Review: ASUS P6T SE X58 motherboard: a new lease of life? - Mainboard - HEXUS.net

Setup and notes

Motherboard	ASUS P6T SE	Gigabyte EX58-UD5
Price	£140.02	£192.90
Chipset	Intel X58/ICH10R	Intel X58/ICH10R
CPU	Intel Core i7 920 ES at 2,671MHz and 3,186MHz (OC)
BIOS revision	0704 (11/01/2010)	F2 (29/01/2010)
Mainboard software	Intel Inf 9.1.1.1025
Memory	6GB (3 x 2GB) Crucial DDR3-1,067 CL7
Memory timings and speed	7-7-7-20 1T @ DDR3 1,067	7-7-7-20 1T @ DDR3 1,067
Discrete graphics	Sapphire Radeon HD 5770 1,024MB
Discrete graphics driver	Catalyst 10.1
Disk drive	Kingston SSDNow V+ 128GB
Operating system	Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit)
PSU	Corsair HX1000W

Tests

Benchmarks	SiSoft Sandra 2010 (16.26), aggregate bandwidth SiSoft Sandra 2010 (16.26), memory latency HEXUS.PiFast to 10m places CINEBENCH R10 multi-CPU render 64-bit HDTach - SATA average read speed HDTach - SATA burst speed Far Cry 2 v1.03 - 1,024x768 LQ, DX9 and 1,680x1,050 HQ, DX10 Power-consumption tests - idle, 2D load, and 3D load. Overclocking tests - HEXUS.PiFast, CINEBENCH, Far Cry 2

Benchmarks

SiSoft Sandra 2010 (16.26), aggregate bandwidth
SiSoft Sandra 2010 (16.26), memory latency
HEXUS.PiFast to 10m places
CINEBENCH R10 multi-CPU render 64-bit

HDTach - SATA average read speed
HDTach - SATA burst speed

Far Cry 2 v1.03 - 1,024x768 LQ, DX9 and 1,680x1,050 HQ, DX10

Power-consumption tests - idle, 2D load, and 3D load.
Overclocking tests - HEXUS.PiFast, CINEBENCH, Far Cry 2

Testing notes

We're comparing stock and overclocked performance of the ASUS board to a Gigabyte model that costs almost £200 but has a richer feature-set.

The boards are compared at the CPU's stock frequency and with a reasonable overclock where the BCLK is raised to 177MHz with a CPU multiplier of 18x (3,186MHz, DDR3 at 1,067MHz). The overclocked numbers are a subset of the entire suite.