Supporting Intel’s highest-performance processors with twice the bandwidth of its mainstream counterpart, the X58 chipset proves the staying power of good ideas. We take a closer look at what makes the latest generation of premium motherboards special.
One word explains how Intel’s oldest Core i7 chipset has been able to dominate the high-end desktop market for an impressive two years: more. More PCI Express (PCIe) 2.0 pathways feed more high-bandwidth expansion cards. More memory channels on the socket increase bandwidth to more physical CPU cores, while new models, like the Core i7-980X and Xeon X5600-series chips, are introduced.
Yet because the concept of more always translates to cost, manufacturers are constantly looking to pack more features into these already-more-expensive motherboards.
Our most recent “more” article for X58 motherboards examined boards with USB 3.0 and SATA 6 Gb/s controllers, two items that take advantage of the X58’s four left over PCIe 2.0 pathways. Intel solutions aren’t completely comparable, since Intel's LGA 1156 platform only has 16 lanes to begin with. It might surprise you then that the latest trend in more doesn't have anything to do with additional connectivity at all.

Top LGA 1366 motherboards now feature two eight-pin ATX12V/EPS12V power connectors to enable enhanced power delivery under the rigors of extreme overclocking. Builders whose overclocking needs are less intensive will still find that a single connector works, while those running at stock speeds will even find a four-pin connector adequate. Today we consider the totality of features, performance, and stability of the three latest examples of flagship-class X58-based platforms.
- More Power!
- Features Comparison
- Asus Rampage III Extreme
- Rampage III Extreme BIOS
- Rampage III Extreme Utilities
- Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD9
- GA-X58A-UD9 BIOS
- GA-X58A-UD9 Overclocking Utilities
- MSI Big Bang-XPower
- Big Bang-XPower BIOS
- Big Bang-XPower Overclocking Utilities
- Test Settings
- Benchmark Results: Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Crysis
- Benchmark Results: DiRT 2 Demo, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call Of Pripyat
- Benchmark Results: Audio And Video Encoding
- Benchmark Results: Productivity
- Benchmark Results: Synthetic
- Overclocking
- Power, Heat, And Efficiency
- Conclusion
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0 Hidemi1ez , 20 July 2010 17:34I didn't see prices listed anywhere - the UD9 is $700!
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0 Hidesilverblue , 24 July 2010 06:18I don't see the point in comment moderation if the same guy is posting the same sales scam crap over the course of 2 1/2 days and still hasn't been banned. If only he'd insulted a hardware company or something.
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0 Hiderebus_forever , 9 August 2010 00:54lol comments, as this is a site full of techys im surprised some sort id solution hasnt been put in place