ASUS launches Pro WS W790 Series workstation motherboards

ASUS unveiled new Pro WS W790 Series workstation motherboards that it says gives "professionals the expandable graphics, extensive storage, impressive connectivity, and exceptional performance and reliability they need".

Available in two editions, the ASUS Pro WS W790E-SAGE SE and ASUS Pro WS W790-ACE, the two workstation motherboards, ASUS' two new motherboards support the new Intel Xeon W-2400 and W-3400 workstation CPUs, which Intel announced earlier this week.

The new Intel processors mark the return of the company to  HEDT-class desktop processors. Eight of the 15 announced processors support overclocking, a field that Intel existed in 2019 with the release of the Core i9-10980XE.

Intel's Xeon W-2400 and W-3400 series chips support up to 56 cores, 112 threads, DDR5 RAM and 112 PCIe 5.0 lanes. AMD's current workstation processor generation supports only DDR4 RAM and PCIe 4.0; this is going to change in the near future, but Intel has the advantage for now in certain scenarios.

ASUS Pro WS W790 Series

ASUS promises that its new Pro WS W790 Series of workstation motherboards unlocks "even more performance potential" from Intel chips as it includes overclocking capabilities that "go above and beyond configurable BIOS options".

Both motherboards of the series feature a "robust power design" that helps maintain stability even under extreme overclocking settings, according to ASUS. Whether the claim holds true in day to day operations remains to be seen, as benchmarks and tests are not available yet.

The company highlights the the 14+1+1 power stages of the VRM on the Pro WS W790E-SAGE SE, massive heatsinks, ProCool II connectors, and 8-pin and 6-pin PCIe power connectors that help "ensure power output stability when users need to install multiple graphics cards".

ASUS' Pro WS W790 Series motherboards include server-grade management tools. The Pro WS W790E-SAGE SE has a dedicated Gigabit Ethernet controller that is assigned to the onboard BMC, baseboard management controller, for the connection of IPMI, Intelligent Platform Management Interface, architecture. Administrators may communicate with the BMC remotely using remote interfaces such as ASUS' own Control Center Express interface.

The Pro WS W790-ACE does not support the functionality natively, but supports the installation of an IPMI expansion card.

Asus Pro WS W790 Series specs

The Pro WS W790E-SAGE SE features three M.2 221110 slots, two PCIe 5.0 and one PCI 4.0, the Pro WS W790-ACE one M.2 22110 and one M.2 2280, both of which using PCIe 4.0.

As far as specs are concerned, the boards have some similarities. Both support the LGA4677 socket, up to 8 DDR5 RAM modules with a maximum of 2 terabytes, and Realtek S1220A 8CH audio.

The Pro WS W790E-SAGE SE supports 14+1+1 power stages, 8 SATA ports and 2 SlimSAS slots. The ASUS Pro WS W790-ACE has 12+1+1 power stages, 4 SATA ports and 3 SlimSAS slots.

Other differences include an additional 10 Gb Ethernet connection on the Pro WS W790E-SAGE SE board, making it two 10 Gb Ethernet and one 1 Gb Ethernet port on the device. The SAGE SE supports more current generation USB ports at the rear as well.

The product pages of the two motherboards provide additional information on the differences and similarities.

• ASUS Pro WS W790E-SAGE SE
• ASUS Pro WS W790-ACE

ASUS has yet to reveal the price for its two new workstation motherboards.

ASUS launches Pro WS W790 Series workstation motherboards