X58 To The Max: Three New Flagship LGA 1366 Motherboards

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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.

Big Bang-XPower BIOS

MSI’s Cell Menu contains primary clock and voltage settings, with separate submenus for memory timings and signal amplitude control.

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Choosing the Memory-Z submenu takes the user though several steps to a single XMP memory reading. We would have preferred to see both XMP configurations for our modules.

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The Advanced DRAM submenu allows timings to be set per-channel, but thankfully defaults to a single set of timings for all channels.

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The ClockGen Tuner submenu contains only CPU and PCIe amplitude controls.

MSI’s M-Flash menu directs the PC to a protected-mode user interface, where the BIOS can be updated or stored to non-bootable drives, including most USB flash drives.

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An Overclocking Profile menu allows up to six BIOS configurations to be stored separately with custom names and descriptions.

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Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom is a Senior Staff Editor at Tom's Hardware US. He tests and reviews cases, cooling, memory and motherboards.
67 Comments Comment from the forums
  • one-shot
    No EVGA SR-2? :(

    Ok, Hold on. Three Flagship LGA 1366 Boards and no overclocked power consumption results? These boards are obviously made for overclocking and those results would be very interesting to see.
    Reply
  • Tamz_msc
    A good 250$ X58 board is enough for most people.
    Reply
  • Lmeow
    9498281 said:
    No EVGA SR-2? :(

    The EVGA Classified SR-2 is based on the Intel 5520 chipset and uses Xeons, so it's not an X58 board technically speaking which is why it doesn't qualify. ;)

    If I could spend that much on a motherboard I'd have chosen the Rampage III Extreme, not only does it have good features it also has the best colour scheme. ^^

    Does anyone know why I try to submit a comment it doesn't show up, and I have to use the forums instead to post a comment instead?
    Reply
  • lashabane
    I want more.
    Reply
  • sudeshc
    I am totally impressed by ASUS they always come up with best solution in every category, but the price is a killer for me :(
    Reply
  • rottingsheep
    IMO, the only interesting part about motherboard reviews is the overclocking and power consumption portion.
    Reply
  • avatar_raq
    Nice article..I have only catch: Of all the mobos tested, Quad SLI is not possible on the ASUS R3E, courtesy of nVIDIA's drivers
    http://www.guru3d.com/news/quad-sli-on-asus-rampage-iii-extreme-is-not-possible/
    Reply
  • dragonfang18
    Whats the point when Intel will come out with new processors with different sockets next year?
    Reply
  • Crashman
    avatar_raqNice article..I have only catch: Of all the mobos tested, Quad SLI is not possible on the ASUS R3E, courtesy of nVIDIA's drivershttp://www.guru3d.com/news/quad-sl -possible/Awesome, thanks. Manufacturers don't actually discuss this stuff.
    dragonfang18Whats the point when Intel will come out with new processors with different sockets next year?That's what people like you were saying months before LGA 1156 was released. We see which direction that went.
    Reply
  • dragonfang18
    That's what people like you were saying months before LGA 1156 was released. We see which direction that went.

    Yeah... they are changing 1366 to some socket R... Well... At least I can look forward to these motherboards going down in price by next year when they go to Socket R's for performance than 1366's. I guess ill be happy with 1366's. Hopefully they go down by at least $100.
    Reply