I find the Asus P6T Deluxe V1/V2 to best the best board out of the first generation x58 offerings. It has drawbacks but it's a really really solid motherboard and it's totally impossible to kill. If you need PCI and run SLI you can not use a video card that is wider than two slots in the first X16 slot and if the PCI-card is very long it might hinder the cooling of that video card a bit. If you do not run SLI you can use the second x16 PCI-E slot for the video card and use two full lenght PCI cards without them blocking anything important. The second X16 PCI-E slot can handle a triple slot card (and even wider if there is room in the case).

The slot placement on the P6T-Deluxe is almost perfect. I would have preferred a third PCI-slot instead of a useless crippled third PCI-E X16 slot at the bottom of the board but that is my only complaint. A motherboard that can run SLI with a dual slot + a triple slot video card and use a PCI-card at the same time is awesome in my book. There is also a PCI-E x4 slot above the first X16 slot that could be used for fast storage.

Here in Sweden these boards are easy to find for 25-75 euro, often including CPU and memory.

The Rampage II is also good but rarely cheap. The Rampage has a large Fujitsu Capacitor that will fail sooner or later but it shouldn't kill the board . The second X16 slot blocks the PCI slot so no SLI + PCI.

Among the second and third generation X58 boards I have less experience, especially with cheaper alternatives. The newest X58 motherboard I own is the Gigabyte G1.Assassin. The G1 Assassin is a cool motherboard and overclocks well even tough it has an odd VRM design but it isn't a cheap and it doesn't have a PCI-slot...

In general, in my experience, Gigabytes X58 boards overclock memory better but can not cold boot really tight timings which is annoying. On Asus it's more if it works it works.

Skyscraper wrote on 2023-06-01, 16:30:

I find the Asus P6T Deluxe V1/V2 to best the best board out of the first generation x58 offerings. It has draw backs but it's a really really solid motherboard and it's totally impossible to kill. If you need PCI and run SLI you can not

P6T V1, probably V2 too, can't drop CPU voltage with overclocking. Infamous ASUS issue back from Core 2 era. Not good for day-to-day usage. Second generation of ASUS X58 motherboards, like Sabertooth, fixed that.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2023-06-01, 17:32:

Skyscraper wrote on 2023-06-01, 16:30:

I find the Asus P6T Deluxe V1/V2 to best the best board out of the first generation x58 offerings. It has draw backs but it's a really really solid motherboard and it's totally impossible to kill.

P6T V1, probably V2 too, can't drop CPU voltage with overclocking. Infamous ASUS issue back from Core 2 era. Not good for day-to-day usage.

It's one of few drawbacks. The other mention-able one is that the P6T series of boards won't hold turbo multipliers above the CPUs rated power draw.

In my perspective neither of those matter unless in the case of the voltage you want to use a really high voltage 24/7 or in case of the turbo issue you have a multiplier starved CPU. I do not think either applies in this case.

Overclocking with X58 is usually at it's best using the 21x multiplier and sometimes the 23x if you have a great CPU or bad motherboard. The voltage issue is negated by accepting the overclock you can get at less than 1.4V and keeping the C-states enabled.

Skyscraper wrote on 2023-06-01, 16:30:

I find the Asus P6T Deluxe V1/V2 to best the best board out of the first generation x58 offerings. [...] Here in Sweden these boards are easy to find for 25-75 euro, often including CPU and memory.

It looks slightly cheaper 120 pounds compared to the 150 pound of the gigabyte in ebay UK. But that is way more than I was expecting to spend on a replacement that I might not need. I actually think I paid less than 150 euros for my X58a-ud5, can't believe it has that price. I think I will just dont get a replacement and if mine breaks, just had to bite the bullet and pay the 1XX something for it!

In any case, I won't be overclocking anything, just running at default values.

These things turn up cheap but are only sold weird places, might be crappy... (Store not known to be good, for details only)
https://shopee.ph/Machinist-X58-Motherboard-L … 8404.6196892479

They are crappy. Very limited IO, VRM is trash, can't do S3 sleep, etc.

I had a Dell Studio XPS 435T that I bought and parted out - I was hoping for more, but the motherboard only sold for $26.00 plus shipping. So that might be a good candidate for an inexpensive 1366 motherboard.

If you want a Dell board that is not even able to run higher speed RAM at rated settings.

1366 really has issues with some games of that time until you go to at least 1333. 1066 really, really sucks.
DDR3-2000 is really nice.

There is a reason why good boards cost more and I am glad I haven't sold any of mine though I do need to get rid of a few.

I have either 3 or 4 models of the X58 LGA 1366 boards around and all were pretty cheap to snag over the last year or two in the US. CPUs other than the best gaming model are dirt cheap as well. Some even have a floppy controller.

Good boards pretty much allow you to overclock the CPU and use fast speed RAM plus they are more stable with better cooling. If you are just running at stock speeds with cheap RAM a DELL system is probably easier and cheaper to find (usually with all the parts you need).

I would probably pick HP board for stock.

I paid £100 for my X58A-UD5 in 2019, which I thought was reasonable at the time.

ETA: Before that I had a EX58-UD5 which died due to overheating. Not the same board, but easily confused. The EX58 is the previous generation UD5.

X58 boards are indeed quite rare and stupidly expensive. I mostly care for Gigabyte boards and I managed to grab two mobos (x58a-ud3r and x58-ud3), for 40EUR each. I am concerned as well about the high temps on the mobo, I am seeing 60C on the northbridge in idle.

There is the option of P55 boards + i7 8xx. I argue that are just as compatible as x58 for retro purposes. The P55 boards I have seen support SLI, have IDE / floppy connectors and maybe more PCI slots.

In terms of performance - not much is lost vs X58.

I lost my EX58 because the HSF came loose from the CPU, and I didn't notice. This situation persisted I don't know how long, with the CPU running continuously at very high temperature, and it eventually killed the board.

These boards use crappy plastic pushpins to hold the HSF in place, leaving you vulnerable to things like this. I much prefer the metal screw attachment system you find on workstation/server boards.

mihai wrote on 2023-06-02, 12:28:

X58 boards are indeed quite rare and stupidly expensive. I mostly care for Gigabyte boards and I managed to grab two mobos (x58a-ud3r and x58-ud3), for 40EUR each. I am concerned as well about the high temps on the mobo, I am seeing 60C on the northbridge in idle.

There is the option of P55 boards + i7 8xx. I argue that are just as compatible as x58 for retro purposes. The P55 boards I have seen support SLI, have IDE / floppy connectors and maybe more PCI slots.

In terms of performance - not much is lost vs X58.

Then why not to go further and choose inexpensive LGA 1155 platform? It has official winxp drivers. Asus produced mainboards with ide option on-board (though I don't remember about floppy)

There are some retro advantages to x58 (and p55 I guess): native pci slots / floppy / ide / serial / parallel headers. It plays friendly with some PCI sound cards in DOS.

For windows xp and newer- lga 1155 platform is more modern and has cpus with AVX.

All chipsets after ICH7 do not have native IDE support. It's always provided through third-party controller, usually a eSATA+PATA combo.

Not to mention that those third-party IDE controllers increase boot time when enabled, with a separate screen after POST.

I second the Asus P6T. Good board - used to sell them in large quantities back in the day - got one for myself and I still have it, it still works (but I keep in a display case).

My favorite 1366 board (for practical reasons) is the Gigabyte X58-UD5 - sata 3, USB 3.0, very stable. The Asus is a bit faster, also very stable, and I have to admit I have a soft spot for it since it was part of my first high end build ever.

Also about P55 - why technically it's pretty much carbon copy of ICH9/ICH10, which was first released alongside P35 north-bridge (first LGA775 DDR3 chipset), you'll have more problems booting it under Windows 9x environment and probably under DOS. For Windows XP that does not matter and you might as well just pick any P67 board with Sandy Bridge CPU.

Overall, I consider that platform to be quite mediocre, not as compatible as X58/ICH10 and not as fast as late platforms on P/Z chipsets.