ECS X58B-A - Budget board
Category : X58
Published by Jean-Luc Hadey on 15.07.09
With the X58B-A ECS sends us an Intel X58 based mainboard which comes on a nice black PCB with Qooltech II heatpipe. Furthermore you get two SLI-capable PCIe-x16 slots and a six phase power design which should guarantee stable current suppliance.
Futhermore the ECS X58B-A comes with a Realtek ALC 888S-VC which supports 8-channel HD audio.
On the following pages you will see what the new ECS X58B-A is capable of.
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Specifications
| CPU | Intel LGA 1336 Core i7, 45nm CPUs |
| Chipset | Intel X58 + Intel ICH10R |
| QPI | 4.8GT/s - 6.4 GT/s |
| Memory | Triple Channel DDR3, 6 x DIMM, Max. 24 GB DDR3 1600(O.C.)/1600/1333/1066 Non-ECC, unbuffered |
| Multi-GPU | NVIDIA SLI & ATI CrossFireX |
| Slots | 2 x PCI-Express (gen 2) x16 slots 2 x PCI 1 x PCI-Express x4 |
| Sound | Realtek ALC 888S-VC supports 8-channel HD audio |
| Storage | 6 x SATA 3 Gb/s (RAID 0, 1, 5, 0+1) 1 x ATA 100/66/33 |
| LAN | Dual Gigabit Ethernet |
| Firewire | 2 x 1394a ports (1 via Backpanel, 1 via Mainboard Header) |
| USB | 12 x USB 2.0/1.1 Connectors (6 via Backpanel, 6 via Mainboard Header) |
| Fan connectors | 4 |
| Dimensions | ATX (24.5cm x 30.5cm) |
| BIOS | AMI BIOS with 16 MByte SPI ROM |
| Cables, various, tool's & software |
| 1 x SLI Bridge, 1 x Triple SLI Bridge |
| 1 x CrossFire Bridge |
| 1 x ATX I/O bezel |
| 6 x SATA cables |
| 1 x eSATA cable |
| 1 x FireWire & USB [de]Blende[/de]bezel |
| 1 x Driver CD, 1 x User's Manual |
| Software: ECS M.I.B (Motherboard Intelligent BIOS) Overclocking Tool |
Looking at the delivery of an SLI/Crossfire capable motherboard it really lacks a SLI as well as a Crossfire bridge. M.I.B. which stands for Motherboard Intelligent BIOS is a very practical tool to adjust CPU and memory frequencies.
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Layout
The ECS X58B-A presents itself on a black PCB. The onboard components are clearly arranged. You'll find two PCIe x16-Slots which support SLI as well as CrossFire (x16/x16) and two-way-SLI.
To guarantee a stable operation the ECS X58B-A comes with a six phase power supply. Regarding the capacitors ECS takes all-solid ones.
Altogether there are six memory slots on the ECS mainboard which officially supports DDR3-1066/1333 with up to 12 GByte/s transferrate. If you want to overclock the memory subsystem ECS claims DDR3-1600 is also possible.
Noth- and southbridge are being held at adequate temperatures by a passive heatpipe cooling solution which leaves enough space around the CPU socket to confortably mount even the biggest aircoolers available on the market today.
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Connectors and I/O
To wire your system neatly the ECS X58B-A has six SATA connectors which are angled by 90 degrees. Also very useful are the onbaord on/off- and reset-buttons. If you press them both at once the board performs a CMOS clear. Futhermore you'll also find a debug display which allows surveillance during the start up.
Totally you'll find three fan connectors on the ECS X58B-A motherboard whereas every single one is located at a keyposition on the board.
If you are looking for external connectors on the ECS X58B-A mainboard you can find two Gigabit ethernet ports, six USB 2.0 connectors, PS/2 keyboard/mouse connector, two eSATA and one Firewire connector.
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BIOS
Frequency | |
| BCLK | 133 bis 250 MHz |
| PCIE | 100 bis 200 MHz |
| Uncore | 266 bis 4266 MHz |
Voltages | |
| CPU VID Control | 1.06 bis 1.6V |
| DRAM Bus | 1.45 bis 2.4V |
| CPU VTT | 1.21 bis 1.61V |
| CPU PLL | 1.80 bis 2.15V |
| IOH/ICH | 1,11 bis 1.73V |
| IOH Analoge | 1.10 bis 1.45V |
| ICH 1.5 | 1.50 bis 2.10V |
| ICH 1.05v | 1,05 bis 1.35V |
| ICH | 1,05 bis 1,35V |
The ECS X58B-A AMI BIOS is well structured and it wont take you long to get a good overview. Therefore it is also setup quickly and there are enough options to configure a stable office PC or medium budget gaming PC.
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Test environment
| Hardware | |
| Mainboard | ECS X58B-A, Intel X58 Express Chipset, LGA 1366 Sockel |
| CPU | Intel Core i7-920, 2.66 GHz |
| Memory | Corsair 3 x 2GB DDR3 1866 MHz CL7 @ 1066 MHz 7.7.7.20 (Triple Channel Kit) |
| Graphic card | ATI Radeon HD 4850 1GB |
| Harddisk | Samsung Spinpoint F1 640 GB |
| PSU | Corsair HX 1000 Watt |
To test the mainboard on performance and stability we use the following games and benchmark programs.
Benchmark programs
Futuremark PCMark Vantage: Checks the system performance with five different tests: System, CPU, memory, graphics and HDD.
Futuremark 3DMark06: Checks the systems gaming performance.
Sisoft Sandra XII 2008: Performance- and stability test through memory bandwidth, multi-media performance and arithmetic performance.
Super PI mod 1.5XS: Performance and stability test which calculates PI on a specified number of decimal places.
HD Tach 3.0.4.0: measures the performance of hard disks. We use HD Tach 3.0.4.0.
Games
- F.E.A.R (DX9.0c)
- Crysis (DX10)
Resolution: 800 x 600
Anit Aliasing: none
Filtering: by system
Details: medium
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Test results and overclocking
| PCMark Vantage | ECS X58B-A | Asus Rampage II Extreme | Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 |
| PCMarkSuite | 6115 | 6256 | 6413 |
| Memories Suite | 4859 | 4811 | 4747 |
| Gaming Suite | 8742 | 7697 | 8865 |
| Hard disk | 3809 | 3905 | 3733 |
| 3DMark Vantage (Punkte) | ECS X58B-A | Asus Rampage II Extreme | Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 |
| Gesamt | 8307 | 8257 | 8583 |
| GPU Score | 7120 | 7070 | 7404 |
| CPU Score | 16616 | 16627 | 16430 |
| SiSoft Speicherbandbreite MB/s | ECS X58B-A | Asus Rampage II Extreme | Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 |
| Fliesskomma | 19111 | 19120 | 18940 |
| SiSoft Speicherbandbreite MB/s | ECS X58B-A | Asus Rampage II Extreme | Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 |
| Integer | 19110 | 19007 | 18930 |
| Diverse-Programme | ECS X58B-A | Asus Rampage II Extreme | Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 |
| SuperPi 1M | 15.313s | 15.383s | 15.325s |
| SuperPi 32M | 13m 52.384s | 14m.35.369s | 14m.31.484s |
| HD Tach USB-2.0-interface | ECS X58B-A | Asus Rampage II Extreme | Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 |
| CPU load | 2% | 2% | 3% |
| Burst (MB/s) | 36.4 | 35.1 | 35.7 |
| Read average (MB/s) | 33.7 | 33.5 | 33.4 |
| HD Tach SATA interface | |||
| CPU load | 2% | 1% | 2% |
| Burst (MB/s) | 231 | 232 | 218 |
| Read average (MB/s) | 93.3 | 94 | 93.5 |
| Resultaten in Bildern pro Sekunde (FPS) | ECS X58B-A | Asus Rampage II Extreme | Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 |
| F.E.A.R (DX9) | 642 | 645 | 644 |
| Call of Juarez (DX10) | 51.3 | 48.7 | 49.1 |
| Crysis (DX10) | 64.26 | 63.05 | 64.12 |
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Conclusion
With the X58B-A, ECS shows an Intel X58 based motherboard with a short delivery but also an adequate low price. Therefore ECS provides you with an affordable possibility to enter Intel royal league: i7.
Simply standard on a X58 motherboard is SLI as well as CrossFire support whereas there should also be the corresponding bridges in the package. Generally you wont find any layout issues with the ECS X58B-A which on the other hand is a must for a marginally equipped X58 motherboard. If you like to install a huge CPU cooler to keep the temperatures down at a low noise level you can do so easily. There are also plenty fan connectors to provide power to the different fans installed in your system.
If you're thinking about building a Core i7 based desktop or office PC the ECS X58B-A could be an alternative with good standard performance figures but if you are looking for a motherboard which also comes with overclocking potential we recommend spending a little more money because ECS was also saving money on the power design.
The ECS X58B-A can be bought at PC-HIGH to a price of CHF 245.80 (EUR 164.-).
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Author: jl.hadey@ocaholic.ch
English translation, pictures, copy editor: m.buechel@ocaholic.ch