ASUS HAS ANNOUNCED its second board in the TUF series, the Sabertooth X58 which according to the press release is an extra reliable board that can handle heavy duty tasks. We won’t read too much into that, but the previous TUF board, the Sabertooth 55i had some interesting features that have been rolled over to the Sabertooth X58.
One of the most – and at the same time least – notable features of this board is the CeraM!X coated heasinks. They stand out because they look unusual rather than the ceramic coating being something you can spot just by looking at the board. The coating is meant to increase the thermal dissipation area of the heatsinks, although we’re not sure how much of a difference it really makes, especially as Asus has still fitted a heatpipe to the heatsinks.
The general layout of the board looks somewhat cluttered, although it’s possible that the unusual colour combinations have something to do with this. According to Asus, we’re looking at components that are meeting military standards which are meant to make the board last longer than your average motherboard. With the exception of meeting military standards, all of the motherboard makers are making various claims with regards to how long this and that component on the board will last, but the question we have to ask here is – how long do most people keep the same board/system?
Anyhow, the Sabertooth X58 is meant to have been tested to meet server-grade standards and it’s meant to survive better in hot and humid environments compared to your average motherboard. This should be a good feature in Asus’ home country of Taiwan where it’s both hot and humid. We can sort of understand the reasoning behind the Sabertooth X58, but we doubt that Asus will sell a ton of these boards based on the longevity factor alone.
Other features include three x16 PCI Express slots, where the bottom black slot operates in x4 mode at all times, two PCI Express x1 slots and a PCI slot. The board also has USB 3.0 connectivity, SATA 6Gbps support, two eSATA ports of which one is a powered port, FireWire, six rear USB 2.0 ports and headers for another six ports, Gigabit Ethernet, a PS/2 port and 7.1-channel audio with optical S/PIDF out. Overall it’s not a bad board, but it doesn’t really bring anything new to the market in terms of actual usable features.S|A
Lars-Göran Nilsson
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