In November 2008, Intel announced a new processor microarchitecture, a new processor family with this microarchitecture, and a new socket for these processors. You can read about the details of all of the above in our special Nehalem release review. Here we will briefly mention that so far only senior Nehalem-based processors have been announced that have 4 physical cores with SMT technology (Simultaneous Multi-Threading is the well-known Hyper-Threading technology that was present in Pentium 4 processors), which provides 8 virtual cores. Such a core, manufactured using a 45-nanometer process technology, is called Bloomfield. In addition to the natural restructuring of the processor microarchitecture (changes in the cache memory hierarchy, SMT, new processor instructions, etc.), the announced models also feature an integrated memory controller - now it has moved from the chipset closer to the main consumer. The previously released Bloomfield core has a three-channel memory controller designed for DDR3-1066, while the lower-end cores based on Nehalem - Havendale (with an integrated entry-level graphics core) and Lynnfield expected in the second half of 2009 - will have a dual-channel controller, which is common for today's chipsets ...

Also Havendale and Lynnfield will communicate with the chipset via the DMI bus (which in today's solutions is connected by bridges of Intel chipsets), but Bloomfield uses for this purpose a new QPI bus, developed by Intel for connecting processors (sockets) with each other - functionally it is an approximate analogue of the HyperTransport bus widely used in AMD solutions. To be installed on a motherboard, new processors announced under the trademarks Core i7 and Core i7 Extreme Edition, of course, require a new socket - Socket 1366 (instead of the current Socket 775). Quite expectedly, most of the new pins in the socket are needed to ensure communication between the processor and memory modules; also significantly increased their representation of power / ground pins and some reserved pins (probably responsible for the second QPI channel, needed by server models based on Nehalem).

Naturally, to support all new processors, new chipsets will be required (since the former were connected to the processor via the FSB bus). In this article, we will look at the top-end X58 Express, which starts the line of Intel 5x chipsets and is intended to be paired with processors on the top-end Bloomfield core. Since there are not so many freshly released Core i7 and Core i7 Extreme Edition models, and the new socket will not remain the only new one for long, this decision is quite logical: manufacturers total now got the opportunity to make money on enthusiasts. By the time Nehalem enters the mass market segment, Intel will also release more affordable chipsets in terms of price and capabilities, motherboards on which will use a new socket (after all, those processors will have a dual-channel memory controller and another bus for communication with the chipset) - Socket 1156.

Intel X58 Express

The chipset's north bridge can no longer be called MCH ( Memory Controller Hub), Intel had to use the acronym IOH (Input / Output Hub), although, to be honest, the name of the company's south bridges (ICH) means the same - I / O Controller Hub. Well, be that as it may, for the sake of unambiguity, let's continue to call this chipset block the north bridge and take a look at its key characteristics (of which there are so few left!):

• support for new processors (presented at the time of the announcement by the Core i7 and Core i7 Extreme Edition families) based on the Nehalem microarchitecture, when connected to these processors via the QPI bus;
• 2 PCI Express 2.0 x16 graphics interfaces, with the ability to split each into two half speed or even four quarter speed graphics interfaces;
• additional PCI Express 2.0 x4 interface, with the ability to split it into two half-speed interfaces;
• dMI bus (~ 2 GB / s bandwidth) to the ICH10 / R south bridge.

Note that the top-end chipset of the new line, which was traditionally released as the first, uses the old south bridge, and the new one will appear only when the mid-range chipsets are released. However, at the moment there is objectively no need for new peripheral interfaces (except that USB 3.0 has already appeared at least on the horizon), so the use of ICH10 / R is not a disadvantage even for a top-end chipset. We also recall the functionality of the used south bridges:

• up to 6 ports PCIEx1 (PCI-E 1.1);
• up to 4 PCI slots;
• 6 Serial ATA II ports for 6 SATA300 devices (SATA-II, the second generation of the standard), with support for AHCI mode and functions like NCQ (in ICH10 this mode is guaranteed only under Windows Vista), with the possibility of individual disconnection, with support for eSATA and splitters ports;
• the ability to organize a RAID array (only for ICH10R) levels 0, 1, 0 + 1 (10) and 5 with the Matrix RAID function (one set of disks can be used in several RAID modes at once - for example, on two disks, you can organize RAID 0 and RAID 1, a separate part of the disk will be allocated for each array);
• 12 USB 2.0 devices (on two EHCI host controllers) individually disabled;
• Gigabit Ethernet MAC controller and a special interface (LCI / GLCI) for connecting a PHY controller (i82567 for Gigabit Ethernet, i82562 for Fast Ethernet);
• intel Turbo Memory support (only for ICH10R);
• High Definition Audio (7.1);
• strapping for low-speed and outdated peripherals, etc.

Now let's talk about the changes and new technologies in the chipset.

With regard to processor support, everything is very simple: the chipset has a QPI port, and any processors using this bus (the current Bloomfield core) will work in motherboards based on Intel X58. True, the maximum throughput of a QPI port may differ: 4.8 or 6.4 GT / s (billion transfers per second), which corresponds to 9.6 or 12.8 GB / s in each of the two directions simultaneously. The difference in bandwidth is determined by the type of processor used (more for the Core i7 Extreme Edition), and the higher bandwidth is provided not due to the increased base frequency (as was the case in the previous Quad-Pumped Bus FSB), but due to the increase in the multiplier relative to the base BCLK (133 MHz).

The X58 graphical interface provides in the maximum configuration available today: 2 independent PCI Express 2.0 x16 ports. True, maximum does not mean unique: X38 and X48, as well as senior NVIDIA chipsets, had exactly the same capabilities - but, of course, for Nehalem this is the first chipset with such characteristics. And for Bloomfield this is not only the first, but most likely the only chipset in general: Intel will release junior products in the 5x line only to support Havendale and Lynnfield. NVIDIA also abandoned the idea to develop a chipset for Bloomfield (although it seems to have a license for the QPI bus, so it is technically able to do it), but promises to release a new line for low-end Nehalem microarchitecture processors.

An important consequence of this refusal from NVIDIA was the long-awaited news for many: for the first time a third-party chipset received a license to support SLI. True, this permission is furnished with a number of conditions: a license will have to be obtained by a specific manufacturer for a specific motherboard model, for which a special complex procedure is provided with the introduction of identification information in the BIOS. An alternative solution recommended by NVIDIA is to install an nForce200 bridge (or even two bridges) (from NVIDIA itself) on the board. However, given the already very high cost of motherboards for Socket 1366, the number of solutions with nForce200 is expected to be extremely low. Further, since the support of the CrossFireX configuration by Intel chipsets has not gone anywhere, Intel X58 becomes an absolutely unique chipset - the first in the world with official simultaneous support for SLI and CrossFireX!

Now let's step back a little from the given specifications and take a look at the big picture. In fact, the north bridge of the X58 chipset is one large PCI Express controller for connecting external graphics. Yes, it is also involved in arbitration of data from / for the peripheral controllers of the south bridge (but at the same time it is only an extra link in the chain), and also, just "so that space does not go to waste", it has 4 extra PCI-E 2.0 lines for connecting peripherals. It would seem logical to transfer the function of providing the graphical interface to one of the other logic blocks, and reduce the processor + chipset bundle to two elements. (Recall that single-chip chipsets were regularly demonstrated by NVIDIA in the past.)

Why hasn't this solution been implemented? Well, firstly, this path is not at all necessary: \u200b\u200bthe current AMD chipsets, which are doing great on the market, use a two-bridge scheme with just such a distribution of functionality, when the north bridge is needed only as a graphics bus controller. Secondly, in addition to the need to remake the working ICH10 south bridge to support a large number of PCI Express 2.0 lanes, let us also remember about heat dissipation: the bridges responsible for two PCIEx16 ports are hot enough by themselves that their integration creates a number of problems.

Intel's current solution looks like this: X58, as a top-end chipset supporting 36 PCI-E 2.0 lanes, will be a dual-chip with traditional architecture, but for mid-range platforms that will become available in the second half of 2009, a single-chip P55 will be released (and his younger brothers). At the same time, the PCI-E 2.0 controller (albeit only for 16 lanes, as, in general, and the status of a mid-level platform should be) will be integrated not into the former south bridge, but into the then processors (with a new socket). But these processors will be relieved of the need to maintain a hot QPI bus - now it is needed to exchange data with video accelerators, because the bandwidth of one PCIEx16 (2.0) port is 16 GB / s, which is not much less than QPI when working with Core i7 processors , well, for simultaneous full loading of both graphics ports, the QPI bandwidth when working with the Core i7 Extreme Edition is not enough. (It's another matter that at the moment there are no solutions at all that provide full loading of two PCIEx16 (2.0) ports, but this is not required, since such a huge bandwidth is not required by video cards.)

Since the next Intel chipsets (at least of the mid-range) will be a slightly modified current south bridge (and would well deserve the name ICH11 instead of P5x), the processor will communicate with them via the well-known DMI bus, so it would be quite correct say that the entire north bridge of the chipset has moved to the processor.

The heat dissipation of the X58, of course, decreased in comparison with the previous top-end Intel chipsets, due to the removal of the memory controller, but in general not so much (again, let's not forget about QPI). We have combined the data on the latest Intel chipsets into a single table, although they do not create an unambiguous picture: the heat dissipation is additionally influenced by the manufacturing process of the microcircuits, which, starting with the P45, has changed to 65nm.

However, by and large, the most important consequence for us is that there are no special cooling requirements for the X58, this chipset heats up at the level of the average P45, although there is no doubt that motherboard manufacturers will try to surpass themselves in designing bulky and pompous cooling systems on their top boards.

Conclusion

It cannot be said that Intel X58 introduces any useful innovations, because of which we recommend purchasing a motherboard based on this chipset. At the same time, of course, such motherboards will inevitably be bought, because there is simply no alternative for systems for Socket 1366. Thus, if you are eager to build a computer on a top-end processor with the Nehalem microarchitecture (the current Bloomfield core), the choice is obvious, and after reading this article, you can also imagine what basic features the purchased board will have. We cannot voice any serious complaints about the X58: this is a very worthy top-level chipset with a unique feature - simultaneous official support for SLI and CrossFireX. The only drawback of systems with Socket 1366 will be the inadequately high price (even despite the rather affordable cost of the junior Core i7 processors), but this is an attribute of top-end configurations. We will remind that we will see mass systems based on Nehalem only in the second half of 2009.

The well-known version of the Chinese motherboard made by Huanan is positioned as the cheapest option for assembling a system on socket 1366. Although the motherboard is made on the Intel X58 chipset, it lacks three-channel memory (there are only 2 slots) and some other advantages. The main advantage is the price. Compared to most other boards for this socket, huanan is almost 2 times cheaper.

Characteristics

In fact, several similar models of Chinese mothers are sold at once with this name. Which one is the original Juanan, and which is his clone is almost impossible to understand now, but they are all very similar, both in appearance and in specifications.

The most popular clones are labeled x58 v311 and v108. No significant differences from the original could be found.

The parameters are not at all outstanding, but for home use it will be enough. Here's what the manufacturer claims:

The processor is powered by 4 or 6 (for x58 v311) phases, and power is supplied through an 8-pin connector. Support for both four and six-core processors is declared, including, but it is not recommended to put something more powerful than 95 W on Chinese products.

The package bundle is not rich: a disk with drivers, instructions in Chinese and a sata cable

Cooling in the form of two radiators is rather weak, it is recommended to direct at least 1 small cooler to the center of the board. By the way, there are only two connectors for them: 1 for the processor and 1 for the case fan.

Rear panel connectors

With the rest of the connectors, everything is quite standard for budget boards: 1 pci-e x16, 1 pci-e x1, 4 sata of the second version and 1 pci slot. USB as many as 10 pieces, of which there can be up to 2 usb version 3.0 (again, on a revision with dark radiators). The number of slots may vary in different versions.

Version with yellow heatsinks, 4 phases and different arrangement and number of slots

For RAM, as mentioned above, there are only two connectors, but there is support for ecc strips. Supported frequencies ddr3 1066/1333/1600 and a total maximum of 16 gigabytes of RAM.

Bios and overclocking

The board runs on the usual BIOS from American megatrends, but there are practically no overclocking settings in it. In this case, it would be reasonable to install a processor with a sufficiently high drain frequency in the board, for example.

BIOS boot screen

There are no complaints about the work itself, Windows 10 itself picked up all the necessary drivers, no errors were found in testing. The chokes whistle a little, but behind the noise of the coolers you can hardly hear it. The video card from Nvidia was identified and worked quite correctly, but with AMD there may be problems.

Introduction

Sometimes it makes sense to be patient and wait. When last November appeared high-end Intel Core i7 processors The motherboards supporting them were expensive and relatively "immature" compared to today's models. Many manufacturers have taken the following approach to introducing support for the X58 architecture: the most expensive models enter the market first. And buyers who are willing to sacrifice some features will find that the latest mainstream motherboards are more reliable than their high-end predecessors.

We observed this development process when testing first high-end platforms based on the X58 chipset costing from $ 300 and then motherboards from medium price category ($ 200-300) , and hoped to see further progress in budget models under $ 200. But circumstances have to make adjustments to our plans: prices slowly crept up.

Testing the overclocking capabilities of seven motherboards dragged on for several weeks, but during this time the price fluctuations did not stop. The recent price hikes for some motherboards would have excluded the two models from our platform review under $ 200 if this price increase had occurred prior to testing. One of the companies even gave us two models to choose from, and the board we chose exceeded the price limit, and the other did not. Since we were forced to add such a caveat, we carefully evaluated the performance-to-cost ratio of these models.

comparison table

	ASRock X58 Extreme (Revision 1.01)	Asus P6T SE (Revision 1.01G)	ECS X58B-A (Revision 1.0)
North bridge	Intel X58 Express	Intel X58 Express	Intel X58 Express
South bridge	Intel ICH10R	Intel ICH10R	Intel ICH10R
Voltage regulator	8-phase	8-phase	6-phase
BIOS	1.0 (06/11/2009)	0403 (05/19/2009)	080015 (03/23/2009)
Base frequency 133.3 MHz	133.9 MHz (+ 0.425%)	133.6 MHz (+ 0.20%)	133.3 MHz (+ 0.00%)
Clock generator	ICS 9LPRS918JKLF	ICS 9LPRS918JKLF	IDT CV193CPAG
PCIe 2.0 x16	3 (x16 / x16 / x4)	3 (x16 / x16 / x4)	2 (x16 / x16)
PCIe x1 / x4	2/0	1/0	2/1
PCI	2	2	1
USB 2.0	2 (4 ports)	3 (6 ports)	3 (6 ports)
IEEE-1394	1	1	1
Serial port	1	No	1
Parallel port	No	No	No
Drive	1	No	No
Ultra ATA-133	1 (2 drives)	1 (2 drives)	No
SATA 3Gb / s	6	6	6
4 pin for cooler	2	1	2
3 pin for fan	3	3	2
	Yes	Yes	Yes
CD Audio input	Yes	Yes	Yes
S / PDIF	Exit only	Exit only	Exit only
Power button	Yes	Yes	Yes
Reset button	Yes	No	Yes
Clear CMOS button	Jumper only	Jumper only	Jumper only
Diagnostic display	2-char	No	2-char
PS / 2	2	2	2
USB 2.0	7	6	6
IEEE-1394	1	1	1
RJ45 Ethernet	1	1	1
eSATA	1	1	2
Clear CMOS button	Yes	No	Yes
Digital audio output	Optical + coaxial	Optical + coaxial	Optic
Digital audio input	No	No	No
Analog audio ports	6	6	5
Storage controllers
Intel ICH10R	6x SATA 3.0 Gb / s	6x SATA 3.0 Gb / s	6x SATA 3.0 Gb / s
RAID Modes	0, 1, 5, 10	0, 1, 5, 10	0, 1, 5, 10
Optional SATA	JMB380 PCIe 1x eSATA 3.0 Gb / s	JMB363 PCIe 1x eSATA 3.0 Gb / s	JMB362 PCIe 2x eSATA 3.0 Gb / s
Optional Ultra ATA	VT6330 PCIe	JMB363 PCIe	No
IEEE-1394
	VT6330 PCIe 2x 400 Mbps	VT6315N PCIe 2x 400 Mbps	VT6308P PCI 2x 400 Mbps
Network
Main network controller	RTL8111DL PCIe	RTL8111C PCIe	RTL8111C PCIe
Second network controller	No	No	RTL8111C PCIe
Sound
HD Audio Codec	ALC890B	ALC1200	ALC888S

	Foxconn FlamingBlade (Revision 1.0)	Gigabyte EX58-UD3R (Revision 1.6)	Jetway BI-600 (Revision 1.0)	MSI X58 Pro-E (Revision 3.1)
North bridge	Intel X58 Express	Intel X58 Express	Intel X58 Express	Intel X58 Express
South bridge	Intel ICH10R	Intel ICH10R	Intel ICH10R	Intel ICH10R
Voltage regulator	6-phase	6-phase	6-phase	5-phase
BIOS	P05 (04/13/2009)	FB (05/04/2009)	A03 (05/15/2009)	8.2 (04/20/2009)
Base frequency 133.3 MHz	133.7 MHz (+ 0.28%)	133.0 MHz (-0.25%)	133.0 MHz (-0.25%)	133.8 MHz (+ 0.35%)
Clock generator	ICS 9LPRS139AKLF	ICS 9LPRS914EKLF	ICS 9LPRS139AKLF	ICS 9LPRS133BKLF
Connectors and interfaces on the board
PCIe 2.0 x16	2 (x16 / x16)	2 (x16 / x16)	4 (2x x16 or 4x x8)	3 (x16 / x16 / x4)
PCIe x1 / x4	1/1	2/1	0/1	2/0
PCI	2	2	1	2
USB 2.0	2 (4 ports)	2 (4 ports)	2 (4 ports)	3 (6 ports)
IEEE-1394	No	1	No	1
Serial port	No	1	1	1
Parallel port	No	No	No	No
Drive	1	1	1	No
Ultra ATA-133	1 (2 drives)	1 (2 drives)	1 (2 drives)	1 (2 drives)
SATA 3Gb / s	6	8	6	7
4 pin for cooler	1	2	1	1
3 pin for fan	2	4	2	3
Front panel audio connectors	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
CD Audio input	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
S / PDIF	Exit only	Entry + exit	Exit only	Exit only
Power button	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Reset button	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Clear CMOS button	Yes	Jumper	Yes	Yes
Diagnostic display	2-char	No	2-char	No
Connectors and interfaces on the I / O panel
PS / 2	1	2	2	2
USB 2.0	6	8	8	6
IEEE-1394	No	1	No	1
RJ45 Ethernet	2	2	2	1
eSATA	2	No	2	1
Clear CMOS button	Yes	No	Yes	No
Digital audio output	Optic	Optical + coaxial	Coaxial	Optic
Digital audio input	No	No	No	No
Analog audio ports	6	6	6	6
Storage controllers
Intel ICH10R	6x SATA 3.0 Gb / s	6x SATA 3.0 Gb / s	6x SATA 3.0 Gb / s	6x SATA 3.0 Gb / s
RAID Modes	0, 1, 5, 10	0, 1, 5, 10	0, 1, 5, 10	0, 1, 5, 10
Optional SATA	JMB363 PCIe 2x eSATA 3.0 Gb / s	JMB363 PCIe 1x eSATA 3.0 Gb / s	JMB363 PCIe 2x eSATA 3.0 Gb / s	JMB363 PCIe 1x SATA 3.0 Gb / s 1x eSATA 3.0 Gb / s
Optional Ultra ATA	JMB363 PCIe	JMB363 PCIe	JMB363 PCIe	JMB363 PCIe
IEEE-1394
	No	TSB43AB23 PCI 3x 400 Mbps	No	JMB381 PCIe 2x 400 Mbps
Network
Main network controller	RTL8111C PCIe	RTL8111C PCIe	RTL8111C PCIe	RTL8111C PCIe
Second network controller	RTL8111C PCIe	No	RTL8111C PCIe	No
Sound
HD Audio Codec	ALC888	ALC888	ALC888	ALC889

Unlike the previously tested motherboard X58 SuperComputer The ASRock X58 Extreme can support up to two graphics cards in SLI or CrossFire mode. Both slots get full PCI Express 2.0 x16 bandwidth.

Click on the picture to enlarge.

This combination provides the X58 Extreme motherboard with amazing flexibility for expansion, as many of today's competitors have sacrificed this seven-slot design. ASRock even made sure that the northbridge heatsink does not interfere with inserting a long x1 card into the top slot, although you need to be careful to make sure no protruding parts of the card (such as a resistor) contact the heatsink.

By moving the memory slots, both power sockets, and a few front panel connectors closer to the front-top edge of the board, the X58 Extreme could have the most comfortable layout we've seen in the past few years, with only one drawback: the floppy connector is located in completely uncomfortable bottom rear corner. Windows XP users will definitely need a floppy drive to install the RAID drivers during operating system setup.

Port-80's two-character diagnostic display, as well as power and reset buttons, are located in the lower front corner. While these items will not be available in a fully assembled system, they are very helpful during testing. ASRock has moved the clear CMOS button to the rear I / O panel so that it can be easily used even after installing the X58 Extreme motherboard in the case.

BIOS

The main frequencies and multipliers can be adjusted in the "Chipset Settings" submenu of the "Advanced" tab, although choosing the XMP (Extreme Memory Profile) profile does not produce the expected effect. Profile information is useful for manual configuration.

Enabling the Flexibility Option will allow the motherboard to override the memory speed settings. The "ASRock VDrop Control" option is much more useful for overclockers as it increases the CPU voltage whenever high loads cause it to drop.

The "DRAM Timing Control" menu is not as confusing as some of ASRock's competitors, although most users only need four basic latency values. It is important that the automatic mode for each setting allows you to configure only those timings with which the user is familiar.

CPU voltage can be set by adding to the nominal processor voltage or specified directly. The list of configurable items is small, but contains all the settings that most overclockers need.

ASRock X58 Extreme motherboard BIOS allows you to store three separate user profiles in "User Defaults".

Accessories

Click on the picture to enlarge.

The ASRock X58 Extreme accessory kit is one of the few indicators that this motherboard costs only $ 170 (from 7 thousand rubles in Russia). ASRock included only four SATA cables with its six-port board, but added an SLI bridge.

Using the same PCB as the model P6T from the mid-range price range, the Asus P6T SE has removed very few features and added significant money savings.

Click on the picture to enlarge.

Asus P6T SE motherboard layout is as good as the model P6T , but we still think the board would benefit if Asus placed the two (blue) PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots at least one more slot apart from each other. The white long slot is still limited to x4 bandwidth, but it's perfect for a low-end graphics card or a high-bandwidth RAID controller.

As before, we disagree with the traditional arrangement in the lower rear corner of the front panel audio connector, as it makes it very difficult to route cables to the upper bays of the tower cases. Fortunately, some of Asus's competitors have already moved away from this tradition.

Asus is one of the few companies that provides support for both LGA 1366 and LGA 775 CPU coolers. This can be a particularly valuable addition for all users who want to upgrade from an LGA 775 socket without spending a lot of money on replacing already existing water cooling system.

BIOS

All BIOS frequencies, voltages and delays are listed in the summary table in the Overclocking section.

Using the same PCB as the more expensive P6T model allowed the P6T SE to use the same BIOS as well, although Asus has updated it since we tested P6T .

The Intel XMP Profile performs exactly as we expected on all Asus motherboards we tested, which is not the case with some of the competing models. However, overclockers, even with little experience, can easily set the memory voltage and latency manually.

The voltage parameters are more detailed than you'd expect from an X58 board under $ 200, but most of the added settings are rarely used. Extreme overclockers will love this, however the settings for other components are not as detailed.

In the "DRAM Timing Control" menu, we again see unusually extensive memory settings. Fortunately, the user can set some settings manually and leave the rest in automatic mode.

The Asus EZ Flash 2 supports BIOS firmware upgrades using its own interface, eliminating the need for boot disks. The opposite of this useful feature is the automatically enabled Express Gate feature, which increases load times without adding functionality. Neither the P6T SE nor the P6T have an Express Gate module.

Accessories

Click on the picture to enlarge.

The P6T SE comes with no CrossFire or SLI bridges, and there are only four SATA cables.

Note: Asus recently updated its website for the P6T SE board, removing links to SLI compatibility.

Before writing our review, the ECS X58B-A motherboard cost around $ 200, and now it can be bought in online stores for about $ 220 (from 6.5 thousand rubles in Russia). We have included this model in today's review because we have already tested it. Hopefully the price will drop below $ 200 again.

Click on the picture to enlarge.

A quick glance at the X58B-A model showed that it differs from a typical motherboard with a Core i7 architecture no more than $ 200 only by the presence of a second network controller, although two more motherboards can be distinguished by this criterion. Other enthusiast-oriented features such as the Port 80's two-character diagnostic display, onboard power and reset buttons, and a clear CMOS button on the I / O panel are found on several other competing models.

Click on the picture to enlarge.

ECS has gotten rid of some of the legacy components still found on most motherboards, such as the Ultra ATA interface and the floppy connector. Ultra ATA is useless in new builds, and getting rid of it saves money and board space, but Windows XP users still need a floppy drive to install RAID drivers when installing an operating system. It is also worth noting that the drive interface is practically free of any costs, since the corresponding controller is still present in the multi-I / O chip.

The location of the X58 Express northbridge limits the X58B-A to six expansion slots, with an additional power connector located in the topmost slot. This made it possible to move the CPU socket and memory slots about a centimeter from the top edge of the board, although the only advantage of such an arrangement, in our opinion, may lie in easier routing and additional space between the large CPU cooler and the power supply installed above.

Thirty-six PCIe 2.0 northbridge lanes are split between two x16 full bandwidth slots and one x4 slot. The x16 slots are spaced two slot positions apart to provide more ventilation for graphics cards. The x4 slot becomes more practical if you can insert a long expansion card into it, however ECS disappointed us with the use of the slot with the "closed" end. If there was an "open" x4 slot, then it would be possible to connect an x8 RAID card or a third video card in x4 mode.

The lack of an Ultra ATA interface and a floppy connector leaves less to complain about the X58B-A's layout, but we still don't like the location of the front panel audio connector in the lower far corner. In addition, we must once again remind you that SATA ports, deployed at an angle of 90 degrees to the surface of the board, can be blocked by the lower bays of traditional case designs, although most ATX cases have already taken into account and fixed this problem.

BIOS

All BIOS frequencies, voltages and delays are listed in the summary table in the Overclocking section.

The "M.I.B II" menu of the ECS X58B-A motherboard contains a fairly short list of overclocking settings, but some of them are confusing. For example, increasing the "Performance Level" setting may actually slow down the processor speed, as the "Ultra" option lowers the CPU multiplier to 12x and locks the CPU voltage at 1.25 V.

In fact, changing the "Performance Level" value is generally the only way to change the CPU multiplier, and we had to use this setting to evaluate the overclocking capabilities of the X58B-A main bus.

The X58B-A provides a full set of memory settings, but setting the value above DDR3-1333 requires you to manually increase the Uncore Ratio so that its value is at least twice as high as the memory frequency. In addition, the board does not boot at a memory frequency lower than 1600 MHz, if the "eXtreme Memory Profile" is not selected, and using one of them increases the memory voltage to 1.76 V dangerous for the CPU! The X58B-A is one of only two X58 motherboards we had to test at DDR3-1600 instead of the DDR3-1866 commonly used in Core i7 board reviews.

Accessories

The X58B-A supports both SLI and CrossFire, but surprisingly only the CrossFire bridge is included in the package. Our surprise is that SLI-enabled graphics cards rarely (if ever) come with an SLI bridge, while CrossFire-enabled graphics cards usually come with bridges.

Click on the picture to enlarge.

We were also surprised to learn that the package includes a complete set of six SATA cables and an eSATA cable. Most board manufacturers in this price range remove a few cables to save money.

Foxconn's inexpensive overclockable motherboard is available in two versions: the one we tested and the cheaper "FlamingBlade GTI". Foxconn gave us the opportunity to choose any version of the motherboard for our review, but it seems that we made the wrong choice, since the price of the model we tested increased from $ 199 to $ 210 - up to 7.1 thousand rubles in Russia).

Click on the picture to enlarge.

Like the ECS board, Foxconn FlamingBlade supports two graphics cards that will be spaced two slots apart, which increases airflow to the top card cooler. Like ECS, Foxconn uses an x4 slot with a "closed" end, which means that it will not be possible to connect a third video card or an x8 RAID card in x4 mode. Unlike ECS, Foxconn kept the Ultra ATA interface and floppy drive connector, sacrificing IEEE-1394 FireWire to keep costs down and save space.

It's been a long time since we saw SATA connectors on Foxconn motherboards looking straight ahead. This allows the FlamingBlade to be used in tight ATX enclosures with the hard drive bay close to the front edge of the motherboard. Foxconn has positioned the SATA ports so that they do not interfere with the connection of long video cards: above the center line of the top x16 slot. This arrangement limits the length of the x1 cards to 20 cm, although this is usually sufficient.

The presence of mounts for both LGA 1366 and LGA 775 makes the FlamingBlade motherboard the best choice for upgrading older high-end systems.

However, it is not only FireWire support that is missing. FlamingBlade only supports three memory modules, the manufacturer has removed the second set of three DIMM slots that most competitors have. Simplified track routing can affect memory speed, so we expect the FlamingBlade to deliver superior speed in overclocking tests.

Speaking of the layout, one cannot fail to mention possible installation problems. The FlamingBlade board has two such problems: the front panel audio connector and the floppy connector are located in the far bottom corner, making it difficult to route cables.

BIOS

All BIOS frequencies, voltages and delays are listed in the summary table in the Overclocking section.

The "Quantum BIOS" menu contains the CPU settings, memory latency and voltage levels, distributed in different submenus; basic frequency settings are on the main page. The OC Gear submenu provides eight profiles for storing custom BIOS configurations. The only major feature we didn't find is the PCI Express frequency setting.

FlamingBlade provides automatic options for all memory timings, so the user can only tweak the ones they know.

There are no automatic voltages for adjusting the voltage, but the default values \u200b\u200blisted in the right pane can help those overclockers who inadvertently choose the wrong value.

Accessories

Click on the picture to enlarge.

The FlamingBlade ships with one angled and three straight SATA cables, but no floppy cable. The enclosed documentation makes the kit more complete only seemingly.

With three FireWire ports, four memory slots and seven expansion slots, the Gigabyte EX58-UD3R motherboard is very similar to a high-end Core 2 model. However, the LGA 1366 socket for Core i7 processors hints at something completely different. " fruit".

Click on the picture to enlarge.

Both PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots support full bandwidth. Gigabyte even provides an "open" x4 slot. Unfortunately, the battery does not allow you to insert a card longer than x4 into this slot with an "open" end. It's a shame that, unlike the EX58-UD3R, the X58B-A and FlamingBlade boards are not equipped with such a slot, because they have room for long x4 interface cards, while the EX58-UD3R has no room.

Another problem concerns the x1 slot: it is blocked by the X58 Express northbridge heatsink, so it would seem that a seven-slot card turns out to be a six-slot card in practice, at least until someone releases a 7 cm PCIe x1 card that fits in there.

Windows XP users who need to install RAID drivers during operating system installation will complain that another manufacturer has pushed the drive connector into the far bottom corner. There are also complaints about the fact that the Ultra ATA connector is too low on the board to reach the upper bay for the optical drive, but the Ultra ATA interface is no longer so relevant.

The rest of the connectors are well positioned, including the front panel audio connector, which sits just in front of the rear I / O audio connectors.

Instead of eSATA, Gigabyte has placed additional SATA ports on the board up front. This allows assemblers to choose between the front panel eSATA connectors and the SATA to eSATA pigtail. However, running ahead, let us say that this time such a "pigtail" is not included in the EX58-UD3R delivery set.

BIOS

All BIOS frequencies, voltages and delays are listed in the summary table in the Overclocking section.

The MB Intelligent Tweaker menu provides access to a wide range of frequencies and voltages that can meet the needs of most overclockers.

The "Advanced Clock Controls" menu contains the "drive strength" and "clock skew" settings.

There is an XMP Profiles setting in the Advanced DRAM Features menu, which doesn't work as we expected, but it's fine to manually configure the memory. Memory delays are configurable on a per-channel basis, but if you want to save time, there are automatic values \u200b\u200bfor you.

Advanced voltage settings include the currently popular (among manufacturers) memory voltage reference values, although we doubt many users will need them.

Accessories

Click on the picture to enlarge.

Like other motherboards under $ 200, the EX58-UD3R package could just as easily be described by naming what is not there. The board comes with only basic accessories, and those who want to get eSATA will miss the SATA to eSATA pigtail.

The cheapest motherboard in this round-up with two gigabit network ports - the Jetway BI-600 - is the only one of the three to have priced under $ 200 following recent price increases. Another unexpected feature is two eSATA ports (instead of one), although Jetway has removed FireWire to save money.

Click on the picture to enlarge.

Thus, the user gets a lot of graphics options: from using the full bandwidth of 16 PCIe 2.0 lanes for one or two video cards (including CrossFire and SLI modes) to x8 lines in 2.0 mode for four video cards (including Quad SLI and CrossFireX modes) to support a huge number of monitors with five cards. Different combinations can be used as this high bandwidth PCIe technology is applicable to high-end RAID controllers and other expansion cards as well. Collectors only need to keep in mind that each black long x16 slot shares lines with the red slot located above it, so if you do not use the black slot, then all 16 lines will be given to the corresponding red slot.

We're surprised how Jetway can afford to use all of these PCIe line switches without increasing the cost of the BI-600 board, since none of its competitors have done this. The manufacturer does not seem to be saving on other components as the BI-600 is equipped with a six-phase voltage regulator, six memory slots, a Port 80 diagnostic display, and onboard power / clear / clear CMOS buttons.

There is one oddity in the layout: the large distance between the CPU socket and the northbridge of the X58 Express, which seemed to be done to provide additional space for the ring-shaped heatpipe. The socket has been moved closer to the top edge of the motherboard, which is not the case for the memory slots; there are concerns about the board's ability to support high-speed memory above Intel's stated maximum of DDR3-1333. We spent a lot of time overclocking, and DDR3-1866 support is the minimum requirement to get the same performance as previously tested X58 motherboards.

All our complaints about the layout concern the bottom edge of the board. Starting at the far bottom corner, the front panel audio connector causes cable problems in chassis where the ports are located on the top panel. Next, the floppy connector is so far away from the typical location of external 3.5 "bays that many cables simply won't reach here. Finally, the Ultra ATA connector is located under the bottom x16 slot, which means that the cable will have to be pulled around the video card connected to this The Ultra ATA connector is unlikely to be used on newer systems, but Windows XP is still used on some machines, so a floppy drive will be needed to install the RAID drivers.

BIOS

All BIOS frequencies, voltages and delays are listed in the summary table in the Overclocking section.

BIOS of the BI-600 motherboard is the most modest in this review: there is not even a CPU Uncore voltage setting here. Due to the lack of automatic tuning, the "Uncore Frequency" value must be manually set to twice the "Memory Frequency" value for any changes to the memory frequency to be effective.

The lack of Uncore voltage setting makes it impossible (or almost impossible) to go beyond DDR3-1600 on the BI-600 board. Even more shocking, CPU voltages above 1.275 V appear to overload the motherboard's voltage regulators, causing the system to reset hard when the CPU is fully loaded. However, even 1.275V could not be obtained on the CPU core as the actual voltage was 0.20V below the set voltage.

Tuning of Jetway memory latencies is done on an all-or-nothing basis, as the BI-600 does not provide automatic values \u200b\u200bfor individual timings. If you are afraid to touch parameters such as tRRD and tRFC, you will have to leave everything in automatic mode.

Accessories

Click on the picture to enlarge.

Three x16 PCI Express 2.0 slots support two cards at full bandwidth and a third card in x4 mode. Unlike a similar board layout from Asus, MSI has allocated its x16 slots in a x16-x4-x16 pattern to provide additional ventilation for the two large graphics cards in the full bandwidth slots.

Like the Asus board, the MSI X58 Pro-E does not have a Port 80 diagnostic display.

Click on the picture to enlarge.

MSI ditched the "free" floppy connector, but kept the "expensive" Ultra ATA controller, despite the fact that Windows XP is still popular in new builds unlike Ultra ATA drives. MSI also added one eSATA port via the JMicron JMB363 controller, but if Asus doesn't have any connector for this additional internal port, then MSI has it right behind the Ultra ATA connector.

On the X58 Pro-E motherboard, the front panel audio connector is located in the most inconvenient place (in the far bottom corner, where the cables from the ports located on the top panel of the cases do not reach). MSI has added hardware bus frequency control via three switches, leaving overclocking options available via BIOS as well. However, the X58 Pro-E does not support the legacy LGA 775 coolers, which may cause confusion for some water-cooled users.

BIOS

All BIOS frequencies, voltages and delays are listed in the summary table in the Overclocking section.

MSI has never been a leader in BIOS functionality, but given the high competition in the market, it is not going to infringe on its inexpensive motherboard in terms of customization. Most of the tweaks found in the best MSI models have been carried over to the inexpensive X58 Pro-E motherboard.

The "Cell Menu" contains most of the important voltage settings (VCore-Uncore-DRAM-IOH) among others. Key frequencies and speeds can also be found here.

Memory latency was found to be basic, but you can tweak a few advanced features by switching to manual mode in the advanced settings.

The X58 Pro-E can save up to four custom BIOS profiles, and a separate menu allows you to save copies of the BIOS and update it without bootable disks.

Accessories

Click on the picture to enlarge.

MSI has included additional documentation in the box to visually enhance its base package. The X58 Pro-E specs indicate SLI support, but there is no SLI bridge among the accessories. A CrossFire bridge is included, but usually not needed since most CrossFire graphics cards come with it.

We ran some old benchmarks and used the old test configuration to compare the results with previous X58 motherboards.

System hardware
CPU	Intel Core i7 920 (2.66 GHz, 8MB cache)
Cooler CPU	Swiftech Apogee GTZ Liquid Cooling
Memory	Kingston KHX16000D3ULT1K3 / 6GX (6 GB), DDR3-2000 in DDR3-1866 CAS 7-8-7-20 mode
Video card	XFX GeForce GTX 285 XXX Edition, 670 MHz GPU, GDDR3-2500
HDD	Western Digital WD5000AAKS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3Gb / s 16MB Cache
Sound	Built-in HD Audio
Network	Integrated Gigabit Network Controller
Power Supply	CoolerMaster RS850-EMBA, 850 W, ATX12V v2.2, EPS12V
System software and drivers
OS	Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate x64 SP1
Graphics driver	Nvidia GeForce 181.20 WHQL
Platform Drivers	Intel INF 9.1.0.1007

Kingston's DDR3-2000 is no longer the fastest memory we have, but these are the modules we have in stock in two three-channel kits for testing six-module memory configurations. In addition, the use of Kingston DDR3-2000 modules allowed us to compare the results of this memory overclocking with those of previous boards.

Click on the picture to enlarge.

Zalman ZM-STF1 Thermal Paste was selected for its excellent thermal properties and convenient application method.

To reach the overclocking limit of our Core i7-920 processor, we need excellent cooling. The Swiftech Apogee GTZ cooling head quickly removes heat from the CPU using a powerful MCP-655b pump and heat exchanger with three 120mm fans.

Click on the picture to enlarge.

Tests and settings

Call of Duty: World at War	Patch 1.1, FRAPS / saved game, High Textures, No anti-aliasing (AA) / No anisotropic filtering (AF), vsync off, Ultra Textures, 4x AA / Max AF, vsync off
Crysis	Patch 1.2.1, DirectX 10, 64-bit executable, benchmark tool, Test Set 1: High Quality, No AA, Test Set 2: Very High Quality, 8x AA
Far cry 2	DirectX 10, Steam Version, in-game benchmark, Test Set 1: High Quality, No AA, Test Set 2: Ultra High Quality, 8x AA
World in Conflict	Patch 1009, DirectX 10, timedemo, Test 1: High Details, No AA / No AF, Test 2: Very High Details 4x AA / 16x AF
Audio
iTunes	Version: 7.7.0.43, Audio CD (Terminator II SE), 53 min, Default format AAC
Lame MP3	Version: 3.98 Beta 3 (05-22-2007), Audio CD "Terminator II" SE 53 min, wave to MP3
Video
TMPEG 4.5	Version: 4.5.1.254, Import File: "Terminator 2" SE DVD (5 Minutes), Resolution: 720x576 (PAL) 16: 9
DivX 6.8.3	Encoding mode: Insane Quality, Enhanced multi-threading enabled using SSE4, Quarter-pixel search
Xvid 1.1.3	Display encoding status \u003d off
Mainconcept Reference 1.5.1	MPEG2 to MPEG2 (H.264), MainConcept H.264 / AVC Codec, 28 sec HDTV 1920x1080 (MPEG2), Audio: MPEG2 (44.1 kHz, 2 Channel, 16-Bit, 224 Kb / s), Mode: PAL (25 FPS)
Autodesk 3ds Max 9	Version: 9.0, Rendering Dragon Image at 1920x1080 (HDTV)
Grisoft AVG Anti-Virus 8	Version: 8.0.134, Virus base: 270.4.5 / 1533, Benchmark: Scan 334 MB Folder of ZIP / RAR compressed files
Winrar 3.80	Version 3.70 BETA 8, Compression \u003d Best, Dictionary \u003d 4,096 KB, Benchmark: THG-Workload (334 MB)
WinZIP 11	Version 11.2, Compression \u003d Best, Benchmark: THG-Workload (139 MB)
3DMark Vantage	Version: 1.02, GPU and CPU scores
PCMark Vantage	Version: 1.00, System, Memory, Hard Disk Drive benchmarks, Windows Media Player 10.00.00.3646
SiSoftware Sandra XII SP2	Version 2008.5.14.24, CPU Test \u003d CPU Arithmetic / Multimedia, Memory Test \u003d Bandwidth Benchmark

Test results

The benchmarks are sorted in descending order of average results, so it's no surprise that the fastest motherboard at the highest test resolution has a higher average result than the one with the highest frames per second at low resolutions. Gigabyte's motherboard edged out Foxconn in the Call of Duty gaming benchmark, despite Foxconn slightly overclocking its base clock speed.

At maximum quality settings, Foxconn outperformed Gigabyte, but only by the difference in the processor clock speed. It is noteworthy that all other motherboards lag far behind in this test. Retesting did not reveal the cause, but the difference in BIOS can explain everything: it's all thanks to the implementation of Intel Turbo mode.

The Crysis test results are almost the opposite of the Call of Duty results: ECS and Asus are competing for the top spot with varying success.

Asus leads all Far Cry 2 benchmarks, but ECS is impressive in its ability to hold its second place without using the overclocked base clock speed of the CPU.

In the World in Conflict gaming test, the boards are constantly changing places, but Asus remains in the lead.

Apple iTunes inexplicably favors the EX58-UD3R. If it weren't for the oddities of the BIOS, we would expect all today's samples to encode our audio track within 1 minute 11 seconds.

In Lame coding, three leaders showed the same result, while Gigabyte mysteriously dropped to the penultimate line. It should be obvious by now that Jetway BI-600 does not support Intel Turbo mode, a technology that increases the CPU multiplier by one (multi-core operations) or two (single-core operations) steps under high CPU load.

In video encoding in TMPGEnc, the Gigabyte motherboard again took the lead.

In MainConcept H.264, ASRock and Asus did the same as Gigabyte.

In the 3ds Max 9 application, Gigabyte and ECS motherboards came in second behind the top four.

In the AVG application, the ECS board bounced upward with Foxconn, while Asus, for some unknown reason, dropped even lower than the Jetway without Turbo mode. We re-tested the P6T SE twice to ensure the correct result.

WinRAR has the biggest difference in motherboard performance.

The results in WinZip do not differ as much as in WinRAR: only the BI-600, which does not have this mode, lags behind the motherboards with Intel Turbo mode support.

In the synthetic 3DMark Vantage benchmark, there is not much difference between X58 motherboards.

EX58-UD3R crowded out the competition in PCMark Vantage. We tested the P6T SE again to double-check the result, but it turned out to be the same.

In Sandra's synthetic CPU benchmark, the top three leaders are ranked by base clock differences.

Gigabyte's small lead in memory bandwidth tests may explain some of the board's victories in other tests. ECS and Jetway were at a disadvantage due to the use of DDR3-1600 memory, as both boards were unable to operate normally with DDR3-1866 at a safe voltage level.

Due to the lack of support for Intel Turbo Boost technology, as well as due to weak voltage regulators that hinder overclocking of the board, the Jetway BI-600 was the first in our power consumption tests.

The Gigabyte motherboard has the lowest voltage regulator temperature, but the ECS X58B-A and ASRock X58 Extreme turned out to be really hot.

Since efficiency is measured as productivity per unit of energy, before calculating the average efficiency, you need to determine the average productivity. In terms of overall performance, the Gigabyte board is in the lead, despite the CPU clock speed underclocked by 0.25%, while Asus took the second place, despite its initial 0.20% overclocking. ASRock's motherboard was initially the most overclocked (0.425%), but only ranked third in overall performance.

With the lowest power consumption, Jetway BI-600 has become the most efficient board despite the performance gap.

CPU base frequency	100 - 300 MHz (1 MHz)	100 - 500 MHz (1 MHz)	133 - 511 MHz (1 MHz)
Multiplier adjustment	Yes	Yes	No
Memory frequency	BCLK x6 - x16 (x2)	BCLK x6 - x16 (x2)	BCLK x6- x12 (x2)
PCIe frequency	50 - 150 MHz (1 MHz)	100 - 200 MHz (1 MHz)	100 - 200 MHz (1 MHz)
CPU Vcore	0.84 - 2.00 V (6.25 mV)	0.85 - 2.10 V (6.25 mV)	0.50 - 1.60V (6.25mV)
Uncore voltage	1.20 - 1.90 V (70 mV)	1.20 - 1.90 V (6.25 mV)	+481 mV (12.5 mV)
	1.10 - 1.49 V (6.25 mV)	1.10 - 1.70 V (20 mV)	+693 mV (11 mV)
	1.12 - 1.56 V (20 mV)	1.10 - 1.40 V (10 mV)	+150 mV (50 mV)
Memory voltage	1.56 - 2.00 V (15 mV)	1.50 - 2.46 V (20 mV)	+945 mV (15 mV)
CAS latency range	6 - 11	3 - 11	3 - 11
tRCD	3 - 15	3 - 10	3 - 15
tRP	3 - 15	3 - 10	3 - 15
tRAS	9 - 31	3 - 31	9 - 30

Frequencies and voltages in BIOS (for overclocking)
CPU base frequency	66 - 500 MHz (1 MHz)	100 - 1200 MHz (1 MHz)	133 - 500 MHz (1 MHz)	133 - 400 MHz (1 MHz)
Multiplier adjustment	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Memory frequency	BCLK x6 - x16 (x2)	BCLK x6 - x18 (x2)	BCLK x6 - x16 (x2)	BCLK x6 - x16 (x2)
PCIe frequency	Not regulated	90 - 150 MHz (1 MHz)	Not regulated	100 - 200 MHz (1 MHz)
CPU Vcore	+1260 mV (10 mV)	0.50 - 1.90V (6.25mV)	0.80 - 1.55V (10mV)	-0.32 - +0.63 V (10 mV)
Uncore voltage	+1260 mV (10 mV)	1.08 - 2.02 V (20 mV)	Not regulated	0.88 - 1.83V (10mV)
Northbridge Voltage (IOH)	1.10 - 2.36 V (20 mV)	1.0 - 2.0 V (20 mV)	1.10 - 1.25V (50mV)	0.80 - 2.35V (10mV)
Southbridge voltage (ICH)	1.40 - 1.80 V (12 mV)	0.92 - 2.38V (20mV)	Not regulated	0.70 - 2.13V (10mV)
Memory voltage	1.50 - 2.86 V (10 mV)	1.30 - 2.60V (20mV)	1.50 - 1.65V (25mV)	1.20 - 2.477 V (10 mV)
CAS latency range	5 - 15	6 - 15	3 - 18	6 - 12
tRCD	5 - 15	1 - 15	3 - 15	3 - 15
tRP	5 - 15	1 - 15	3 - 15	3 - 15
tRAS	10 - 31	1 - 31	9 - 30	9 - 31

Most enthusiasts do not want to put up with the desire of manufacturers to sell their products at the highest possible prices, for them the main criterion is that the motherboard should provide stability after overclocking (and, preferably, be as cheap as possible). Let's see how cheap motherboards perform.

If you are willing to put up with some limitations, such as support for a maximum of three memory modules, then Foxconn FlamingBlade will provide you with exceptional overclocking. If you are looking for more traditional features, then you will like the MSI X58 Pro-E board, which came in second place in overclocking, just a little behind the leader. The overclocking result of Jetway BI-600 was affected by the limitations, which we have already discussed in detail.

The 2 MHz difference separates the ECS X58B-A from most competitors in terms of maximum base frequency.

Foxconn and Gigabyte motherboards had the highest memory frequencies, but their inability to support six memory modules ended up at the bottom of the table. Either of these motherboards would be a good choice for users looking to use only one set of memory, while the MSI X58 Pro-E leads in the six memory configuration.

Conclusion

The first overclocked motherboard, Foxconn FlamingBlade, is inferior to the second-place MSI X58 Pro-E when more than three memory slots are required. In terms of functionality, the FlamingBlade supports a second Gigabit network port, while the X58 Pro-E allows a third x16 card to be connected via the x4 slot. Both boards support two PCIe 2.0 x16 slots with full bandwidth, but this can be said for any motherboard based on the X58 chipset.

If you are more interested in performance than top-end overclocking, then you should check out the Gigabyte X58-UD3R motherboard with its eight-phase voltage regulator and two ounces of copper in layers, which help to work with less temperature. It costs the same as the X58 Pro-E model, although it provides slightly less space for memory modules and expansion cards, but the lower operating temperature makes it a reliable motherboard under high loads.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of all of us was the ASRock X58 Extreme board, which took third place in both overclocking and performance, although it is the cheapest on the international market. Compared to MSI's X58 Pro-E, X58 Extreme lacks features, but ASRock has emphasized ease of installation by placing the front panel connectors above the center line of the motherboard. ASRock even left a drive slot to make it easier to install RAID drivers during the Windows XP installation. Also, unlike the X58 Pro-E, the X58 Extreme has a Port 80 diagnostic display.

Supporting up to five graphics cards, the Jetway BI-600 motherboard offers the best combination of features and value. In addition, this board is the most efficient in terms of performance / power consumption ratio, but only when using a CPU voltage lower than stated. In terms of functionality, this is a very profitable board, however we cannot recommend it until Jetway has done some serious work on its BIOS and hope the manufacturer fixes the voltage issues.

Since the BI-600 board is out of the game, we are giving the Site Recommends award to ASRock X58 Extreme motherboard for its combination of excellent overclocking capability, good performance and lowest cost.

Click on the picture to enlarge.

The LGA1366 platform has already entered our IT life, and the corresponding Intel processors are firmly at the top of the performance ratings in almost all applications. The problem is that these systems are still quite expensive. It would seem that the novelty of the new processor architecture has already faded, and the manufacturers "skimmed the cream" and had to switch to producing cheaper and more affordable products. This is happening, but not as fast as we would like. Firstly, the range of the Core i7 processor family has remained unchanged for a long time, and the cheapest model (Core i7 920) costs more than 10 thousand rubles. Secondly, prices for motherboards are also not pleasing to the eyes of buyers and exceed the same 10 thousand rubles. The reason for this is that only one Intel X58 chipset has been released for the LGA1366 platform, which in most cases determines the high price of the finished motherboard. In addition, to assemble this system, you will need a good LGA1366 cooler, as well as a DDR3 memory kit. Moreover, DDR3 memory itself is already quite affordable, and for a system on X58 you can get by with not the fastest DDR3-1066 memory. But there is one peculiarity - for this system Intel recommends a set of three modules with the same characteristics. Accordingly, memory manufacturers take advantage of this opportunity and set somewhat overpriced prices for three-channel kits. However, marketing nuances aside, cheaper dual-channel RAM kits can be used for systems with Nehalem processors, and you won't see a significant performance drop.

All this is superimposed on the Russian reality, which is characterized by a high exchange rate of both the euro and the US dollar. But there is also encouraging news. In particular, in recent months, motherboards based on the Intel X58 chipset costing about $ 200 have appeared on the market, and one of these motherboards is participating in this comparative testing. By the way, the purpose of this review is both to summarize the first results on motherboards based on the X58 chipset (we have been testing them for almost six months), and to determine some benchmarks by which all subsequent models will be evaluated.

But, before moving on to the boards, let's say a few words about the Intel X58 chipset itself. From a technical point of view, the X58's "northbridge" is much simpler than its predecessors, the X48 and X38. The fact is that this chip does not have an integrated memory controller, which is integrated into the LGA1366 processors. Instead, the X58 has a QPI bus controller for communication with the processor. As for the PCI Express v2.0 bus support, there are no cardinal changes in this area - X58 supports only 36 lanes and supports 2x16, 4x8, and also some intermediate configurations. This allows developers to integrate AMD CrossFire support into motherboards. In addition, a long-awaited event happened - some motherboards with the X58 chipset acquired support for NVIDIA SLI technology. However, there is no merit of Intel engineers here, since SLI support is implemented in NVIDIA graphics drivers and some enthusiasts launched SLI on X48 using modified drivers a year ago. As for motherboards based on X58, almost all motherboards presented in this review support SLI officially. Although there is one board that does not mention SLI in its specifications, this trifle did not prevent us from launching it in this mode.

The X58 North Bridge is equipped with an ICH10 (R) South Bridge, to which it is connected via the DMI bus. And since the characteristics of this chip are already well known, we will not dwell on them in detail, but only briefly list them:

• support for six SerialATA II links
• 12 USB 2.0 ports
• support for gigabit network connection
• sound subsystem High Definition Audio.

In addition, the ICH10 (R) supports six PCI Express lanes that motherboard designers can use as they see fit.

Comparative table of characteristics of motherboards

Name	ASRock X58 Super Computer	ASUS P6T Deluxe / OC Palm		ECS X58B-A
Chipset	Intel X58 + ICH10R
# Of DIMM slots	6 (DDR3)
Chipset cooling (points)	Passive (3+)	Passive / active (5-)	Passive / active (5)	Passive (3+)	Passive (5-)	Passive (3)
PCIE x16 / PCIE (\u003e x1) / PCIE x1 / PCI	4/0/0/3	3/1 (x4) / 0/2	3/0/2/1	2/1 (x4) / 2/1	3/1 (x4) / 1/2	3/0/2/2
AMD CrossFire / NVIDIA SLI	+ / + (16+0+16+0; 8+8+8+8)	+ / + (16+16; 16+8+8)	+ / + (16+16; 16+8+8)	+ / + (16+16)	+ / + (16+16; 16+8+8)	+ / ? (16+16; 16+8+8)
Power circuit	8-phase	16-phase; 2-phase memory controller	16-phase; 3-phase memory controller	6-phase	12-phase; 2-phase memory controller	5-phase
Power connectors	24 + 8	24 + 8	24 + 8	24 + 8 + Molex	24 + 8	24 + 8
Number of capacitors	13x 820 uF and 4x 270 uF	15x 560 uF and 4x 270 uF	12x 560 uF, 2x 270 uF and 1x 1000 uF	11x 820 uF and 4x 270 uF	17x 820 μF and 4x 270 μF	11x 820 uF and 4x 470 uF
Sound	ALC890B	AD2000B	AD2000B on a separate board	ALC888S	ALC889A	ALC888S
Network (Gigabit Ethernet; bus type)	2x Realtek RTL8111DL (PCI Express x1)		2x Marvell 88E8056 (PCI Express x1)		2x Realtek RTL8111C (PCI Express x1)	Realtek RTL8111C (PCI Express x1)
SerialATA	7: 6 channels ICH10R + 1 channel (JMB362)	9: 6 channels ICH10R + 2 channels SATA / SAS (Marvell 88SE6320) + 1 channel (Marvell 88SE6111)		8: 6 channels ICH10R + 2 channels (JMB362)	10: 6 channels ICH10R + 4 channels (JMB363 + 2 x JMB322)	8: 6 channels ICH10R + 2 channels (JMB363)
ParallelATA	1 channel (VT6330)	1 channel (Marvell 88SE6111)	1 channel (JMB363)	-	1 channel (JMB363)	1 channel (JMB363)
USB2.0 (built-in / optional)	7 / 5	8/6; (NEC 720114) *	6 / 6	6 / 6	8 / 4	6 / 6
IEEE-1394 (embedded / optional)	1 / 1	1 / 1	1 / 1	1 / 1	1 / 2	1 / 1
Size, mm	245x305	245x305	269x305	245x305	245x305	245x305
BIOS	AMI BIOS	AMI BIOS	AMI BIOS	AMI BIOS	Award BIOS	AMI BIOS
Vcore	0.84375 V to 1.6 V (0.00625 V)	0.85V to 2.1V (0.00625V)	0.85V to 2.5V (0.00625V)	0.5V to 1.6V (0.00625V)	0.5V to 1.9V (0.00625V)
Vmem	1.53 V to 2.451 V (0.015 V)	1.5V to 2.46V (0.02V)	1.5V to 2.5V (0.01325V)	+0 to +0.63 V (0.01 V)	1.3V to 2.6V (0.02-0.1V)	1.2V to 2.77V (0.01V)
Vsb / Vsb-io	1.12 V to 1.56 V (0.02 V)	1.1V to 1.4V (0.02V)	1.1V to 2.0V (0.01325V)	+0.05 V to +0.15 V (0.05 V)	0.92 V to 2.38 V (0.02 V)	0.7V to 2.13V (0.01-0.05V)
Vtt	+0 to +0.3 V (0.1 V)	1.2V to 1.9V (0.00625V)	1.2V to 2.5V (0.00625V)	+0 to +0.63 V (0.01 V)	1.075 V to 2.015 V (0.02 V)	-0.32 V to +0.63 V (0.01 V)
Vioh	1.11 V to 1.49 V (0.12 V)	1.1V to 1.7V (0.02V)	1.1V to 2.2V (0.01325V)	+0 to +0.63 V (0.01 V)	1.1V to 2.0V (0.02V)	-
Vpll	1.82 V to 2.5 V (0.02 V)	1.8V to 2.5V (0.02V)	1.8V to 2.5V (0.01325V)	-	1.8V to 2.52V (0.02V)	1.0V to 2.43V (0.01-0.05V)
QPI; MHz (step)	100 to 300 MHz (1)	100 to 500 MHz (1)	100 to 500 MHz (1)	133 to 511 MHz (1)	100 to 1200 MHz (1)	100 to 400 MHz (1)
Real overclocking (Core i7 920), MHz	180	200	212 *	180	200	200
Dynamic overclocking	-	-	-	-	C.I.A 2	-
Memory subsystem (points)	3+	5	5+	3-	5+	3+
System monitoring (points; fan-control)	4 (Quiet Fan)	5- (Q-Fan 2)	5+ (Q-Fan 2)	3 (Smart Fan)	4 (Smart Fan)	4 (Smart Fan)
Package (features)	4+	4+	5	2+	n / a	2+
Number of FAN	5	5	8 *	4	6	3
Features:	Combi eSATA / USB port; BIOS profiles (3)	AI Proactive support (AI Overclock, AI Net 2, OC. Profile (2), EZ Flash 2, CrashFree BIOS 3, MyLogo 3); ASUS Express Gate; Power and Reset buttons;	AI Proactive support (+); there are no LPT and COM ports on the rear panel, no PS / 2 for the mouse; Power, Reset, CMOS buttons; ProbeIT; TweakIT; LCD Poster module; DieHard BIOS;	Power / Reset / CMOS buttons; seven-segment POST indicator; there are no LPT and COM ports on the rear panel;	DualBIOS support, EasyTune Center, FaceWizard, @BIOS, BIOS profiles (8); Power / Reset / CMOS buttons; seven-segment POST indicator;	Support for Dual CoreCenter, LiveUpdate, DigiCell; Power / Reset / CMOS buttons; there are no LPT and COM ports on the rear panel;
Average price according to Market.3DNews, rubles:	There is no data	There is no data	There is no data	There is no data	There is no data	There is no data

In the table, we have used the * symbol to denote a feature or record value. Before moving on to the tests, let's consider the features of the participants in this summary review in a little more detail.

ASRock X58 SuperComputer

The first impression of the ASRock X58 SuperComputer motherboard was pretty positive. Firstly, I liked the box, and even more - its contents, which include connecting bridges for both AMD and NVIDIA video cards. The set includes two CrossFire "bridges", which allows you to combine three AMD video cards into an array. And if a user has two or three NVIDIA video cards, he can also combine them into an SLI bundle using the appropriate "bridges". Since the SLI technology with two video cards can operate in several slots, accordingly, the box contains connecting "bridges" of different lengths (the total number of SLI "bridges" is three).

This brings us to another distinctive feature of the ASRock X58 SuperComputer - it has four PCI Express x16 slots. Of course, the total number of PCI-E bus lines has remained unchanged, but the user has a unique opportunity to use three video cards for a powerful graphics subsystem + the ability to operate a fourth video card.

Four PEG slots are the main advantage of this board, since all other reviewers have at best three PEG slots.

The rest of the ASRock X58 SuperComputer's expansion options are in line with the high-end level of the board and include two Gigabit LAN controllers, built-in HD sound, USB and FireWire ports, and support for seven SerialATA II links.

ASRock engineers have always been known for their non-trivial approaches to motherboard design. They distinguished themselves this time too. In particular, an additional JMB362 controller was installed on the board, which supports two SerialATA II links. However, only one port is implemented, which is located on the rear panel of the board.

Moreover, physically and electrically, this port is compatible with the USB interface. Thus, this connector can be used for both SATA and USB devices. Another oddity is the use of a rather rare VIA VT6330 controller, which provides support for the ParallelATA interface and the FireWire serial bus.

With the BIOS settings, everything turned out to be slightly different from other manufacturers. For example, to get into the BIOS, you need to press not the usual Del key, but for some reason F2. As for the interface and grouping of settings, ASRock X58 SuperComputer is a great original in this respect. However, the main functions are easily found, like, in particular, memory settings and system monitoring.

As for the overclocking functions, they are present on the board:

And they work quite acceptable. In particular, we have reached QPI \u003d 180 MHz. However, there is also a drawback, which is that with optimistic settings, the system "hangs" tightly. In this case, only a full CMOS reset helps. However, this flaw is somewhat compensated by the support for CMOS profiles:

We also note a pretty good processor power converter, the power elements of which are located under an additional radiator.

Preliminary conclusion - on the whole, ASRock X58 SuperComputer is a very interesting product based on Intel X58 chipset. However, its main advantage - four PCI Express x16 slots, is apparently the only one. The fact is that ASRock set a rather high price for this motherboard, which is commensurate with similar ASUS motherboards. As a result, we came to the conclusion that the ASRock X58 SuperComputer is a niche product and we recommend it only to those users who absolutely need an LGA1366 platform with four PCI Express x16 slots. Pros:

• 8-phase processor power supply;
• the presence of four slots PCI Express x16 v2.0;
• serialATA II / RAID support (seven channels; ICH10R + JMB362);
• support for one P-ATA channel (VIA VT6330);
• a wide range of proprietary ASRock technologies (OC Tuner, IES, CMOS profiles, Quiet Fan, etc.);
• passive cooling system for the chipset and power supply module.

Minuses:

• overcharge.

Features of the board:

• there are no LPT and COM ports on the rear panel;
• combined eSATA / USB port.

Detailed board overview ASRock X58 SuperComputer

ASUS P6T Deluxe / OC Palm

As befits the leader of the motherboard market, ASUS has the widest range of products based on the Intel X58 chipset, which includes nine (!) Models. Two of them belong to the professional series (Professional), two to the gaming (Republic of Gamers) and as many as five models are intended for the rest of the users. Of these, P6T Deluxe / OC Palm is the most powerful and functional board and is the embodiment of all the advanced ASUS technologies. The company's engineers tried to make the board as versatile and interesting as possible.

Let's start with the package bundle, which includes the OC Palm module, which is the familiar ASUS ScreenDUO device, which we reviewed in detail a year and a half ago. However, the board does not fully use its potential - only overclocking functions are implemented. There is also a pair of SAS cables in the package, and the board itself supports two corresponding channels using an additional Marvell 88SE6320 controller. In total, the board supports nine SerialATA links, six of which are implemented with the capabilities of the ICH10R "south bridge", and one more (the corresponding port is located on the rear panel) - using the 88SE6111 controller.

SAS technology stands for Serial Attached SCSI and is a transition interface from parallel SCSI to more convenient and efficient serial. The main difference between SAS and SATA is two independent channels for data transfer, but SAS is backward compatible with SATA. This means that you can easily connect SATA drives to the SAS controller.

The board has onboard HD sound, two gigabit network controllers, and a FireWire serial bus controller. We should also mention the support for USB 2.0, the number of ports of which, in most cases, is determined by the capabilities of the "south bridge". For the ICH10R, this number is 12, but ASUS engineers "used up" two ports for installing the ExpressGate hardware module (an embedded cut-down version of Linux), and the number of free ports was reduced to ten, which is completely unacceptable for a high-end motherboard. Therefore, an additional NEC 720114 controller is installed on the board, which supports four additional USB 2.0 ports.

As for the graphics subsystem, the board has three PEG slots:

One more PCI Express slot is allocated four lanes, and its back wall is cut out. Theoretically, this allows installing a fourth video card, but in practice the card will run into the cooling system.

The rear panel features a single PS / 2 port that allows you to connect either an appropriate mouse or keyboard.

We will also mention the power and reset buttons, which are located near the "south bridge".

The memory settings section will delight computer enthusiasts with a large number of timings:

In contrast, the system monitoring section contains only a standard set of sensors and functions.

We can talk for a long time about the BIOS of the ASUS P6T Deluxe. Here you can find the function of saving / loading CMOS profiles (OC Profile), and the emergency firmware recovery technology (CrashFree BIOS 3), and the EZ Flash 2 utility. The story about the energy-saving EPU hardware and software technology may take even longer. But we'd better move on to overclocking:

The overclocking potential of the board is quite high, which is not least due to the rather powerful 16-phase power converter.

Moreover, the memory controller built into the LGA1366 processor has an independent 2-phase converter, which also increases stability at non-standard frequencies. In practice, we have achieved a stable QPI frequency of 200 MHz, but with the latest BIOS firmware this result can be 10 MHz higher.

The preliminary conclusion is that ASUS P6T Deluxe / OC Palm is a computer analogue of the universal Swiss knife, and in any field this product is among the leaders. The only thing we thought was superfluous on the board was the OC Palm module. Therefore, if you have a choice, we advise you to purchase a board without it, unless the board is purchased as a gift.

Pros:

• high stability and performance;
• 2-phase power supply of the memory controller;
• sAS / SerialATA II / RAID support (nine channels; ICH10R + Marvell 88SE6320 + Marvell 88SE6111);
• support for one P-ATA channel (Marvell 88SE6111);
• high Definition Audio 7.1 sound + two network controllers Gigabit Ethernet;
• support for USB 2.0 (14 ports) and IEEE-1394 (FireWire; two ports);
• a wide range of ASUS proprietary technologies (PC Probe II, EZ Flash 2, CrashFree BIOS 3, MyLogo 3, Q-Fan 2, etc.);
• an additional set of AI Proactive technologies (AI Overclock, OC Profile, AI Net 2, etc.);
• passive / active cooling system for the chipset and power supply module;
• power and Reset buttons;
• support for ASUS Express Gate technology.

Minuses:

• not found.

Features of the board:

• there are no LPT and COM ports on the rear panel; combo PS / 2 connector.

Detailed board overviewASUS P6T Deluxe / OC Palm

The Extreme version of ASUS Rampage II fully justifies its name - it is really "extreme". First, it is the largest (269x305 mm) and, thanks to the massive cooling system, the heaviest. Secondly, it is the most expensive of the reviewed products ($ 350-370). Third, the board allows extreme overclock the processor and reach its technological limit. In particular, we achieved FSB \u003d 212 MHz, and also overclocked the test processor to 4.0 GHz.

This board belongs to the Republic of Gamers series, which is becoming more and more focused on overclockers. The previous generation of this series had several key features. In particular, the expansion options were somewhat weaker than those of similar high-end ASUS motherboards, the package bundle was slightly richer (including the disc with the popular game), and the cooling system was much more powerful. Almost half of the motherboards from the ROG series had a built-in water block on the "north bridge" of the chipset, which was perfectly combined with very powerful overclocking functions.

As for the Rampage II Extreme board, there are some changes to the ROG concept worth noting. First, in terms of expansion options, the board is practically on a par with P6T Deluxe. Secondly, the disc with the game is excluded from the package bundle, and thirdly, there is no water block.

The latter point is explained by the fact that the thermal load on the X58 "north bridge" is much less and not so critical for overclocking, since the memory controller migrated from the chipset directly to the processor.

However, ASUS engineers left the technical possibility of installing a liquid cooling system. But for overclocking this is not the main thing - the design of the PCB, the corresponding overclocking functions and power converters are much more important. In particular, the PWM of the processor is made according to the 16-phase scheme, and the power converters of the memory controller, the memory modules themselves and the "north bridge" are made according to the three-phase scheme.

Let's list the expansion options - two Gigabit LAN controllers, two FireWire ports and an additional SerialATA / ParallelATA / RAID controller.

We also note support for 12 USB 2.0 ports and an 8-channel audio subsystem on a separate SupremeFX II board. In addition, the board has three PCI Express x16 slots, two PCI Express x1 slots and one PCI slot.

As you can see, ASUS engineers have completely abandoned support for the LPT port and COM ports. There is also no PS / 2 connector for connecting a mouse. But there are USB 2.0 ports in abundance, there is a FireWire port, a SATAII port, a button for resetting CMOS settings (works only with a certain position of the CLRTC_SW switch), as well as a connector for an LCD Poster.

In addition, the board has buttons for turning on the system and rebooting, as well as a joystick and a couple of buttons for the LCD Poster.

We will also mention the jumper for forced selection of the BIOS chip. The fact is that the board has two BIOS chips and, if necessary, the user can set the active one.

For overclockers who are constantly experimenting with different BIOS firmware, the backup chip is a big plus.

As for the BIOS itself, the board boasts a very large set of RAM settings.

System monitoring is also performed at a very high level. In particular, the board displays the current values \u200b\u200bof the processor and system temperatures, temperatures of the north and south bridges, as well as temperatures from three additional temperature sensors included in the package. In addition, the board monitors voltages and rotational speeds of all eight fans, six of which support the Q-Fan2 function to adjust the cooler rotation depending on the temperature of various components.

In addition, ASUS Rampage II Extreme can save all BIOS settings in memory and load them if necessary. It supports eight (!) Independent profiles:

The overclocking capabilities are concentrated in the "Extreme Tweaker" section and are free of any drawbacks:

With ASUS Rampage II Extreme we achieved stable system operation at a record (for our testlab) frequency of QPI \u003d 212MHz.

To summarize, we can compare the ASUS Rampage II Extreme motherboard with a Formula 1 car, which is designed to achieve the highest speed. However, in our case, this car is equipped with air conditioning, a TV and a trunk for sacks of potatoes, and also knows how to cook borscht. In other words, you can use Rampage II Extreme to build a computer for any task, and in any case, this board will show its best side. However, its main purpose is overclocking and stable operation at ultra-high frequencies. That is why it costs $ 70 more than an almost similar motherboard ASUS P6T Deluxe. Pros:

• high stability and performance;
• 16-phase processor power supply;
• 3-phase power supply for the memory controller, north bridge and memory modules;
• support for NVIDIA SLI / 3-Way SLI and AMD CrossFireX technologies;
• serialATA II / RAID support (eight channels; ICH10R + JMicron JMB363);
• support for one P-ATA channel (JMicron JMB363);
• high Definition Audio 7.1 sound (on a separate board) + two network controllers Gigabit Ethernet;
• support for USB 2.0 (12 ports) and IEEE-1394 (FireWire; two ports);
• a wide range of ASUS proprietary technologies (PC Probe II, EZ Flash 2, CrashFree BIOS 3, MyLogo 3, Fan Xpert, etc.);
• an additional set of AI Proactive technologies (AI Overclock, OC Profile (eight profiles), AI Net 2, Turbo-V, EPU, etc.);
• probeIT technology; TweakIT technology, LCD Poster module and on-board controls;
• dieHard BIOS technology (two BIOS chips);

Minuses:

• overcharge.

Features of the board:

• powerful overclocking functions, and excellent results;
• there are no LPT and COM ports on the rear panel, no PS / 2 for the mouse;
• non-standard board dimensions.

Detailed overview of boards

ECS X58B-A

When we received and tested the ECS X58B-A board, we came to the conclusion that this product is a good realization of the potential of the Intel X58 chipset.

The board has quite powerful expansion options, which include two Gigabit LAN controllers, HD audio, two FireWire ports, and an additional dual-link SerialATA controller.

As the latter, ECS engineers used the JMB362 chip, and the corresponding ports are brought out to the rear panel of the board. And right there we note that the board lacks support for ParallelATA and FDD interfaces.

In addition, the board has two PCI Express x16 slots, two PCI Express x1 slots, one PCI Express x4 slot and one PCI slot.

The rear panel of the board has the following configuration:

Pay attention to the button for resetting CMOS settings. In addition to it, there are a couple of buttons on the board - power on (Power), reboot (Reset), as well as a seven-segment indicator of POST codes.

In BIOS settings, ECS X58B-A is slightly inferior to its competitors. This applies to both the RAM settings,

So is the system monitoring section.

The overclocking capabilities are implemented better, which, despite the rather modest power converter, allowed us to increase the QPI bus frequency to 180 MHz.

Before the release of this board in the public domain, we assumed that it would become a cheap alternative to the high-end "Big Three" boards. However, at the time of this comparative testing (end of April 2009) it turned out that there are cheaper motherboards based on X58 with similar technical characteristics. Pros:

• the presence of two slots PCI Express x16 v2.0;
• support for NVIDIA SLI and AMD CrossFire technologies;
• serialATA II / RAID support (eight channels; ICH10R + JMB362);
• high Definition Audio 7.1 sound + two network controllers Gigabit Ethernet;
• support for USB 2.0 (12 ports) and IEEE-1394 (FireWire; two ports);
• passive cooling system for the chipset and power supply module;
• power and Reset buttons; Reset CMOS button;
• seven-segment indicator of POST-codes.

Minuses:

• not found.

Features of the board:

• there are no LPT and COM ports on the rear panel;
• no support for ParallelATA, FDD.

Detailed overview of boardsECS X58B-A

Traditionally, high-end motherboards from Gigabyte have had the best expansion options and have won our awards many times. In this respect, Gigabyte EX58-UD5 may well continue this tradition.

Let's start with the fact that the board has a record number of SerialATA links - ten. Six of them are implemented by the capabilities of the ICH10R "south bridge", and the other four - using a bundle of a Gigabyte SATA2 controller (JMB363) and two JMB322 controllers. This scheme provides users with considerable flexibility in organizing RAID arrays and, in particular, allows you to implement the very interesting modes SAFE50 and SAFE33. In total, 12 hard drives (ten SATA II + two PATA) can be connected to the Gigabyte EX58-UD5 board.

The same can be said about the number of FireWire ports - there are three of them. This is not a record, but still more than the competition. The rest of the features are almost standard - two gigabit LAN controllers, 12 USB 2.0 ports and built-in HD sound.

The slot configuration is richer than the standard one - three PCI Express x16 slots, a couple of PCI slots, one PCI Express x4 slot and one PCI Express x1 slot.

We liked the back panel for its functionality. In particular, it has eight (!) USB 2.0 ports, optical and coaxial SP-DIF outputs, a FireWire port and a CMOS reset button.

The board also contains buttons for turning on and restarting the system. However, Gigabyte's marketers spared a couple of cents for the latter, and its pitiful appearance spoils the impression of the entire board. This trifle is more than compensated for by the presence of a seven-segment indicator of POST-codes on the board, as well as extremely extensive RAM settings.

System monitoring, by contrast, is much more modest.

In particular, we did not like the lack of information on voltages of +12 V and +3.3 V. But we liked that the Gigabyte EX58-UD5 board allows saving all BIOS settings in memory and loading them if necessary. In total, it supports eight independent profiles:

Overclocking capabilities are implemented well, without any significant drawbacks:

This was confirmed in practice when we reached a stable frequency of QPI \u003d 200 MHz. And, completing the topic of overclocking, we note two significant points. First, the board has a rather powerful processor power converter, which is made according to a 12-phase scheme.

Secondly, the Gigabyte EX58-UD5 board is the only one of the tested models that has a dynamic overclocking mechanism.

In general, this motherboard is made at a fairly high level, has no significant flaws, but has the best expansion options in its class. We were very pleased with the retail price, which at the time of testing was around $ 275, which is $ 25 cheaper than the ASUS P6T Deluxe motherboard. Pros:

• high stability and performance;
• 12-phase processor power supply;
• 2-phase power supply for the "north bridge" and memory modules;
• the presence of three slots PCI Express x16 v2.0;
• support for NVIDIA SLI / 3-Way SLI and AMD CrossFireX technologies;
• serialATA II / RAID support (ten channels; ICH10R + 2 x JMicron JMB322);
• support for one P-ATA channel (Gigabyte SATA2);
• high Definition Audio 7.1 sound + two network controllers Gigabit Ethernet;
• support for USB 2.0 (12 ports) and IEEE-1394 (FireWire; three ports);
• a wide range of proprietary Gigabyte technologies (C.I.A2, EasyTune 6, FaceWizard, @BIOS, etc.);
• support for Ultra Durable 3, Dynamic Energy Saver Advanced technologies, BIOS profiles;
• passive cooling system for the chipset and power supply module;
• power and Reset buttons; reset button CMOS;
• seven-segment indicator of POST-codes;
• virtual Dual BIOS technology (two BIOS chips).

Minuses:

• not found.

Features of the board:

• powerful overclocking functions and excellent results;
• no support for LPT and COM ports.

Detailed overview of boards

So, we move on to the last but very interesting motherboard - MSI X58 Pro. First of all, it attracts with its price of $ 200, and the board looks like a more expensive product.

Indeed, MSI engineers have “hidden” savings - they have installed only one gigabit network controller and programmatically disabled NVIDIA SLI technology. This is either childish naivety or a subtle marketing calculation, since the SLI technology is "turned on" back by flashing the BIOS from the MSI X58 Pro SLI model.

So, the board has three PCI Express x16 slots, two PCI Express x1 slots and two PCI slots.

The rest of the expansion options include the already mentioned network controller, two FireWire ports, an additional SerialATA / ParallelATA / RAID controller (eight SATA channels + one PATA channel in total), as well as 12 USB 2.0 ports and built-in 8-channel audio.

The rear panel configuration does not contain legacy LPT and COM ports. However, one COM port is implemented using a bracket that is not included in the bundle.

There are no traditional jumpers on the MSI X58 Pro board, and the corresponding button (located on the left edge of the board) is used to reset the CMOS settings. There are also buttons for starting and restarting the system, as well as a block of three dip-switches, which are responsible for the starting frequency of the QPI bus.

As for the BIOS, we had no complaints about the RAM settings,

as well as to the section of system monitoring.

We especially note that the MSI X58 Pro board allows saving all BIOS settings into memory and loading them if necessary. It supports four independent profiles:

The overclocking turned out to be surprisingly good - the board worked stably at QPI \u003d 200MHz. And this despite the fact that this MSI board has the most modest cooling system for the chipset and power converter, and the PWM itself is made using a cheap 5-phase scheme.

Separately, we note that the successful launch of SLI will not be reflected in the conclusions in any way, since it is a non-standard feature of the MSI X58 Pro motherboard. However, this product is good even without SLI, since it matches the characteristics of most X58-based motherboards and at the same time costs $ 200, which is noticeably cheaper than other competitors, the price of which starts at $ 250. Pros:

• high stability and performance;
• the presence of three slots PCI Express x16 v2.0;
• support for AMD CrossFireX technologies;
• serialATA II / RAID support (eight channels; ICH10R + JMB363);
• support for one P-ATA channel (JMB363);
• high Definition Audio 7.1 sound + Gigabit Ethernet network controller;
• support for USB 2.0 (12 ports) and IEEE-1394 (FireWire; two ports);

conclusions

Summing up the results of the comparative testing is complicated by the fact that the comparison did not work out as such, since all the presented motherboards are in different price categories. Exceptions are ASRock X58 SuperComputer and ASUS P6T Deluxe, which average $ 300. In this case, the choice between them is quite simple - if there is a need for four PCI Express x16 slots, then we buy ASRock. In all other cases, the ASUS board looks preferable.

The next alternative to ASUS P6T Deluxe is the Gigabyte EX58-UD5 model, which has slightly better expansion options and at the same time costs a little less (about $ 275). There is no fundamental difference between the boards, and we find it difficult to choose the best one. Most likely, the choice should be made based on personal experience and preferences, as well as taking into account the need for additional proprietary technologies (here a slight advantage for ASUS).

On the next board - ECS X58B-A, we didn't have any hesitation. With a price tag of $ 250, we do not recommend it for purchase. The fact is that the MSI X58 Pro motherboard is widely available with almost the same technical characteristics and costs only $ 200.

The differences between them are in details - the MSI board does not have a second network controller, while the ECS board lacks support for ParallelATA and FDD. Besides, the MSI board overclocks better and shows results comparable to the Gigabyte EX58-UD5 and ASUS P6T Deluxe.

And since we're talking about overclocking, let's move on to the most expensive motherboard - ASUS Rampage II Extreme, which costs $ 350-370.

In fact, this is the best overclocking motherboard ever. There are also very good overclocking motherboards based on X58 by DFI and EVGA, but they are not available in Russian stores. Also note that overclocking is the main advantage of the Rampage II Extreme, but far from the only one. And in all other areas, this product is very, very competitive. But we cannot forget about one drawback - this is a very mean equipment. For $ 360, the box with the board should be large and heavy, and the inventory should take more than one page. In addition, this board belongs to the Republic of Gamers series and just because of the name it is simply obliged to have a popular game in the bundle (all previous ROG boards were equipped with STALKER or Company of Heroes).

General conclusions for all motherboards - we did not find a frankly bad product among the reviewed models. And even those boards that we do not recommend buying are technically quite suitable for use. But the problem is that they are much more expensive than their direct competitors - i.e. the problem is not in terms of stability or functionality, but the "wrong" pricing. Moreover, manufacturers do not cut prices simultaneously, but based on their own plans. And it is quite possible that in a couple of months other models will become more attractive in terms of price / quality ratio.

Since motherboards with 1366 connector have been on the market for about two years, in order to interest the buyer, manufacturers have to come up with something newer than the inscriptions on the box "super-capacitors" or "mega-overclocking".

ASUS decided to move away from glamorous trinkets with colorful lights and began to release TUF (The Ultimate Force) motherboards. All solutions in this series are positioned as devices with increased reliability due to the application of military standards. The first motherboard in this series is the famous ASUS i55 Sabertooth. Of course, the flagship line could not stand aside, and therefore, we meet - ASUS X58 Sabertooth. It should have inherited all the best from its younger sister on the i55 logic and, quite possibly, add something exclusive to the 1366 processors.

advertising

I will try to study the board from different angles, test it for overclocking in comparison with competitors, and identify strengths and weaknesses. Let's see if the new product has the right to belong to the TUF series.

Packaging and equipment

Let's start our review of the motherboard by examining the packaging and packaging.