Sometimes it pays to be patient. When Intel’s high-end Core i7 processors burst onto the scene last fall, motherboards that supported them were both expensive and relatively less mature than they are today. As a consequence of the top-down approach many vendors used in introducing X58, shipping their most-expensive products first, buyers willing to sacrifice a few features will sometimes find that the newest mainstream parts are less troublesome than high-end predecessors.
We saw this type of maturation between last winter’s $300+ X58 motherboard roundup and this spring’s $200-300 follow up, and we expected further progress in small items such as BIOS implementation for today’s planned sub-$200 comparison. But something happened to alter our plan: prices slowly crept back up.
Extended stability tests for overclocking lead to weeks of testing in a seven-motherboard roundup, but prices don’t stop fluctuating during that time. Recent increases in the price of several models would have excluded two of today’s products from a sub-$200 roundup had those increases occurred before testing began. One company had even given us a choice between two models, and the board we chose went over the limit while the other did not. Forced to add a caveat to our “sub-$200” title, we’ve kept an eagle’s eye on value in these sensibly-priced parts.
- More For Less, More Or Less
- Features Comparison
- ASRock X58 Extreme
- Asus P6T SE
- ECS X58B-A
- Foxconn FlamingBlade
- Gigabyte EX58-UD3R
- Jetway BI-600
- MSI X58 Pro-E
- Test Settings
- Benchmark Results: Call Of Duty, Crysis
- Benchmark Results: Far Cry 2, World In Conflict
- Benchmark Results: Audio/Video Encoding
- Benchmark Results: Productivity
- Benchmark Results: Synthetic
- Power, Heat, And Efficiency
- Overclocking
- Conclusion

At the time the review was written, the P6T SE web page read that it supported SLI. Perhaps Asus changed the web page following a complaint?
The big difference between the P6T SE and the P6T is the missing Jmicron SATA multiplier. By removing it, Asus killed the pathway that went to it, leaving the JMB363 controller with a "dead port".
I never trust a seller as a source: Asus listed the P6T SE as having SLI support as little as four weeks ago, and now has a completely different page for it. They weren't the only company that advertised SLI capability and leave out the bridge, but it now appears the former P6T SE web page must have been an error, probably from the company copying its P6T page and editing it for the P6T SE, but missing one detail.
Though first on my priority list is a better monitor (and rent).
Neat article regardless.
I've skipped the Foxconn page, wouldn't buy from them anyway.
Thank you Tom's. Reminds me why this is my home page since 2001.
Give parallel ATA a break! it still has a valuable place on the mb!
A very large valuable space mind you. Not to mention the air space
The X58 Pro-E doesn't seem to like S3 sleep. The power and HDD LEDs turn off but the fans are still going and I think the HDDs might be as well. I've made it turn off completely once, but then USB didn't work right once it woke, so I had to restart anyway.
I don't think there will be too much difference between the 2.
Agreed, the Foxconn boards are fine (actually quite good) for one time things on LN2 etc, but reliability for 24/7 is lacking.
Agreed. However, they should eliminate floppy, Parallel,MIDI/GAME ports.