Which board: Asus P6T (plain), UT X58-T3eH8 or MSI X58 Pro ?

[halcyon]

Which one of the following and ONLY following would you choose for stability and OC:

- Asus P6T (plain - not deluxe/pro/WS/SE)
- DFI UT X58-T3eH8
- MSI X58 Pro

I need 2 fully accessible PCI slots, after a big VGA cooler blocks the below 2 slots. Plus I need 6 RAM slots.

Those three boards are the only three that can accommodate.

It's not a pretty selection, but it's better than nothing.

My pick would be Asus P6T, due to non-finicky bios and results from people on the board.

However, I'm willing to entertain second thoughts.

Anyone?

[GAR]

Ive used the P6T, very stable and full featured board. I would avoid MSI, their results with the X58 chipset proove they cant make good motherboards, DFI has been on the downhill slide for a while, bios is too confusing for no reason which doesnt even result in higher oc,, i would stick with Asus/Gigabyte/eVGA only at this point.

[yotomeczek]

Ive used the P6T, very stable and full featured board. I would avoid MSI, their results with the X58 chipset proove they cant make good motherboards, DFI has been on the downhill slide for a while, bios is too confusing for no reason which doesnt even result in higher oc,, i would stick with Asus/Gigabyte/eVGA only at this point.

I'm not agree
I prefer MSI X58 rather than DFI X58 mogo ...
MSI make good X58 mobos (PRO is quite OK, Pro-E is eaven better, Eclipse SLI is OK, Eclipse SLI Plus is very good, but no good BIOS ...)
I would propably buy ASUS P6T SE (cheap) or MSI PRO-E :)
GB make good X58 boards too
The best X58 I have in my hands is Foxconn Blood RAGE :D

[ReverendMaynard]

I'm not agree
I prefer MSI X58 rather than DFI X58 mogo ...
MSI make good X58 mobos (PRO is quite OK, Pro-E is eaven better, Eclipse SLI is OK, Eclipse SLI Plus is very good, but no good BIOS ...)
I would propably buy ASUS P6T SE (cheap) or MSI PRO-E :)
GB make good X58 boards too
The best X58 I have in my hands is Foxconn Blood RAGE :D

A board is only as good as its bios, so their top end is pretty much garbage by your statement.

[trakslacker]

The DFI UT board has been seeing some extremely impressive overclocks from several users after they released a significantly updated BIOS a few months back. Board is also quite stable even at high overclocks.

The BIOS does have a large number of options, but is less crazy than some DFI BIOSes of the past. I find the board itself to have a very good layout as well.

[Woody-san]

IMO, if you can wade through the DFI BIOS, get that mobo.

I had a P6T lying around as a spare, and when both my eVGA e759 & e760 needed RMA (for different reasons), I pressed it into service and was pleasantly surprised at the results:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=230248


I've heard MSI users swear by them, but not with the locals where I'm at (Tokyo, Japan)...


HTH.

[jcool]

The P6T has insufficient NB cooling.. you need to improve it if you want to run a decent BCLK OC. OCing abilities of the DFI are def. better than those of the P6T (I regularly use both boards, and more than one sample, in customer builds). The P6T doesn't even have a proper fix to disable TDP limits (so you can't use 21x mult on a 920 at high OCs).
Never had the MSis but I wouldn't want a bios that says "Voltage X +0,1" instead of giving me the acual voltage..

DFI bios is actually extremely simple (for a DFI) and easy to use.

[halcyon]

Thanks for all the replies.

The NB cooling issue on P6T is making me wonder. I guess I could shell out an extra $100 and replace all the stock sinks with Thermalright modules, but that does jack up the price quite a bit.

If I could just get a decent PCI-E 1x PATA-controller, I could remove the 2*PCI requirement. I need more PATA/IDE channels with full ATAPI support. PCI-E IDE/P-ATA cards just seem to come mainly with the JMicron controller that is very sucky for ATAPI support - i.e. doesn't support the custom software I use on it.

But if I do find such a controller, I'd rephrase the question. Which one of these:

- Asus Rampage II Extreme
- Asus P6T Deluxe V2
- Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5
- EVGA X58 SLI

... along with the models already mentioned. Other models from Asus and EVGA are no-go.

Again, ease and stability of OC along with efficient VRM/chipset cooling are important issues.

Please chime in, if you have experiences with those.

[jcool]

My P6T statement above applies to the Deluxe V2 as well (that's the one I've had the trouble with). The GB UD5 is a great mobo, very stable and easy to OC, I like them a lot.
Lots of people loving the evgas because of them getting the highest BCLK OCs, I got no clue about usability/stability tho. The RIIE is a little overkill IMO, more of a bencher's board really.

In short I'd recommend either DFI, eVGA or Gigabyte, but that's just me.

Any may I recommend ditching PATA or at least using your PATA drives in an older system? SATA SSD + HDD really is the way to go on those, since the onboard PATA controllers of those mobos are also that crappy Jmicron.

[halcyon]

Ah, so it's the same Jmicron integrated on the mobos. Hmm... that may complicate issues further. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. Unfortunately the P-ATA drives I have cannot be replaced with S-ATA counterparts, because there are no counterparts available - in any form. Second PC is the most likely option and something I'll have to seriously consider.

[Darkboss]

I'm in the same boat as you halcyon. I'm wanting to upgrade badly but can't decide on some mobos. I see these inexpensive $200-$240 mobos like the P6T SE or so and wonder if they are good for stable oc. I want 3.6 range or so with my 920 i7. I need to order my system soon so I need some good feedback. Everything has been great so far from reading posts on the boards but it seems like all the boards have issues from people.

This is a hard decision. I don't want to and can't afford to upgrade my mobo again in a few months. I want one with staying power. My current MSI board with AMD chip is going on almost 5 years or more since my last upgrade. It's nothing crazy but mostly stable until I started getting bad_pool_caller errors at times. I don't know what that's about.

The feedback from these posts are very helpful but still make my decision harder to make. =)

[DreamerX]

i would suggest to not get the MSI X58 Pro/Pro-E mobo. its IOH temp is extremely HOT. i got my IOH temp at 99 Celsius @ idle, but if you change its thermal tape to a better thermal paste, it would bring down the temp. for my case, it bring down to 73 Celsius after i change the thermal tape with AC5 thermal grease.

below are my screenshots:
before change:
http://s324.photobucket.com/albums/k323/Dreamer5521/MSI%20X58%20Pro-E/?action=view&current=idle_temp.png

after change to AC5:
http://s324.photobucket.com/albums/k323/Dreamer5521/MSI%20X58%20Pro-E/?action=view&current=load_temp.png

[screwtech02]

Man, DO NOT GET any type of MSI X58, unless you plan on running @ stock settings. Thier bios support it for crap, along with thier "support" forums.

I suggest Gigabyte....

[beast200]

I too would go for the gigabyte
i have the UD5 and am building one for a friend and will
use the UD5

[Darkboss]

To the OP, did you ever figure out which board you are going to get? I'm in the same situation and would like to know the route you went.

[trakslacker]

Darkboss - I picked up the DFI UT based on a few recommendations (and had even recommended it earlier in this thread), however my experience has been less than positive. It does overclock well enough, but stability leaves something to be desired especially when pushing CPU and RAM hard. Did some digging and it appears that (I know this sounds VERY weird) that some DFI UT boards have real problems with D0 CPUs, generally regardless of BIOS. eva2000's thread in this forum demonstrates some serious clocking potential and is VERy flexible and robust. There's come conversation, however, that there boards like eva's and....other boards. DFI has made some monster boards in the past (NF4 Ultra anyone?) which is what drove me to pick this up, but it seems to have missed the mark a bit.

Case in point, I'll be tinkering with the DFI UT for a few more days, and barring some type of minor miracle of stability and/or performance, it will be getting exchanged for a Gigabyte UD5.

[Darkboss]

Trakslacker - I am tempted to getting the DFI as well, but I want one that will be really stable. I'm not going to get crazy with OC. Just around 3.6-3.8 if my CO chip can take it. I just want a stable mobo that won't be flakey when I push the power button. I am looking at the UD5 too but it's expensive. I thought I could get the Jr version of the DFI since it's around mid $200 USD. Let me know how your mobo works out for you. :up:

[screwtech02]

Darkboss, you look @ the Giga UD4P???

[dejanh]

DFI UT X58-T3eH8

[mhar998]

whatever you do stay away from MSI they are shocking.....stick with the tried and true......asus, gigabyte, dfi, foxcon.....

[Darkboss]

Darkboss, you look @ the Giga UD4P???

Wow, I don't know how that flew past my radar? I've not heard of the UD4P. Now that I'm looking at the specs, I think it might be perfect for me! Sli, 6 memory slots, decent price and OC ability! I might be building up my new rig this week!

Thanks a ton Screwtech02!