I believe for $15 more I would go with the Gigabyte X58A-UD3R. I like asrock boards and have had good luck in the past using them, but they need to provide more wow at this pricepoint or be substatially less than the proven enthusiast boards.
Yep, it makes no sense. The comparison should have been with the X58A-UD3R, even if it is a few dollars more.
You get 4 PCI-E x16 slots (x16+x16, x16+x8+x8, x8, x8, x8, x8), two PCI-E x1 slots and ONE PCI slot. How many people really need more than 1 PCI slot anymore?
Well, I do for one.. I'm currently using a Creative X-Fi Elite Pro sound card which is PCI. I'm sticking with it because it has an awesome IO console I can sit on my desk so I can swap quickly to headphones and between headphone sets (one set is better for general usage, but when I need to talk to people I've got a headset I use but the sound repro isn't quite as good). So, while it still works I'll stick with it, heck I don't even know if the later PCIe X-Fi cards can even drive the IO Console...
On my current X58 motherboard my other PCIe slots are either; - being used for graphics - being used for a PCIe wifi card - being used for a GTS-260 physx card - blocked
I have to agree. I have only had one ASRock board... it was so extremely picky, with misleading and undocumented BIOS settings that impacted stability and overclocking greatly, and nonexistant support.
That said, for the price, it gave me a (after months of fiddling) 95% stable, high performance system for 2 years for a fraction of the price I'd have paid for another board. But it only lasted about those 2 years before it started showing random crashes, lock ups, disappearing DVD drives, and other odd issues.
Also, since when is a $180 motherboard considered a budget price? Damn. I just built my wife a computer with a (now quad-core) AMD processor of decent performance with a very solid ASUS motherboard.. the motherboard cost $70. I can understand paying $100-$150 for a feature-rich overclocking motherboard, but that isn't what I'd call a 'budget' price at all. :P
What the original poster is trying to say is that intel should immediately drop the core2, i3, and i5 lines, cut the pricing of the i7 line to sub-$100, cut x58 board pricing to $75 and advance computing as a whole while wiping AMD off the map.
I've looked at it - but the performance difference isn't worth the extra $400 you have to spend on an X58 based system Vs. and AMD or Core 2 Duo system.
Wrong comparison. X58-UDR3 is just outdated. I don't care about price. It's like comparing this year's car against last year's competitor. Okay? But that's not a direct comparison when talking new cars.... sigh.
(It might have been covered in the article, I didn't see it though. If so I apologize and feel free to yell at me.)
How many PCI-E lanes have been dedicated to the USB3 and SATA6 ports? If I'm buying this over another X58 board because of those 2 options, it's important to know whether they are running at the proper speed.
Actually, the TYAN S7025WAGM2NR is a pretty decent board. Xeon 5500 series processors are reasonably priced. I would like to perform some comparisons tween this board and a couple Enthusiast boards. Very curious about price / perf. Gaming, general purpose AND server type workloads...
Just to add: it is a bit strange as the predecessor, the ASRock X58 Extreme, does have a x1 slot on top. However, it just seems to be plain missing on this board (notice only 6 slots). Maybe to deal with the extra requirements of the USB 3.0 and SATA 6?
Fortunately, any x1 card can also be used in the x16/x8 slots.
Very detailed and user-friendly review, thank you very much. I'd like a little more commet on the auxiliary fan, though. (The one for CPU power circuitry) If you could measure the temperature difference between on and off, as well as other vendors' passive designs.
There is only four cheaper ATX X58 MB on newegg.com. Except for the Foxconn one the others are priced between $170 and 190. The median price of X58 is arround $240 and the mean price is not much off that mark. Keep in mind that the ASrock comes with lots of bells and whistles.So for everyone complaining about the term budget in the title, it is a budget X58 board.
In absolute terms you are right. In relative terms it is a budget solution period. There are socket 1366 people with more expensive cooling solutions for 24/7 use than this MB. And I am not talking about the record setting freaks.
Why in the world would you mention the old X58-UD3R when the X58A-UD3R is available for $199-$219 depending on retailer, has USB3, SATA3, 6ram slots, a 4 PCIe slots?
I bought 2 of them at Micro Center to replace the ASRock X58 Extreme that died on me after 2 months of use folding@home. First ASRock board, last ASRock board I will ever buy. One day it refused to power on for no reason. Once I got the RMA back, I sold it used because I didn't want to bother with ASRock anymore.
Now that Abit is out of the business, it's Gigabyte or nothing for me (Asus in a last ditch pinch if I had to have a board, otherwise GB beats Asus on bang for the buck). 2x X58A-UD3R and 1 EP45-UD3P all f@h 24/7, high oc's - no problems on any of them. Love GB.
How is the RMA process for ASRock, anyways? ASRock's site says to obtain RMA through your vendor, but what if the vendor has only a 30 day policy (like Newegg)?
Great review and I loved your OC push on this board. Thank you.
I was hoping to see a graph that shows 5 MoBo's (the top 2 or 3 with 1 or 2 boards in the same market segment as the one being reviewed) and what OC they achieved on the same D0 stepping chip that you have to see which MoBo performs best for the $ or in absolute. I know on a previous review for one of the Elite boards (300 to 500 dollar category) y'all actually compared the OC of three boards. To see that comparison is quite refreshing and putting in graphical form would be a welcome addition to an other-wise superb review.
I could envision the graph (or table for compactness) as such:
Active fan on the board is trash. Those cheeseball threepenny fans make noise, collect dust and quit before any other component. Start a collection of replacements to add to your junk drawer.
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Glenn - Wednesday, June 2, 2010 - link
I believe for $15 more I would go with the Gigabyte X58A-UD3R. I like asrock boards and have had good luck in the past using them, but they need to provide more wow at this pricepoint or be substatially less than the proven enthusiast boards.DigitalFreak - Wednesday, June 2, 2010 - link
Yep, it makes no sense. The comparison should have been with the X58A-UD3R, even if it is a few dollars more.You get 4 PCI-E x16 slots (x16+x16, x16+x8+x8, x8, x8, x8, x8), two PCI-E x1 slots and ONE PCI slot. How many people really need more than 1 PCI slot anymore?
bobvodka - Thursday, June 3, 2010 - link
Well, I do for one.. I'm currently using a Creative X-Fi Elite Pro sound card which is PCI. I'm sticking with it because it has an awesome IO console I can sit on my desk so I can swap quickly to headphones and between headphone sets (one set is better for general usage, but when I need to talk to people I've got a headset I use but the sound repro isn't quite as good). So, while it still works I'll stick with it, heck I don't even know if the later PCIe X-Fi cards can even drive the IO Console...On my current X58 motherboard my other PCIe slots are either;
- being used for graphics
- being used for a PCIe wifi card
- being used for a GTS-260 physx card
- blocked
bobvodka - Thursday, June 3, 2010 - link
oh, I totally misread the comment I was replying to... disregard the above, I thought it said 'requires one PCI slot'; sorry.Araemo - Thursday, June 3, 2010 - link
I have to agree. I have only had one ASRock board... it was so extremely picky, with misleading and undocumented BIOS settings that impacted stability and overclocking greatly, and nonexistant support.That said, for the price, it gave me a (after months of fiddling) 95% stable, high performance system for 2 years for a fraction of the price I'd have paid for another board. But it only lasted about those 2 years before it started showing random crashes, lock ups, disappearing DVD drives, and other odd issues.
Araemo - Thursday, June 3, 2010 - link
Also, since when is a $180 motherboard considered a budget price? Damn. I just built my wife a computer with a (now quad-core) AMD processor of decent performance with a very solid ASUS motherboard.. the motherboard cost $70. I can understand paying $100-$150 for a feature-rich overclocking motherboard, but that isn't what I'd call a 'budget' price at all. :PTaft12 - Thursday, June 3, 2010 - link
Spoken like someone who has never looked at X58 motherboard pricing. Core i7 is for a different market than your wife.Pessimism - Thursday, June 3, 2010 - link
What the original poster is trying to say is that intel should immediately drop the core2, i3, and i5 lines, cut the pricing of the i7 line to sub-$100, cut x58 board pricing to $75 and advance computing as a whole while wiping AMD off the map.Araemo - Saturday, June 5, 2010 - link
I've looked at it - but the performance difference isn't worth the extra $400 you have to spend on an X58 based system Vs. and AMD or Core 2 Duo system.Affectionate-Bed-980 - Sunday, June 6, 2010 - link
Wrong comparison. X58-UDR3 is just outdated. I don't care about price. It's like comparing this year's car against last year's competitor. Okay? But that's not a direct comparison when talking new cars.... sigh.DJMiggy - Wednesday, June 2, 2010 - link
Thanks Ian. This is great!nvalhalla - Wednesday, June 2, 2010 - link
(It might have been covered in the article, I didn't see it though. If so I apologize and feel free to yell at me.)How many PCI-E lanes have been dedicated to the USB3 and SATA6 ports? If I'm buying this over another X58 board because of those 2 options, it's important to know whether they are running at the proper speed.
IanCutress - Thursday, June 3, 2010 - link
We have got confirmation from ASRock, and they both use one lane each.All the best,
Ian
jyqureshi - Wednesday, June 2, 2010 - link
When is Anandtech going to review Xeon server boards like this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...And it's not a matter of why I would need one, it's a matter of why not?
Anyway...it would be great to see a comparison of the popular server boards that can be used in a desktop configuration.
ekv - Thursday, June 3, 2010 - link
Actually, the TYAN S7025WAGM2NR is a pretty decent board. Xeon 5500 series processors are reasonably priced. I would like to perform some comparisons tween this board and a couple Enthusiast boards. Very curious about price / perf. Gaming, general purpose AND server type workloads...AdamK47 - Wednesday, June 2, 2010 - link
I don't understand why some motherboard makers put the PCI-E 1X slot below the primary PCI-E 16X slot. Put it above the 16X slot!jonp - Wednesday, June 2, 2010 - link
What does "above" and "below" mean?FormulaRedline - Thursday, June 3, 2010 - link
Essentially below means the 1X slot is blocked by a dual slot graphics card while above means the 1x can still be used.FormulaRedline - Thursday, June 3, 2010 - link
Just to add: it is a bit strange as the predecessor, the ASRock X58 Extreme, does have a x1 slot on top. However, it just seems to be plain missing on this board (notice only 6 slots). Maybe to deal with the extra requirements of the USB 3.0 and SATA 6?Fortunately, any x1 card can also be used in the x16/x8 slots.
lopri - Wednesday, June 2, 2010 - link
Very detailed and user-friendly review, thank you very much. I'd like a little more commet on the auxiliary fan, though. (The one for CPU power circuitry) If you could measure the temperature difference between on and off, as well as other vendors' passive designs.529th - Wednesday, June 2, 2010 - link
See, that's what I like about the Asrock Bios, very simple. The EVGA bios on the 760 classified needs to be modeled after a better bios.529th - Wednesday, June 2, 2010 - link
correction, BIOSRajinder Gill - Thursday, June 3, 2010 - link
Not sure that ASRock would be the brand for EVGA to follow. ASUS would make more sense.dingetje - Wednesday, June 2, 2010 - link
I would not call $190 a budget price. That's a FAIL title if I've ever seen one.jonup - Thursday, June 3, 2010 - link
There is only four cheaper ATX X58 MB on newegg.com. Except for the Foxconn one the others are priced between $170 and 190. The median price of X58 is arround $240 and the mean price is not much off that mark. Keep in mind that the ASrock comes with lots of bells and whistles.So for everyone complaining about the term budget in the title, it is a budget X58 board.Taft12 - Thursday, June 3, 2010 - link
As the poster above me has shown, the only FAIL here is your understanding of this market segment.dingetje - Friday, June 4, 2010 - link
oh, I understand it's as low as it goes for an X58 mobo.calling 190 bucks a budget price however is ridiculous imo.
jonup - Friday, June 4, 2010 - link
In absolute terms you are right. In relative terms it is a budget solution period. There are socket 1366 people with more expensive cooling solutions for 24/7 use than this MB. And I am not talking about the record setting freaks.LoneWolf15 - Thursday, June 3, 2010 - link
on the VRMs will get noisy and/or die within a year to a year and a half.Better to skip it as unnecessary and lower the price.
zero2dash - Thursday, June 3, 2010 - link
Why in the world would you mention the old X58-UD3R when the X58A-UD3R is available for $199-$219 depending on retailer, has USB3, SATA3, 6ram slots, a 4 PCIe slots?I bought 2 of them at Micro Center to replace the ASRock X58 Extreme that died on me after 2 months of use folding@home. First ASRock board, last ASRock board I will ever buy. One day it refused to power on for no reason. Once I got the RMA back, I sold it used because I didn't want to bother with ASRock anymore.
Now that Abit is out of the business, it's Gigabyte or nothing for me (Asus in a last ditch pinch if I had to have a board, otherwise GB beats Asus on bang for the buck). 2x X58A-UD3R and 1 EP45-UD3P all f@h 24/7, high oc's - no problems on any of them. Love GB.
Zap - Friday, June 4, 2010 - link
How is the RMA process for ASRock, anyways? ASRock's site says to obtain RMA through your vendor, but what if the vendor has only a 30 day policy (like Newegg)?Nimiz99 - Thursday, June 3, 2010 - link
Great review and I loved your OC push on this board. Thank you.I was hoping to see a graph that shows 5 MoBo's (the top 2 or 3 with 1 or 2 boards in the same market segment as the one being reviewed) and what OC they achieved on the same D0 stepping chip that you have to see which MoBo performs best for the $ or in absolute. I know on a previous review for one of the Elite boards (300 to 500 dollar category) y'all actually compared the OC of three boards. To see that comparison is quite refreshing and putting in graphical form would be a welcome addition to an other-wise superb review.
I could envision the graph (or table for compactness) as such:
MoBo | Price (Bar with possible Label)
Name1 |$325 ----- 4.21 GHz
Name2 |$175 ---- 4.15 GHz
Name3 |$225 --- 4.12 GHz
ThisBoard|$190 ---4.10 GHz
SameMrkt |$180 -- 3.95 GHz
thanks - great review
jonup - Thursday, June 3, 2010 - link
I like your thinking!WRI - Sunday, June 6, 2010 - link
Active fan on the board is trash. Those cheeseball threepenny fans make noise, collect dust and quit before any other component. Start a collection of replacements to add to your junk drawer.howmoney - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
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