ASUS ZEUS: Concept Motherboard With Dual GPU Onboard

[MarshallR@ASUS]

ASUS Zeus – Say that 3 times quickly.
Stepping away from the red and black world of ROG, but keeping one foot firmly in the land of “OMG” is the ASUS Zeus.



The Zeus is part LGA 2011 motherboard and part dual-graphics behemoth, with a lashing of sexy heatsinks on the side. The board has the same tri-chip ASUS DIGI+ VRM Power hardware as the P9X79 Series, and it can handle up to 128GB of DDR3 over its 8 DIMM slots.

The two 28nm PCIe Gen-3 GPUs (sorry for being unspecific) are actually soldered to the motherboard PCB itself, with their GDDR5 wrapped around them and the four PCIe power connectors (2x 8-pin, 2x 6-pin) laid along the bottom. Since they expand the whole width of the PCB, the X79 PCH has been moved above, just under the CPU socket.

All this hardware is then put under silver and gold (color, not metal) anodized heatsinks. There’s no PCI-Express expansion slots, but who cares when you could build the worlds only, low profile, high performance multi-GPU system!



OK, so you do need some other peripherals after-all. What compensates the loss of expansion ports is the dual Thunderbolt connectors on the rear I/O. These two 10Gbps connections provide enough bandwidth for externalizing high-performance peripherals, while the rest of your case can be stuffed with hard drives and SSDs connected to the 10 SATA 6Gbps ports with hardware RAID at the opposite end of the PCB.



Like all high-end ASUS motherboards today, it comes with the very latest 802.11ac Wi-Fi standard built in, plus Intel Gigabit Ethernet, 7.1 channel HD surround sound, two eSATA ports (in green at the top) and a total of 12 USB 3.0 ports spread across the rear I/O and front panel pin-outs.

[Zka17]

Will this have the Fusion Thermo System too?

[MarshallR@ASUS]

Nope, but it would certainly benefit! I think this is mostly meant to look pretty - don't expect to buy it :P

[chrsplmr]

... keep teasing ... bring on the CrossHair V Formula-Z ...... p l e a s e .
(I know .. you only have two hands and one has to cover the butt ..heheh..thnx.)

If 'you' .. yeah 'you' .. havent been on the Home page lately .. go now .. treat yourself.
(msi, evga .. eat your heart out.).. then step up to ROG.c.

[xeromist]

Nope, but it would certainly benefit! I think this is mostly meant to look pretty - don't expect to buy it :P

Yeah, kind of like most concept cars: Visually striking but not very functional.

Honestly if you want to build a low profile machine you just use a right angle PCI-E adapter, or a ribbon cable for even more flexibility. Server chassis have used right angle adapters for many many years so it seems this pretty little board is a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

[DaemonCantor]

I love the looks of this an just HOPING Beyond Hope that it does make it into Main Stream Markets! This is closer to what I've thought Computers should Evolve to for years now... The only other Possible change I could think of is going Dual Socket with it!

[Dannberg]

Those pics are better than porn :O

[Dylander]

what if one of the 2 gpus (or both) goes defect do you need to replace your entire MB ?
and future system upgrades would have the same problem i think.

i think that the integrated gpu is a good idea but a bad at the same time what of 3way sli of tipple crosfire
those are out of the question with these MB

[etonbears]

what if one of the 2 gpus (or both) goes defect do you need to replace your entire MB ?
and future system upgrades would have the same problem i think.

i think that the integrated gpu is a good idea but a bad at the same time what of 3way sli of tipple crosfire
those are out of the question with these MB

I really like this board, but I have seen a lot of comments ( like this one ) that suggest that the reasoning behind the board has not been made clear by ASUS.

Certain good things are obvious - all SATA is 6GB, all USB is USB 3, memory up to 128GB, PCIe 3 support - these make the board very desirable at this point in time where most other boards still use some SATA 3GB / USB 2 etc.

But what about those integrated GPUs and the loss of all those expansion slots?

Well, the CPUs that work with the X79 chipset do not have integrated graphics ( which are pointless and a waste of resources on most high-end machines anyway ), but if you are doing away with the on-board PCIe expansion slots, then you should probably have SOME onboard graphics. You don't necessarily need DUAL onboard GPUs, one would do well in many situations; the cost of the GPU or dual GPUs would at least partially be offset by removing all of the components related to the PCIe expansion slots.

And the "loss" of PCIe is actually just a displacement. That is what Thunderbolt is for - thunderbolt ports allow you to attach external PCIe devices rather than onboard ones, just as the e-SATA ports allow you to attach external disks, and USB 3 allows you to attach other peripherals. So if an onboard GPU breaks, disable it, and if you want to upgrade, add an external Thunderbolt GPU.

So this board concept is undoubtedly better than any other current offering, and offers this in a compact and actually VERY flexible package that could allow interesting new device designs. But it does have its down-side; it probably is not really well suited to the current high-end case and cooling designs, that many ROG customers probably use.

I could see this board being popular with different target markets in 3 variants.

1. Exactly as is.
2. With normal PCIe slots in place of the GPU ( probably favoured by ROG customers )
3. A smaller form-factor board ith NO onboard PCIe devices or slots, using only thunderbolt attachments.

But that's just my opinion. I would certainly buy this board for a new build if the GPUs do not add too much to the cost.

R.

[ASUS ZEUS]

Hey!! They're stealing my name... LOL