ASUS P6T - Not the Deluxe Version but equally impressive...
by Gary Key on December 26, 2008 12:15 AM EST- Posted in
- Gary's First Looks
The competition in the X58 market is finally heating up and that is good news for enthusiasts and buyers alike. The retail introduction of the Foxconn BloodRage and DFI LP X58-T3eHS at the $299.99 price range is significant in this market sector as both boards were expected to be priced near the $400 mark. This pricing strategy should drive down the cost of the current $300 boards shortly, provided their performance and stability are on par or better than current products. This is something we should find out shortly as Raja has been busy testing these boards against the EVGA X58 SLI with the sub-zero setup.
In the meantime, the lower end (not really considering the price point is $210~$250) of the X58 market is starting to heat up, finally. Gigabyte has introduced their GA-EX58-UD3R product at $210 that is a well rounded board but with CrossFire support only. Gigabyte just introduced their UD4P board with CrossFire and SLI support in the $270 range. The MSI X58 Platinum (CrossFire only) is available for $220 and after the latest BIOS, this board is really starting to look an excellent performer for the money. Biostar's TPower X58 is another mid-level X58 product selling for $270 that supports CrossFire and SLI. We just purchased this board and the Gigabyte UD4P for our retail customer experience program discussed in our X58 roundup and should have results shortly.
All that said, we had a very interesting delivery a couple of days ago. ASUS dropped off their new P6T board that offers CrossFire and SLI support along with a smorgasbord of features for $250. Our first experiences with this board have been excellent with both performance and stability matching that of the $300 boards. To be honest, we think it is probably a better upgrade option than the $300 boards for users looking to move to the i7 platform that are not interested in extreme overclocks or rarely utilized features. Is it better than the Gigabyte and Biostar $270 boards? We have not had enough test time with the other boards yet to make a decision, but it appears they are basically equal when overclocking with an air cooler while application performance is just slightly better on the P6T.
Those wondering what the differences between the P6T and P6T Deluxe can refer to this chart. The quick run down is a change from the 16+2 phase setup to an 8+2 setup that we find just as stable so far, a single Realtek Gigabit LAN controller instead of dual Marvell controllers, Marvell SAS support is dropped but the two additional SATA ports are retained via a JMicron JMB322, and on-board audio switches from the ADI AD2000B to the Realtek ALC 1200 chipset. The P6T features true dual-slot card three-way CrossFire or SLI support compared to the two-way dual-slot card support on the Deluxe board. Also, the P6T features both an LGA 775 and 1366 mounting hole pattern that allows current LGA 775 liquid cooling users to retain their setup. We still recommend that air cooler users utilize an LGA 1366 setup (native or mount kit update) although you could get by with a LGA 775 design in a pinch.
We will have a first look up shortly featuring the BIOS layout and initial overclock results against our other mid-range boards, but in the meantime we think ASUS has a potential winner here.
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MavAnan - Tuesday, October 13, 2009 - link
Did that ever happen?
MavAnan - Tuesday, October 13, 2009 - link
"We will have a first look up shortly featuring the BIOS layout and initial overclock results against our other mid-range boards, but in the meantime we think ASUS has a potential winner here."Did that ever happen?
Eru The One - Tuesday, January 20, 2009 - link
I have been pouring over reviews for the last three days comparing any x58 motherboard review I can find. I feel i've narrowed my choice down to the Gigabyte Extreme but I have yet to see anyone comparing DFI's new x58 against anything.I think I should wait before I see someone doing this before I make my final choice. Can you guys at AnandTech help me out here?
PhxKen - Saturday, January 10, 2009 - link
This stinks. Was about to buy; then heard version 2 was announced. Folks, version 2's are fixes and/or improvements on roll-out beta's, er, originals. But Asus has made this version a down-grade, with the only spotted diff found with no more SAS support in the features table. If you aren't wondering what else was quietly modified... you aren't curious enough. Vendors still hawk suspicious V1's, with no mention nor availability of V2's to be found anywhere.Alert!: There is a bounty out for V2 info!
haysdb - Friday, January 30, 2009 - link
The V2 board is starting to appear around the world. I have seen it listed as "In stock" in Australia, the UK, and Canada. An online store in the U.S. today told me they expected to receive boards "the second week of February."nilepez - Sunday, December 28, 2008 - link
Remember when people OCed to increase the bang for the buck? That's surely not the case these days. $400 for a MB? I can remember when $200 was the price for a moderately discounted high end enthusiast board, while cheaper enthusiast boards ranged from 130-170.Motherboards should cost more than most of the CPUs you can put in them. Obviously there are some enthusiasts with more money than sense.
kmmatney - Tuesday, December 30, 2008 - link
I've never paid much more than $100 for a motherboard and never will, and I've been overclocking since the 486 days. Tom's hardware recently did a nice article on budget overclocking 775 boards - they were able to get 538 Mhz FSB from the top rated ECS budget board. I'm not a great fan of Tom's hardware, but they to tend to have more mainstream and budget oriented articles these days. At least I can relate to those...kmmatney - Tuesday, December 30, 2008 - link
Here is the article for great overclocking 775 board for less than $100:http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-p45-core...">http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-p45-core...
Rajinder Gill - Monday, December 29, 2008 - link
The way around the initial shock outlay is to wait 3-6 months before buying. Things have such a short shelf life these days that prices tend to drop quite rapidly once the dust has settled.EpsilonZero - Tuesday, December 30, 2008 - link
I agree that right now it is better to wait. Most of the boards on the shelves are still V.1 and dont have the latest bios on them. Also if you notice the x58 midrange boards that have recently come out actually for the most part have properly spaced out pcie slots allowing for 3 way sli in any box. The enthusiest boards have some design issues which will probably be fixed with V.2My favorite board so far is actually the Asus x58 workstation revolution. The slots are layed out perfectly and so are the rest of the ports. In general the board just looks Clean and isnt slouching on any enthusiest home build features. I assume it has the same overclocking bios as the P6 deluxe too. The only problem is that its the most expensive board I have seen next to the Rampage which is way over priced. :(
Something that could lower board and cpu prices too is the launch of the AMD Phenom II. I dont think I would buy one, but we really need some competition in this market. It did wonders for the GPU prices :)