VR-Zone

P9X79 Pro front view (8 DIMMs for a maximum of 64GB, PCIe 3.0 x16 slots)

P9X79 Deluxe - no you are not seeing double. The Deluxe has an almost identical board layout but has an additional Realtek Gigabit controller and BT GO! 3.0 with Wi-Fi connectivity.

I/O Panel of the P9X79 Pro (Intel 82579V Gigabit LAN, two powered eSATA (eSATAp) from an ASMedia ASM1061 controller, four USB 3.0  ports from a pair of ASMedia ASM1042 controllers, although  two of the rear ports share bandwidth with the two front ports courtesy of a VLI VL810 USB 3.0 hub and finally audio from a Realtek ALC898 audio codec.

The BIOS reset button can also be used to update the BIOS using a USB thumbdrive without booting the PC.

Two SATA 6Gbps ports (white) and 4 SATA 6Gbpss ports(blue) from the X79 chipset.

Like the Sabertooth X79, A Marvell 9128 provides two additional 6Gbps ports (grey) and supports pairing a mechanical harddrive with a solid state drive for SSD caching, a useful features as the X79 chipset doesn't  support Intel SRT as seen on Z68 motherboards.

The PORT80 debug display and power/reset buttons - these life-saving features should be a must-have on any DIY retail motherboard. All ASUS X79 boards also have 64Mbit of UEFI Flash ROM, which is a requirement for the next generation Intel Ivy Bridge-E platform.

Some minor PCIe switching and multiplexing going on here

CPU socket area. We noticed that the whole family of ASUS X79 boards share almost the same layout over here, which could explain why they could implement the full 8 slots of DIMMs even on their lower end SKUs.

MemOK! boot-time watchdog trigger button and plenty of PWM 4-pin fan headers (6 in total) around the motherboard

Digi+ EPU (VRM) for the memory and another for the CPU. The P9X79 Pro has a 8+2+2+2 power phase design while the more expensive P9X79 Deluxe a beefier 16+4+2+2 design

Accessories of the P9X79 Pro