X58 Sabertooth or P6X58D-E. Any reason one is better than other?

[Alpha0mega]

I am building an i7 950 rig soon. Everything else has been decided on, apart from the motherboard. As the title suggests, I am torn between the ASUS X58 Sabertooth and the P6X58D-E. Both are available for roughly the same price (around $10 difference).

The reviews I have read are very inconclusive, with some showing that one outperforms the other, and another reversing that. My primary performance concern is gaming. As long as either board gives me better gaming performance, I won't mind a slight disadvantage when it comes to application performance (preferably not!). Overclocking isn't a concern either, although reviews seem to put both on par with OC.

Is there any real, concrete reason to prefer one over the other? I need a reason to pick one . Looks don't matter at all.

Target specs:
i7 950
ASUS GTX 580
Corsair XMS3 1600 CL7 3x2GB
Seasonic S12D-850W
Corsair Force F120 SSD
WD Caviar Black 1TB

P.S. Please don't say that both are good and I can go with either, cause that doesn't really solve my dilemma!

 

[ZipSpeed]

I was in your situation and in the end, I decided to get the Sabertooth just because it looks nicer IMO. That and it's TUF! The Sabertooth does use a crappier Realtek NIC rather than the Intel one. The Realtek doesn't perform as well so if transfer speeds are a concern, go with the P6X58D-E.

 

[CVSiN]

I have the X58 Sabertooth and love it so far.
2 months and no issues at all..
running a SLI i7 920 setup.

 

[Alpha0mega]

What about the temps for the Sabertooth. I read a few people mentioning that it run significantly higher than the P6, despite the ceramic coating. Is that true?

 

[Rifter]

Dont know about the temps buy can verify the P6X58D-E is a great board. works good for my 930@4.2

Also the P6X58D-E should supply more stable power to the CPU for better overclocks as it is a 16+2 phase design vs the sabertooths 10+2

And if you are going SLI/CF the sabertooth is limited to 1x in the third PCIe 16 slot, will run 16x/16x/1x, which means you have to put the cards side by side which is less than ideal for cooling. The P6X58D-E will let you run 16x/8x/8x for better multi GPU spacing.

Bottom line is the sabertooth is more of a budget board and the P6X58D-E is more of a premium board.

 

[ZipSpeed]

The Sabertooth's 3rd slot is actually 4x electrical. So 16x/16x/4x. The 16+2 power phase on the -E is definitely nice but I doubt most users will see a difference between either board until you start getting into the extreme overclocking scenarios. Sabertooth also has higher quality components and is backed by a five year warranty so Asus is definitely confident about its long term stability and longevity.

The following is from the Guru3D review:

The Components Part of the toughness of the TUF series motherboards consists of three key components:

TUF Capacitor: Industry, top graded Japanese capacitors approved by ISO and IEC/IECQ certified independent laboratory to meet military standard. 2.5X more durable than ordinary Japan branded conductive polymer aluminium solider capacitors (also known as Solid Cap), and 1.67X more durable than even the top graded polymer tantalum capacitor (also known as Hi-C Cap) under the same environment temperature.

TUF MOSFET: Industry top graded low RDS(On) MOSFET approved by ISO and IEC/IECQ certified independent laboratory to meet military standard. These MOSFETs deliver robust efficiency while also sustain the ultra critical thermal shock of between - 65~150 ° C. The power solution is formed by four of this type of MOSFETs, delivering unbeatable performance as well as durability.

TUF Chokes: Industry top standard approved by ISO and IEC/IECQ certified independent laboratory to meet military standard. TUF Chokes, also known as the “Alloy Choke”, are made of a compound of various types of metal instead standard iron, enables the support of up to a massive 40A of rated current, 25% higher than conventional component. Furthermore, the single piece packaging also eliminates the emission of vibration noise, delivering superb characteristics as well as durability under extreme conditions.

 

[artvscommerce]

According to Asus the Sabertooth uses "Server Grade Components", so I would assume it would be a more reliable board than the P6X58D-E. Although I've built systems using both boards and I think you'll be quite happy either way. Maybe some paper scissors rock can settle this if you're still not sure...

 

[Alpha0mega]

I think I will pickup the Sabertooth. More reviews seem to put it on top of the P6X58D-E for gaming than otherwise. Also, the the HDD throughput seems higher. Application performance is more or less equal.

I would have preferred that the last PCIe slot be usable as 8x if the second 16x slot isn't occupied, but I don't think I will be going for SLI.

 

[RaistlinZ]

I love my P6X58D-E, but you probably can't go wrong with either one. My board works fine at 211 FSB, per my sig below.