Final thoughts and rating

Intel's LGA1366 platform is alive and kicking for the foreseeable future. Built through a combination of Core i7 chip and X58 motherboard, ASUS goes for the value end of the market with the P6X58D-E - a slightly cut-down version of the rather tasty P6X58D Premium board.

We're impressed by how few sacrifices have been made in pushing the board under £150 and the only omissions that might catch the eye for folk upgrading from a five-year-old machine are the lack of an IDE port along with a conspicuous absence of the still-popular eSATA connection.

The layout is good, features are sharp, and performance is competitive against other X58-based boards. Indeed, the only competition we see for this board is Gigabyte's X58A-UD3R rev 2. HEXUS usually errs on the side of caution when doling out awards, folks, but the ASUS P6X58D-E's overall package is good enough that we can recommend it practically without reservation.

The Good

Has a considerable feature-set for sub-£150
Very good layout
Decent overclocking potential

The Bad

No IDE or eSATA support

HEXUS Rating

ASUS P6X58D-E motherboard

HEXUS Awards

ASUS P6X58D-E motherboard

HEXUS Where2Buy

The ASUS P6X58D-E is currently available to purchase from Scan.co.uk for £149.42.

HEXUS Right2Reply

At HEXUS, we invite the companies whose products we test to comment on our articles. If any company representatives for the products reviewed choose to respond, we'll publish their commentary here verbatim.

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We reckon six SATA ports are enough for most people.

Probably true, but it's a stretch for me. I'm currently using 8 and have space in my case for another 4, but that HDD bay is removable so I keep my ‘portable’ storage in there :)

I don't see the loss of IDE as a bad thing, either. Yes there are still some legacy HDDs floating around (hell, I have one) but let's be honest: anyone buying i7 is going to have a SATA drive for boot and if they really have an IDE drive they want to put in, PCI-IDE adaptor cards aren't expensive - likely less so overall than putting an IDE port on every mobo.

As for eSATA.. well I've never used it and IMO it's going to die out as USB3 becomes more prevalent, as USB3 offers many advantages and no disadvantages over eSATA.

Bought one of these a couple of months ago and can highly recommend it.

I reckon the lack of eSATA and IDE aren't really of great significance, especially as PCI/PCI-e cards for them are dirt cheap.

The number of SATA ports is fine too, as adding in an extra PCI/PCI-e SATA card is again dirt cheap.

I suspect this might be the board i go for when funds permit upgrading.

I might point out that there are actually 8 sata ports too, it hasn't explicitly been missed in the review but it gives the impression that there are only 6 on the board.. 8 is a good number I feel, though I suppose pushes the price/power consumption up due to needing another controller. Although my last two motherboards have both had 10 :D

“No IDE” should be listed in the good section. You would have to be mad to buy an X58 motherboard and use an ancient PATA HDD.