looks beautiful, and will obviously perform like a champ. But integrated components are fail. I don't even use the integrated sound and NIC found on pretty much every board anymore, since they usually don't perform as well as a single card, AND can take up resources such as CPU cycles and memory if you aren't careful in your board purchase.

And worse, in a case like this, if one component goes out, you have to replace the whole board. Entropy is a bitch.

[Mythricia]

I think it would perform just fine, the way they've done it is probably just mounting the GPU's onto the board, taking up PCI lanes just like a "dedicated" card would do, etc, functioning practically like a pair of dedicated cards. I guess the one issue they could have is heat (as mentioned above), and depending on how well isolated the GPUs are, maybe electronic interference to/from other components (reason some modern motherboards now attempt to isolate f.ex. integrated audio from the rest of the board, EMI is a bitch). But that's something they've likely thought about as well.

But it's a good point - if one part fails, you've got a very large brick on your hands, probably.

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

The only reason I can think of that you could realistically use that would be a slimline case that doesn't have the space for a graphics card, but even then...Maybe the assumption is that you would be water-cooling it anyway, and thus the air cooler not being up to scratch wouldn't matter so much. I have massive respect for Asus, but I really don't understand who their target market is.

[Drunkenvalley]

This board seems immensely impractical... I wouldn't mind basically just having three PCI-e 16x lane, and abandoning all others, but -nothing- is just too little.

[Evil Inside]

Mother of god *takes of glasses*

[mafao]

That's so cheesy... :/

[inux94]

Eh.. I can't see a PCI-e port =(

The extra RAM slots would be nice though.

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

Eh.. I can't see a PCI-e port =(

The extra RAM slots would be nice though.

Apparently it comes with a couple of 7950s or 7970s integrated on the board.

[BicycleMafioso]

Eh.. I can't see a PCI-e port =(

The extra RAM slots would be nice though.

Has two GPUs on the motherboard PCB already.

Most X79 has that many RAM-slots already.
This one supports 16GiB DIMMs, though.


The thing that I like about this Motherboard (despite neither of you appreciating my transcibe!) are the concept and visualisation.
Best idea in the world? No. Innovative? Yes.
Huge amount of s-ATA ports? Yes please!

[inux94]

Pardon, should've read more information before posting :P

[YouTube1080p]

Has two GPUs on the motherboard PCB already.

Most X79 has that many RAM-slots already.
This one supports 16GiB DIMMs, though.


The thing that I like about this Motherboard (despite neither of you appreciating my transcibe!) are the concept and visualisation.
Best idea in the world? No. Innovative? Yes.
Huge amount of s-ATA ports? Yes please!

Tried reading the massive wall of text, what level of card is supposedly on this board?

[BicycleMafioso]

Tried reading the massive wall of text, what level of card is supposedly on this board?

PCI-E 3.0, which limits the pool.
HD7900-series are the most commonly believed.

[Deleted]

"Asus Zeus" :|

You can't put a network card, raid card, pci-e SSD, ramdrive, sound card or whatever other useful addin cards that exist. You can't upgrade the GPU and I doubt this will be cheap, so what's the point? Small case perhaps, although I've seen high end discrete cards in a mITX case before.

[Priestion]

Looks like a transformer.