Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
We decided to look for motherboards priced in the $200 to $300 range. We
found more than a dozen models from first-tier manufacturers including
ASUS, GIGABYTE, and Intel, most of which were near the upper end of our
price range. We spent hours studying and comparing the detailed specifica-
tions of each of these boards on the manufacturers' websites, and concluded
that most of the boards in the upper part of our price range had justified their
higher prices by adding generally useless bells and whistles, such as USB 3.0
or SATA 6 Gb/s support.
Brian Bilbrey Comments
A SATA 6 Gb/s motherboard can be
awfully nice when paired with an
SSD that has similar bandwidth, like
the 256 GB Crucial RealSSD C300 2.5”
SATA 6Gb/s.
Assuming all essential features are present, what matters to us—and what
should matter to you—is performance, construction quality, and reliability.
Performance is a given with any decent X58 motherboard: differences among
these boards are so small that they can be ignored. The construction qual-
ity and reliability of any first-tier motherboard should be excellent, although
Intel-branded boards have always had the edge in those respects.
Dual-Channel Versus
Triple-Channel Memory
But what about performance?
Dual-channel memory is faster than
single-channel memory, so triple-
channel memory must be faster still,
right? Wrong.
We did detailed benchmark testing
and found no real performance
differences between triple-channel
mode and dual-channel mode.
Triple-channel mode won about
half the time, but only by a couple
of percentage points. Dual-channel
mode won the rest of the time, but
again only by a couple of percentage
points. It really doesn't matter which
mode you use.
At first glance, we almost ruled out the Intel DX58SO. That would have been
a big mistake. Although it was on the low end of our price range, at first we
were concerned that the DX58SO was a bit light on features compared to the
other boards.
For example, the DX58SO has only four memory slots rather than the six slots
present on the competing boards. Because the X58 supports triple-channel
memory, the Intel board is limited to one triple-channel memory bank versus
two banks on competing boards. In practice, that means almost nothing, as
the Intel board can be equipped with 12 GB of memory operating in triple-
channel mode. We're unlikely ever to need more than 12 GB of memory on this
system, so the additional memory slots are of no real benefit.
This system will have six drives installed—an SSD boot/system drive, four hard
drives, and an optical drive—so we need at least six SATA ports. That turns out
not to be an issue, as all of the candidate motherboards provide at least six
SATA ports. We'd also like at least two eSATA ports for connecting external hard
drives, which we'll use for daily backups. The Intel DX58SO includes two eSATA
ports, as do two or three of the competing boards, but most include only one.
We didn't rule out any boards on that basis, as it's easy enough to add eSATA
ports by installing a $15 expansion card. Still, it would be nice to have them
on-board.
What About SATA 6 Gb/s?
It has a higher number, so it's easy
to assume that SATA 6 Gb/s must
be better than SATA 3 Gb/s. But the
fastest current hard drives can barely
saturate an obsolescent SATA 1.5
Gb/s interface, let alone swamp the
270+ MB/s data rate of a SATA 3
Gb/s interface. Right now, only fast
enterprise-class (i.e., very expensive)
solid-state drives can saturate a SATA
3 Gb/s interface, so in practical terms
SATA 3 Gb/s is sufficient for even an
extreme desktop system. If the price
of very fast SSDs suddenly plummets,
you can always install a PCI Express
SATA 6 Gb/s adapter.
Most of the motherboards in this price range have three, four, five, or even six
PCI Express x16 slots, while the DX58SO has only two. We really need only one
PCI Express 2.0 x16 slot, for the video adapter, but we'd like to have two, just in
case we ever decide to install dual video adapters in CrossFireX mode to run
graphics-intensive games.
Brian Bilbrey Comments
Ha! About the only game you run is Solitaire. More likely, you'll use the video cards as
fast math coprocessors, as you mentioned previously.
