Hardware Asus P6X58D-E Review

A great board for an affordable yet lightning fast Core i7 PC, but can it match the Gigabyte UD3R?

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/motherboards/2010/08/20/asus-p6x58d-e-review/1

 

Black = Win.

 

is it me or first page clicky images are all thumbnails?

ninja edit: and last page.

 

Guess that's the motherboard part of my build decided then

 

Yeah the images have been left pointing as the -s.jpg files. If you change it to -l.jpg you get the larger images.

Good article though. Personally im glad to see IDE removed. It is time it just left our boards completly.

 

I've been running one of these for about two weeks now with an i7 930 @ 4Ghz with now problems at all. The board looks nice with all my other components and has a very straight forward bios (All OC settings are on the same page).

The only niggle I really had was that I couldn't comfortably fit my two Gainward GTX 460's into both 16x slots (it would scrape into the second slot with tension and it isn't even worth thinking about how that would affect thermals on the 1st card). So be careful on your card choice as the third slot cannot be upped to x16 in the Bios!

However - [H]ard|OCP has recently had a look into the performance difference between x16/x16 vs x16/x8:

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/08/16/sli_cfx_pcie_bandwidth_perf_x16x16_vs_x16x8

Makes an intesting read but the conclusion is that ther's essentially no difference!

Anyways Big up Bit-tech! - Keep up the good work!!

 

hmm.... If you dont read the title you could easily think this is another Gigabyte MOBO review

what happen with ASUS's black color... tho im not saying this blue isnt beatiful... because it is!!!!

PS: yes, pics still pointing to thumbnails

 

I assume either this or the Gigabyte will be replacing the P6X58D on the Buyer's Guide next month?

 

Lack of an IDE port is a downside?
The comments on previews and reviews of new high-end motherboards frequently bemoan the inclusion of IDE ports wasting surface space on the board!
I understand that some people still have IDE optical drives or even the occasional IDE hard drive and it's a fair point to make that it will influence the decision for some people but who buys a board like this and can't afford €25 for a SATA optical drive?

To me, the phasing out of IDE ports on enthusiast-grade motherboards is well overdue and the lack of IDE is a positive!

 

Good review...

I've had the P6X58D-E for the last couple of months, chose it over the Gigabyte X58A UD3P because of more power phases and better layout (it doesn't look cluttered like the UD3P), have a 930 @ 4.2GHz on it, more than pleased with it...
________
Squirell

 

P6X58D-E already features in buyer's guide august 2010.
Linky.

 

for server use i most likely prefer the UD3R due to 10 Sata Ports And the IDE as i would run 2008/2003 server off the IDE ports and an IDE dvd-rom, if i had the Asus motherboard would only have 7 or 6 usable ports (same as the P6T SE i have got now but that has IDE so i still have 6 usable Sata ports)

but yes IDE should die i convert them 2 IDE channels to Sata ports, the UD5 would have 12 Ports then as 6 are native 2 are Sata6 and 4 for JM Sata if they used the 4 port version of the 2port/1port IDE controller)

 

OK, thetwo boards have similar features and performance, so what about their BIOS? If the hardware can't be separated, can we have a comparison of the software? They are quite different in terms of layout, so which is better?

 

Whoops, I guess I'm just going crazy.

 

I have an original UD3R and am extremely happy with it. As far as I know, the updated versions are nearly identical save for a few features, and so if this ASUS board is anything like it, then it's likely a very good buy for anyone looking to upgrade to an LGA1366 processor (though at this point, it sounds like the socket might be dead in the water... LGA1156 might be the way to go for longevity).

 

EXACTLY! I seriously have to wonder how, with all of the harping Bit-Tech has done on the continued inclusion of PS2 ports on many motherboards, an IDE port is seen any differently. It's a completely outdated technology that needs to go the way of the Dodo. Please, don't just add a "con" for the sake of adding a "con". Make sure it's a valid negative aspect of the motherboard to the community as a whole. The lack of an IDE port has no more negative affect than having issues with Windows 7 supporting some older Windows 98 or 95 programs. If you haven't moved on, get your ass in gear I say.

 

The problem with that statement is that, on high-end motherboards with so many power phases, IDE does have a use. Extreme overclockers regularly use IDE drives when bench-testing, as the IDE controllers are much less affected by overclocking than SATA controllers, and hard drive speed often makes little/no difference to competitive benchmarks. Having said that, I think there should be a single policy for different classes of boards -for 1366 boards, is the IDE port ALWAYS a plus, or is the PCB space more important for other things?

Having said that, I think whinging about there being "only" 8 SATA ports is a bit silly. That's like saying "Oh, Steve and Mike both won the Lottery jackpot, but Mike's got a tenner in his pocket, so he's richer". Technically true, but either should be overkill for most needs.

 

Tbh it's at the point where X58 boards are all much of a muchness. Almost all boards can hit 220MHz and they all perform more or less the same. Unless money is no object you're really best off with the cheapest board, ie this or the UD3R.

 

Glad it's not significantly different (for my needs anyway) to the UDR3, since I just bought this one a couple of weeks ago.

 

Is the spacing between the x16 pci-e lanes the same as with the UD3R? I'm interested seeing as I have an SLI set up and currently with the UD3R rev1.0 both cards are almost on top of each other.