Asus X58 Sabertooth Review
Conclusion
Published: 11th October 2010 | Source: Asus | Price: £155.90 |
Conclusion
There is an old adage that you must be aware of, it runs 'Never assume because it makes an ass out of u and me'.
As we're in the hardware business it's important that we approach everything with an open mind. However we're only human and so when you see a motherboard that's priced around £150 and is designed for longevity rather than overclocking, you can forgive us if we were a little apprehensive of the potential performance.
When we opened it and found it was a cross between light green and tan you can imagine we weren't dancing with joy.
However, after our usual prodding and poking to get a feel for the board, it quickly started to grow on us. After all, every motherboard is blue or red. Why not have a subtle one, an understated one? By the afternoon we positively liked it.
Once we built the system we just took to it more and more. The whole board layout is a joy to work with.
The differences between a good design and a poor one are small, because the margins for placement are slight. Everything on the Sabertooth was exactly where we expected to find it and had plenty of clearance to work with.
Overclocking was a joy too. Being an Asus board everything in the BIOS was where we are used to it being, and the dedication to high quality components really makes this board fly. 4GHz is no longer the benchmark figure as any board can do that, it's how they respond past that which defines them.
The relatively low BLCK actually became fine once we'd upped the CPU multiplier because the board can easily cope with a BCLK over 200MHz. At 200x21 it was right in the sweet spot and felt like it could run until the end of time.
Run it certainly can too. It is almost identical to the P6X58D-E in most of our testing but the benchmarks where it edged ahead were the important ones. The differences in 3D Gaming benchmarks can largely be attributed to the better graphics card performance from the earlier Catalyst drivers on the P6X58D-E tests. Even then the X58 Sabertooth stays within a cats whisker.
£150 is right at the basement end of the X58 market, and yet Asus have produced a board that looks great, is built like a tank, overclocks with the best and has all the modern technologies you could ask for.
Without question it's a Gold Award winner.
Thanks to Asus for supplying the Sabertooth for review. Discuss in our forums.
Most Recent Comments
You could do a wicked cammo computer using that. I was thinking about it the other week as it goes. There's this company in the USA that dips things in this weird cammo stuff and it coats it. They used it on American Chopper once to do a military chopper.
Now, Tom, I'll be waiting on that overclocking vid you promised to make...I'm going to need it. If I can unleash a bit more power you'll make me a happy man!
Nice reviews. Keep it up.
Mine has 65 in idle and is bloody hot when touching it.
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Originally Posted by Black
What is max safe temp on NB? Mine has 65 in idle and is bloody hot when touching it. |
One question, what is best QPI voltage when CPU set at 4 GHz
Is there any VTT voltage?
And should I leave PLL voltage at Auto?
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Originally Posted by Black
Well it is now, but BTW same temp I'm getting with OC and without - not so bad I recon.Under prime and superpi32M at 3.8 GHz I'm getting 80C and this is too much I beleive. One question, what is best QPI voltage when CPU set at 4 GHz Is there any VTT voltage? And should I leave PLL voltage at Auto? |
leave the pll at auto as it shouldnt matter.
If you are getting 80c what cooler/vcore are you using?
Whats you bclk and multi?
I notice when only prime running max I can get on NB temp is 72 C - idle still 65 C.
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Originally Posted by Black
I'm using watercooling for my CPU mate, BCLK 190, multi x20 and vcore 1.225v, RAM 1531 Mhz - 1.64V, QPI voltage 1.25v I notice when only prime running max I can get on NB temp is 72 C - idle still 65 C. |
qpi 1.45 (for 1600mhz)
turn on LLC
you should get 200 bclk with that and a few more tweaks.
Does anyone know if its ok to put a single HD 6870 in the lower PCI express x16 slot, so the regular PCI slot is free for my old soundcard? I think its the "secondary" x16 slot but if I'm thinking if only using one card, all 16 lanes should be available?
Thanks in advance
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Originally Posted by PINS
Hi, Does anyone know if its ok to put a single HD 6870 in the lower PCI express x16 slot, so the regular PCI slot is free for my old soundcard? I think its the "secondary" x16 slot but if I'm thinking if only using one card, all 16 lanes should be available? Thanks in advance |
- what a bad luck.BTW it is working fine into this slot.
Any way - is it all right that after OC I can't see or i can't set Turbo mode?It is visible only when stock clocks.
I am interested in getting this board but I have a question regarding PCIe x1 cards. If I went SLI, one of the PCIe x1 slots will be unusable. I intend to use two PCIe x1 cards (TV tuner and sound card). If I move one of the PCIe x1 cards into the third PCI x16 slot (the black one), it looks as though, according to the manual (p. 2-21), that the two PCIe 2.0 x16 slots won't be affected i.e. both lanes will still be operating at 16x.
I am wondering whether anyone would be good enough to confirm this?
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