Intel X58 Roundup: Six $300+ Platforms Compared

[SirSuperSouthern]

Man, I was stoked to see you guys include Foxconn's Bloodrage; and crushed to see it beaten by uglier boards. If this comparison were for casting in a crappy Hollywood movie, Bloodrage wouldn't even have to read her lines. She's that hawt.

I'm too lazy to reread and look at what CPU was used, but unless it was the 965EE the Bloodrage's RAM couldn't be properly overclocked. Yeah, I'm just throwin' that out there because I have a crush on her, sue me.

 

[68vistacruiser]

I like my Biostar board. Wish it was included. Running Vista64 and it's rock solid!

 

[Shadow703793]

[citation][nom]jeffunit[/nom]Though the core i7 is a crazy fast processor, it doesn't offer ECC support. That is why I just bought an amd phenom II 940. Perhaps 'gamers' don't care about ECC but only how many graphics cards they can stuff in the mb. On the other hand, IBM estimated 1 error per gig per week. So at 4gb, that is less than 2 days between errors. Perhaps that isn't noticeable with microsoft operation systems, but I keep my machines up for weeks or months at a time... My cheap asus mb not only supports ECC, but ECC scrubbing, chipkill, and more. Who cares how fast a computer is, when it crashes often?[/citation]
ECC only helps with server type and mission critical applications. Many people here run Linux/Windows 24/7 for months. I have yet to have run in to problems with running normal RAM.

 

[dark41]

[citation][nom]jeffunit[/nom]Though the core i7 is a crazy fast processor, it doesn't offer ECC support. That is why I just bought an amd phenom II 940. Perhaps 'gamers' don't care about ECC but only how many graphics cards they can stuff in the mb. On the other hand, IBM estimated 1 error per gig per week. So at 4gb, that is less than 2 days between errors. Perhaps that isn't noticeable with microsoft operation systems, but I keep my machines up for weeks or months at a time... My cheap asus mb not only supports ECC, but ECC scrubbing, chipkill, and more. Who cares how fast a computer is, when it crashes often?[/citation]

Maybe it's time you tried a modern system with non-ECC memory. ECC is more important for a server, but not necessary for any home or small office system. All our systems (including our 2003 SBS system) stay up for weeks at a time without errors on 4GB of non-ECC memory. We haven't had a system crash in years with non-ECC memory. And for what it's worth, we're not gamers.

I liked the article very much. I'm still partial to Gigabyte for their support, quality, options, and the fact that we haven't had any problems in a couple years now. And for my $, they're still the sexiest looking boards on the planet.

I guess I don't see the point in overclocking the memory further if it's going to be limited to what the CPU can do anyway, which all of these boards would be?! Sorry DFI, I'm still not impressed.

 

[Crashman]

[citation][nom]dark41[/nom]Sorry DFI, I'm still not impressed.[/citation]

You prefer EVGA? Because that's the only direct competition to the DFI board, the others aren't properly designed for 3-way SLI.

 

[ghost369]

i owned 2 blackops 1 dead after defrag 2 worked for 7 months dead sent to foxconn bent pins socket looked fine to me and 360.00 dollars in the hole stick with top brands asus giga and dfi

 

[Rick_51]

I'm running my two month old i-7 D-920 on the MSI Eclipse M.B; 12 gb G-Skill DDR3 1333 RAM, 2x MSI oc'd GTX 280s, with a couple of WD Caviar Green 1TB HD's in Raid 0, It's rock solid! on Vista Ultimate 64/sp1. I have not as yet over clocked the system since there were no socket 1336 cpu air coolers. What is the best performing air CPU cooler (don't want liquid), for overclocking to say: 3.5 ghz?

 

[Guest]

Which board would you guys suggest, I want a 4870 X2 and a 4870 in CF X, but I'd like to maybe upgrade to a X2 in the future. Also would want to add a X-Fi Titanium sound card and raid card.

Foxconn is nice but only 3 dimms
Eclipse looks like the best layout but it feels a bit lacking on some onboard components.

 

[jonathanrhunter]

Nice article guys. I think for these reviews it would be nice to see some sort of feature comparison side-by-side page. There is a lot of information when it comes to selecting the right board and with out all of the facts lined up its hard to make a conclusion. I guess I'll have to find the motherboards on newegg and use their feature comparison charts. Plenty of love to you guys, no dis intended, just want to see how the boards stack up side-by-side.

 

[jbx907]

hi to all, just got this msi mb its good fast but i just found out that going to the devide manager, sata ide n sata controllers,and checking all my hdd advance settings, i found out that all my drive are on DMA 5 (NOT DMA 6) im experienceing some kinda delay on opening aplications etc... sometimes double clicking on anything makes you wait, has anyone seen the DMA this bord gives us.. it might be just mine..

 

[erafael]

I am on Rampage II Extreme and i7 920 oc'ed to 3.80.Works like a charm and never had any issue with it. I guess I was lucky to trust my "nose" when I bought it a couple of weeks ago, but I wish this kind of article had appeared at a time.It is definitely going to help people struggling with building their high-end systems.
Good job!

 

[Crashman]

[citation][nom]erafael[/nom]I am on Rampage II Extreme and i7 920 oc'ed to 3.80.Works like a charm and never had any issue with it. I guess I was lucky to trust my "nose" when I bought it a couple of weeks ago, but I wish this kind of article had appeared at a time.It is definitely going to help people struggling with building their high-end systems.Good job![/citation]

Are you suggesting republishing an article a couple months after its debut?