Asus P6X58D Premium Motherboard Review

Performance Analysis

We expected great performance from Asus’ tenth LGA1366 motherboard, and the P6X58D Premium didn’t disappoint us. It achieved a fast overall score of 2,089 in our Media Benchmarks, which is second only to the Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R (review coming soon).

The P6X58D Premium also proved to be great at gaming, delivering a smooth minimum frame rate of 33fps in Crysis at 1,680 x 1,050 in DirectX 10. However, the P6X58D Premium doesn’t have particularly fast SATA ports; in HD Tach, the 3Gbps ports read at an average of 250MB/sec while the 6Gbps ports read at an average of 254MB/sec. This didn't have an impact in our real world testing, but it's still something to be aware of.

The board is also a perfectly decent overclocker; the BIOS is easy to work with, and while you won't get to the absolute limit with it, you'll still be able to add plenty of MHz to an i7-920 or i7-930.

Conclusion

The P6X58D Premium is clearly an evolved version of the original P6T Deluxe that follows on from the intermediate P6T Deluxe V2 and P6TD Deluxe.

Like the earlier models, the P6X58D Premium performs well, is easy to use and is a highly competent overclocker. Compared with the P6TD Deluxe, which is still on sale, the P6X58D Premium is only £27 more expensive, but should offer much greater longevity, as it has a couple of SATA 6Gbps ports and USB 3 ports. If you're building an i7 PC, these things should matter, as you're paying for top drawer performance potential and ought to build yourself a PC that puts you in a position to make good use of it.

All of which is to say, this board isn't a bad buy. It's not, however, the best buy around. The P6X58D Premium’s biggest competitor is the SATA 6Gbps and USB 3-equipped Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R (review coming soon). This is because the Gigabyte board is a slightly better overclocker and £83 cheaper, two issues the Asus board doesn't have a reply for.

• Performance
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• 9/10

• Features
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• -
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• 8/10

• Value
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• -
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• 7/10

• Overall
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• -
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• 8/10

Score Guide