Mainstream Or Hardcore? Two X58 Motherboards Compared

Direct Comparison

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The BigBang Xpower has a significant advantage over the X58 Pro-E thanks to its more modern feature set, including such perks as SATA 6Gb/s (two internal ports) and USB 3.0, which the X58 Pro-E lacks. The BigBang’s audio solution is state-of-the-art, and only the high-end board comes with the coaxial and optical S/PDIF ports needed to link the audio system to surround receivers. Both motherboards support at least one eSATA port for external storage devices.

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You have a five-phase voltage regulator on the X58 Pro-E versus 16 phases on the BigBang Xpower. The latter required even less idle power and similar peak power. The BigBang would only require higher power during overclocking, which is the platform's true domain. We found that the hardcore motherboard required less voltage to operate at stock speeds, and it required a bit less voltage to run at 4.13 GHz overclocked speed. However, idle voltage would not drop as much on this board, causing higher idle power consumption in overclocked scenarios.