Legit Reviews

I've narrowed down my motherboard choice to either the GIGABYTE GA-EX58-UD5 LGA 1366 or ASUS P6T Deluxe LGA 1366 for use with my core i7 920 and am looking for some input to tip the balance. I will be using my computer for:

1. Gaming (Including some online gaming such as Team Fortress 2)
2. Video / Picture Editing
3. Home Theater / Music Player (I have about 300 movies and 500 CD to transfer to the computer and want the ability to stream)
4. Normal word processing and internet use

I won't be overclocking right away but may in the future if I see a need. If anyone has a good suggestion for another motherboard for around $300 I welcome those too. Thanks for any input!

I personally like Asus boards the best, but there's not a whole lot in it between the two boards you listed.

Dan

To me, it's a 50/50 call. Gigabyte boards have become as reputably good as ASUS within the past 2 years or so. If it were me, I'd go Gigabyte.

I've had both and I prefer Gigabyte. But like Dan said, there isn't much room in between the two so you can't go wrong either way.

I've got both those specific boards and I gotta say I like the Asus board better. Easier to OC, XMP profiles work a lot better, Express Gate utility at bootup, had my 965 Extreme up to 3.74 in about 20 minutes. The Giga board I fought my Dominator 1866 6 gb kit for about 2 days to get it stable. Asus board it was plug and play.

Given that both boards can clock a CPU to the max (thermally speaking) the amenities on the Asus board make it a better choice.

Speaking from 10+ years system building experience ASUS is the way to go. I've used MSI, DFI, Gigabyte, ABit, and Chaintech and ASUS has always been the best board to use. Now when I go to build my i7 machine I dunno what I'll end up using but the ASUS Rampage II does look to be the board for me.

Looking at the ASUS board in question I see a few things about the layout that I really like. I love that the second power connector is at the top of the board. The one on my P5W is to the left of the CPU and means I have to run the cable over the motherboard making it look kind of cluttered.

I did notice one thing about the ASUS board that caused me concern. Looking at it's specs it looks like the heat pipes are designed to be cooled by exhaust from the CPU fan. If you're planning to water cool you won't have this extra wind blowing on it and that might effect your north and south bridge temps.



The Gigabyte board has better spacing of the PCIE slots as most cards are double height these days. But MAN is that thing ugly. Powder Blue? I mean, come on, that's the best color they could come up with?

My chief problem with both boards is there is no provision for water cooling the chipsets on either of them.

Thanks for the input guys; I'm going with the ASUS. Express Gate looks like it'll be fun to try. I went spec for spec between the P6T Deluxe and Rampage II and the only difference that jumped out at me was that the Rampage had 3 X16 PCI slots while the P6T was only capable of X16/X16/X1. Is there any other advantages that the Rampage II has that justifies the extra $100?

The standard P6T does 16-16-4 and costs alot less than the others and clocks like a bandit....................

Standard P6T lacks EAX 4.0 onboard. So if you're planning to use onboard sound the Rampage II might be a better choice.

Gigabite so far for me.Dual Bios are the best! less down time when OCing. if a particular setting doesn't work it simply turns on and off several times then reboots in stock settings and you just change values and go again, makes it much quicker to find the sweet spots. no messing with cmos or batteries EVER! i dont know why they all dont do it. either way you cant go wrong!!! Good luck with the build, Dana

DMB2000uk wrote:I personally like Asus boards the best, but there's not a whole lot in it between the two boards you listed.

Dan

gigabyte>asus.

I've had nothing but greatness from Asus and stand by their product..I tried a Gigabyte board a year ago and it was a complete FAIL.heck the MSI board in my Jedi rig is the replacement for the DS3(or 4) i tried..but I will state that it was my first time going with Gigabyte then so im sure it may have been just what i got at that time

InspectahACE wrote:I've had nothing but greatness from Asus and stand by their product..I tried a Gigabyte board a year ago and it was a complete FAIL.heck the MSI board in my Jedi rig is the replacement for the DS3(or 4) i tried..but I will state that it was my first time going with Gigabyte then so im sure it may have been just what i got at that time

the DSX boards were really hit or miss, but I've had issues with asus too, getting my dad's ASUS P5Q-L RMA back this week in fact