Hardware Asus P6X58D Premium Motherboard Review

Asus adds USB 3 and SATA 6Gbps to its latest LGA1366 Core i7 motherboard.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/motherboards/2010/05/05/asus-p6x58d-premium-motherboard-review/1

 

This is a great board. However you may want to take a look at the P6X58D-E which is now available (one week after I bought the Premium no less). It drops a couple of the Premium's features but at around £172 it is much better value overall.

P6X58D-E has Marvell 9128 while the P6X58D Premium has a Marvell 9123 Controller. The improved controller on the E version supports RAID in SATA 6GB while the Premium does not.

P6X58D-E also has a VIA VT6308P controller while the P6X58D Premium has a VIA VT6308 (IEEE 1394).

P6X58D-E only has one Gigabit LAN controller Marvell 88E8056 while the P6X58D Premium has two.

P6X58D-E doesn't have the RESET button on the motherboard while the P6X58D Premium does.

P6X58D-E has a slightly reduced chipset cooling arrangement compared to the Premium.

P6X58D-E also doesnt come with the Optional Fan for water-cooling or passive-cooling while the P6X58D Premium does.

Although I don't regret buying the Premium, if I was buying again I would go for the P6X58D-E and save the difference.

 

The thing that kept me from going with this board and instead going with a GA X58A-UD3R was the fact that this ASUS board doesn't have any IDE ports on it and I wasn't about to throw down $300 on a motherboard that didn't have at least one and then have to spend more money on SATA optical drives/burners to replace the perfectly good IDE ones I have from an upgraded older rig that was being retired. the UDR3 was a natural choice for $100 less.

 

I've been using this board since January. Why the extra long delay in your testing it? As ITTroll stated, there's even a new iteration of this board that you should've tested instead of this (relatively speaking, of course) dinosaur! Bit-Tech must be one of those sites that, instead of doing as we real people, going out and buying what we want out of the warehouse or retail shelf, and wait for the manufacturers to send you one of their hand-built, in-factory tested, absolute epitome of their product. For the rest of us it's WYSIWYG. My 1st P6X58D-Premium was doa. That happens to real people. I've never heard a review site admit this. Probably because Uncle Sugar at AsusTec wouldn't donate any more of their pre-tested payola machinery.
Even in testing you didn't do it properly. The most expensive, highest performance cpu to test overclockability? Why not an I7-930? The whole point of overclocking is to get the most bang for your buck. If you want to prove this board then take a 930 from the stock 2.8GHz to almost 5 (or even more) GHz. THAT is how you test overclockability! Then back off the OC until absolute stability at max. OC is accomplished.
You're right about the color scheme. It does more than a little bit resemble a Gagabyte mobo.
BTW, would you please confirm the memory you used for testing?
k1

 

Ooooo..... How interesting.... Not the Motherboard (Which is OLD NEWS) - But your choices in these past weeks to publish articles about the last generation instead of the latest generation of motherboards.

First the EVGA Micro that was released almost A YEAR AGO - and now instead of releasing a review for the P6X58D-E - you find it right to release a review of its older brother P6X58D-Premium which is not half as interesting as its better featured and much better priced little brother. And this MB has also been around for a while now...

I asked before when you released the EVGA Micro review why are you reviewing old parts as if they are new or interesting and not reviewing the stuff that is coming out now? You told me that you have a review of the Rampage Extreme III but don't want to fill the reviews with many motherboards - and yet you have released quite a few MB reviews since then quite freely... I am starting to doubt you even had a look at the Rampage III - let alone reviewed it...

I am pissed.... There is something funky going on there at the bit-tech offices... These changes that were made in the bit-tech operation are horrible and this looks like the end of a great hardware news site.... IT ISN'T NEWS IF IT ISN'T NEW !!!

I really regret taking the stupid questionnaire and giving you praises for things that I am finding now aren't true anymore !!!

I hope you return to being a good site one day - till then.... have a good one...

 

I sense a disturbance in the force!

 

Re kzinti1 and rockyourazz - if as you seem to imply you've been reading bit-tech for a while then you know we haven't reviewed any EVGA products for years. However, recently EVGA has restructed its marketing/PR team and so is now sending out review samples.

Yes, the X58 SLI Micro is not a brand new product, but it will be new to many bit-tech readers. As for the Rampage III Extreme review, in point of fact the testing is more or less complete, but this board was tested first, and as I already explained in a previous post we're not going to put a ton of motherboard reviews up on one day/week - it simply makes no commerical sense.

As for overclocking, when it comes to QPI/Baseclock it makes precious little difference what Core i7 you use - they're all pretty much limited to 220MHz or so.

What's more, as the review states we drop the CPU multiplier anyway when overclocking, so that the motherboard is the limiting factor - not the CPU.

That being the case it makes sense to use the most power hungry/hot running CPU you can to give the motherboard a real work out, and that is the 980X.

 

And that my friends, you get a humilty lesson from BT. Well done lizard.

 

Humility? What's humility.
You must mean the humiliation of a site that kow-tows to Manufacturers so said review site can receive freebies from them. You know, instead of buying real world samples and testing them instead. Of course, you would have to start selling space to a lot of advertisers so you could afford all these terribly expensive items to review. Oops! So that's what all these pictures with prices are that are all over this site! Then what's happened to all the advertising revenue?
"The most power hungry/hot running CPU." For Overclocking? Whatever you say noo...I mean, my friend.
Yes I've been reading Bit-Tech for years. I've earned the right to comment on it as I see fit. I read the ads here, too.

 

Humility is a characteristic you seem to be missing kzinti1, along with the point.

Going around accusing us (bit-tech) of kow-towing to manufacturers is completely ridiculous and unfounded, especially as the two reviews you have commented on, this one, and the EVGA X58 SLI Micro get negative reviews and both conclusions sum up by saying you shouldn't buy either product.

As for the Core i7-980X - check the Intel datasheets if you don't believe bit-tech; it is the most power hungry LGA1366 CPU and (therefore) also runs the hottest.

 

...If I don't USE all that thinghamajig and don't overclock (apart from turboboost) I just buy a
P6T SE for 160euros?
P6X68D-E for 195euros?

 

If you're not planning on overclocking and don't need USB 3/SATA 6Gbps then yes the P6T SE is a better buy - but if you wait till Friday there's an even better board getting reviewed.

 

Great Review... I really need that Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R review! I'm really close to buying the MOBO but I'd like you guy's take on it!

Keep up the great work!

 

I have seriously been considering purchasing this board for my new PC. It may be a little bit over priced but the colours match my planned mod perfectly, the Gigabyte boards just visually don't do it for me.

 

I've just had a P6X58D-E land on my desk, all it seems to lose is the reset switch and a slightly weaker cooling system with no heatpipe between SB & NB and £30 off the price. So look out for this board if your budget is tight. I haven't tested it but given the uniformity of OC performance on most ASUS X58 boards I'm expecting it to be on par with the Premium.

 

P6X58D-E 4.5GHz OC on first boot!

 

Oh I've waited...actually I'm not sure what socket to buy, so I'm deciding on boards for both

Looks like a tie between:
GA-X58A-UD3R and GA-P55M-UD2 though

My guess is, without overclocking and with the same graphicscart (5870), the i860 would probably beat the i930 when gaming. hmmm

 

If you want SLi or CF go with 930, otherwise 860 is fine.

Settled on 4.2GHz on the P6X58D-E. Definitely worth the saving over the Premium.

 

Hello this is my first post. does bit-tech ever give up how they reached a 4.4 settings on voltages settings etc? on a P6X58D-P asus motherboard, the mult-22 is there, but how to work it on a intel 930, 4.2 and 4.3 are a simple overclock. 4.4 is tuff.

 

All you need is here: http://www.overclock.net/intel-motherboards/662236-asus-p6x58d-premium-e-thread.html#post8378283
Yes, I know they all say that they're for 920's. Most have settings listed for 930's as well. Just look through them. Read through the entire thread to learn more than you'll ever want to know about both iterations of the P6X58D motherboards.
The settings listed are also a good starting point for any X58 AFAIAC.