Asus P6T Deluxe

Author: Richard Swinburne
Published: 2nd December 2008
Comments (28) Stumble

Board Features

  • Support for socket LGA1366 Intel Core i7 Processors with up to 6.4GT/s QPI link
  • Intel X58 Northbridge
  • Intel ICH10R Southbridge
  • Six DDR3 memory slots supporting 800-1,600MHz memory, including Intel XMP technology
  • Three PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slots (x16/x16/x1 or x16/x8/x8)
  • One PCI-Express 2.0 x4 slot
  • Two PCI slots
  • Support for Nvidia SLI and ATI CrossFire-X multi-GPU technologies
  • Six SATA 3Gbps ports including Intel Matrix RAID storage supporting RAID 0, 1, 0+1, 5
  • Two SAS ports from a Marvell 88SE6320 controller supporting SAS RAID 0 and 1
  • One Marvell 88SE6111 controller supplying one IDE port and one eSATA 3Gbps port
  • Two Gigabit Ethernet LAN from Marvell 88E8056 controllers
  • 14 USB 2.0 ports - eight on rear I/O, six onboard pin-outs
  • VIA VT6308P Firewire supplying two IEEE1394a Firewire ports - one rear I/O, one onboard pin-out
  • ADI SoundMax AD2000B 7.1 channel High-Definition audio codec
  • Asus Turbo-V
  • Asus Express Gate SSD
  • Asus EPU²

Board Layout

In some senses the board feels a little mish-mash; unable to make its mind up whether it wants to be a workstation workhorse or a feature rich enthusiasts choice. We've got more power regulation than the National Grid, bolted between a chunky new (removable) northbridge heatsink and a few PCI-Express slots below, not to mention the SAS, eSATA, SATA and other parts.

Asus P6T Deluxe Board Features and Layout
Asus P6T Deluxe Board Features and Layout
Click to enlarge

On that note, why SAS? The drives are fast but expensive, and most enthusiasts looking for some hardcore performance will probably be nosing up an Intel X25-M SSD, or two. The next question is: will those interested in investing in expensive, performance SAS drives be interested in just using an onboard controller? I find it hard to believe.

Having said that, because SAS and SATA are interchangeable, it does effectively mean there are eight SATA ports on this board and the Marvell controller for the extra two is likely to perform better than most others out there. Asus has still insisted on including IDE and even a floppy port too - something other companies have finally dropped.

Asus P6T Deluxe Board Features and Layout Asus P6T Deluxe Board Features and Layout
Click to enlarge

First of all, the CPU area; not only does it have the usual over abundance of PWMs - 16 phases to be exact - it's paired off with an extra two for the Uncore area which handles the L3 cache, memory controller and QPI. For the most part we still feel Asus is playing the numbers game, where "more is better", but it neglects to point out it uses smaller ferrite core chokes, which therefore hold less power. Plenty of MOSFETs will help with accurate switching but then why not go for Digital PWMs instead?

Regardless, the quality of components Asus uses is very good - the whole board gets super long-life solid aluminium capped capacitors, environmentally sealed chokes and the latest Power-PAK MOSFETs across the whole board. The northbridge also gets a couple of phases with some low-profile chokes, and the six slots of DDR3 memory get another three phases - more than what most other boards offer.

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