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5-Way X58 Motherboard Roundup: Part 1
Reported by Mervyn Chng on Friday, January 23 2009 6:54 pm
VR-Zone rounds up five X58 motherboards from Biostar, DFI, Foxconn, Intel & XFX.
Accessories
The XFX X58i comes in a modestly-sized box, with unexpectedly simple packaging.
Just about all the accessories are black in color. Nothing vital is missing from this bundle, but nothing out of the ordinary is present either.
Of note is the 4-port USB rear panel bracket, which is a nice step up from the usual 2-port deal. IDE and floppy cables are included, as are dual-SLi and triple-SLi bridges. The four SATA cables are angled 90-degree at one end, which should aid cable management. Still, we would like to see two more SATA cables.
We couldn't find the user guide in our review unit, but according to XFX's site it should be there so don't be too worried. For those in a rush there is a quick installation guide.
Features & Design
The X58i sports a very Nvidia-ish color scheme - a blatant Nvidia advertisement on the topmost heatsink. From the looks of it, this board was designed and manufactured by JWELE, an OEM manufacturer. We came to this conclusion based on the fact that JWELE sells a very similar X58 board under their own brand.
The heatsink setup here is extremely simple for such a pricey board. We were expecting something more than this. To make matters worse, XFX omitted an optional fan, which you'll certainly need for overclocking.
Unusually for a high-end board, the CPU power supply has a mere six phases.
The XFX X58i comes in a modestly-sized box, with unexpectedly simple packaging.
Just about all the accessories are black in color. Nothing vital is missing from this bundle, but nothing out of the ordinary is present either.
Of note is the 4-port USB rear panel bracket, which is a nice step up from the usual 2-port deal. IDE and floppy cables are included, as are dual-SLi and triple-SLi bridges. The four SATA cables are angled 90-degree at one end, which should aid cable management. Still, we would like to see two more SATA cables.
We couldn't find the user guide in our review unit, but according to XFX's site it should be there so don't be too worried. For those in a rush there is a quick installation guide.
Features & Design
The X58i sports a very Nvidia-ish color scheme - a blatant Nvidia advertisement on the topmost heatsink. From the looks of it, this board was designed and manufactured by JWELE, an OEM manufacturer. We came to this conclusion based on the fact that JWELE sells a very similar X58 board under their own brand.
The heatsink setup here is extremely simple for such a pricey board. We were expecting something more than this. To make matters worse, XFX omitted an optional fan, which you'll certainly need for overclocking.
Unusually for a high-end board, the CPU power supply has a mere six phases.
The 24-pin ATX connector is well located along the right edge of the motherboard. The 8-pin CPU power connector is located in a less-than-optimal, but still usable, location in between the two heatsinks. This appears to have been done due to a lack of space along the top edge of the board.
The green PCIe x16 slots both function in x16 mode when no card is inserted in the black slot. Otherwise, the bottom green slot drops to x8 speed and the middle black slot functions at x8 speed for a x16/x8/x8 configuration. Apart from these, there are two PCI slots and one PCIe x1 slot.
The green PCIe x16 slots both function in x16 mode when no card is inserted in the black slot. Otherwise, the bottom green slot drops to x8 speed and the middle black slot functions at x8 speed for a x16/x8/x8 configuration. Apart from these, there are two PCI slots and one PCIe x1 slot.
XFX has installed dual BIOSes like we saw on the Foxconn Blood Rage and Asus Rampage II Extreme. The X58i also has onboard Power and Reset buttons. And unsurprisingly, an LED POST debugger can be found here.
The SATA and IDE connectors are all angled to avoid conflicts with long graphics cards.
A Clear CMOS button can be found on the rear I/O panel. There is some empty space that XFX didn't make use of, but everything expected is present, including two eSATA ports powered by the all-too-familiar JMicron JMB363 controller.
Firewire support is provided not by VIA or Texas Instruments chip, but by the less well known, and presumably cheaper, JMicron JMB381 chip. We should also mention that the coaxial S/PDIF out connector on our board was not attached properly and as a result is somewhat skewed. Hopefully XFX improves their quality control process to catch such flaws.
The SATA and IDE connectors are all angled to avoid conflicts with long graphics cards.
A Clear CMOS button can be found on the rear I/O panel. There is some empty space that XFX didn't make use of, but everything expected is present, including two eSATA ports powered by the all-too-familiar JMicron JMB363 controller.
Firewire support is provided not by VIA or Texas Instruments chip, but by the less well known, and presumably cheaper, JMicron JMB381 chip. We should also mention that the coaxial S/PDIF out connector on our board was not attached properly and as a result is somewhat skewed. Hopefully XFX improves their quality control process to catch such flaws.
