ASUS P6T6 WS Revolution @ [H]

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
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ASUS P6T6 WS Revolution - The ASUS P6T6 WS Revolution motherboard has six PCIe x16 slots and delivers true x16 bandwidth for 3-Way SLI and CrossFireX, but does it work? Overall performance looks to rival that of the current reigning X58 chipset champs while delivering none of the features you don’t want.

The ASUS P6T6 WS Revolution looks to be a great motherboard both in terms of stability and performance. Its “legacy free” approach will be appreciated by many and scorned by others. Sadly if you are looking at buying this board for its true x16 bandwidth for 3-Way SLI or CrossFireX beyond two slots, I would in no way suggest buying one yet.
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Shame you couldn't get couldn't get 3 way SLI working. I have to admit, I skipped straight to the conclusions to try to find out how that turned out. Look forward to the update.
 
Typo Fixed - Kyle

Did you try testing some other way to see if you could even use all the lanes provided, perhaps with PCI-e x8 RAID cards? I'm wondering if it's an issue with the NF200 entirely or just an SLI issue or not.
 
MrMike said:
Typo Fixed - Kyle

Did you try testing some other way to see if you could even use all the lanes provided, perhaps with PCI-e x8 RAID cards? I'm wondering if it's an issue with the NF200 entirely or just an SLI issue or not.
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No, I have no such cards. And quite frankly, did not give a shit at that point. The primary feature of the board did not work with cards that have been verified to work properly in every other 3-way board we have tested. I think the NF200 boards are going to be pretty much worthless in regards to the extra bandwidth for 3-way SLI or CFX.
 
Looking for 3-way SLI results too after the preview. Odd you place a mb on the market knowing maybe it doesn't fully work as described. Like no one would notice? Makes you think about testing before its goes into production.
 
Seems like manufacturers pushing highly anticipated products out the door too soon is not uncommon these days (ie, iPhone, Blackberry Storm, etc.).
 
That's quite unusual from Asus to produce a board where one of the primary marketing features doesn't work. Hopefully Asus will get this corrected before too long.

Otherwise, this is looking to be a very promising board.
 
Why not, it seems to work quite well with software.

Vola said:
Seems like manufacturers pushing highly anticipated products out the door too soon is not uncommon these days (ie, iPhone, Blackberry Storm, etc.).
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It is weird that they would run into that problem since its one of their marketing features on selling the board.
 
Thanks for the review and the heads up. I've got my eye on this board but will not spring for one until the CPU overvolting and the 3-way SLI are resolved.

Question tho: (This is something that seems to quite often be hard to get a correct answer on when viewing specs of boards like this on Newegg, etc.) If all of the pcie slots are occupied, what are the number of lanes each will have?

16
8
8
8
8
4

This correct?
 
Hopefully the 3-way SLI will work with a BIOS or driver update.

All they have to do once that is done is get rid of the PS/2 ports.
 
I think the worst part of this is that Asus had 10 days to respond and they did not.
 
Thanks for the Timely Review
Say, I decided on Either The Gigabyte or This Asus..As if Anyone Cares but I called Coolit Systems and they Now have the Rentention kit for LGA 1366 Processors if you own a Freezone Elite.. I was told that they will have the 1366 New Elite Model sometime in the 2-3rd quarter of Next Year .. With Hopefully a new control panel and the same Display or similar as the Domino..

It would be Graetly Appreciated if some one could tell Me please if could I use 12 Gigs of 1600 mhz ram..
and could I run the 2000 mhz that's coming down the Pike..

If I Buy this Board I will be running 2 EVGAS 280's, an Adaptec 5805 Card , Velcipraptors (6 dr array), 2 Teras of Storage (WD 1t Black 2 Drive array) and 2 Intel 32 Gig SSD's, and the Asus Zonar pci express.. PC Power and Cooling 1200 Watt PS

If I cant use The Adaptec I will use an Areca 1220.

I prefer Corsair and OCZ.
Thanks
 
Damn. I was going to buy this board for Triple SLI GTX 280's but now I'll have to go elsewhere. What other boards support Triple SLI and center their CPU socket with the RAM slots?
 
Cakemeister said:
Hopefully the 3-way SLI will work with a BIOS or driver update.

All they have to do once that is done is get rid of the PS/2 ports.
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It may not be a BIOS issue. It could be, but more than likely it is a driver issue on NVIDIA's side. It was the same thing with the D5400XS and Geforce GTX 280 SLI and GTX 280 3-Way SLI.
 
I just happened to see this board on newegg yesterday and it appeals to me largely because of the PCIe slots. A lot of these x58 boards seem to hide the fewer-lane slots either under what will end up being the video card cooler, or else under an extended chipset cooler (unless you water-cool). So speaking as someone who would use 1 or 2 video cards, a PCIe audio card and possibly a raid card, something like this would be just right.
Tri-SLI is something that is unlikely to affect me personally, although it would be nice to know Asus had addressed the issues you encountered, as well as the cpu over-volting.
 
It's a shame the 3x Sli didn't work as this system is obviously marketed toward the emerging scientific calculation powerhouse market. The stability at insane temps would make it a wonderful board for building a 3-way sli. Hopefully it'll just be a bios revision to fix the problem.
 
ASUS shined on the P6T D and other boards as well, (had to disable their wifi crap to get my other boards working but never bought those boards for that reason) sounds like they just expected the Nforce chip to work.
 
Too bad ASUS never responded. However, this still looks like a solid board for the right person. From the moment I first saw this board, I loved it for the legacy free design and clean layout and never considered triple-SLI a needed feature at all as it will likely never be required for me here. 2-way dual GPU cards would likely be the most I'd ever need. Therefore, this board is still near the top of my shortlist for purchase on Friday. Kyle said "I like this P6T6 WS motherboard overall" and that's pretty much been my take since I started researching all these new boards. Hopefully I will still like it once it is in my hands.

Hopefully ASUS will get this triple-SLI fixed without having to recall the boards.
 
It is funny that other boards worked in Tri-Sli, but no this one. The only real difference between them all is this board has the NF200 chip. I like NVIDIA videocards, but lost fondness for their motherboards after the NF4. Could it be the NF 200 is the culprit?
 
I for one don't think I can pay $370 for a motherboard. I am eyeballing that EVGA board for my new I-7 build.
 
uhm, i dunno if this is really something worth "benchmarking" but rather actually just testing stability, temps, design which is done perfectly done here, but it feels like the benchmarks is just scrool scrool, ohh an 10 mb faster in an memory benchmark of the 28 thousand megabytes of bandwidth..
an fps higher there, lower there, doesnt seem to matter what motherboard you get in terms of speed when it comes down to the same chipset.

well, this was an interesting motherboard and i'd love to see some other manufactures in the test bed, like foxconn blood rage X58 looks neat, seems to be pretty good. maybe some DFI, but ive heard you guys dont like them alot. J/W for amd maybe, i know already you guys @ [H]Got alot too do, and maybe dont have time for it. doesnt hurt to ask for it =)

well, dfi and memory have never been 2 close friends though.

but well, anyone agree ? really i havnt seen much of an diffrence in any games with diffrent motherboards lately, just P45 and X48 can show a marginal diffrence when running crossfire, 8//8X pci-e makes that change, more interesting to see benchmarks of(my opinion) do benchmarks of same chipsets aswell, but maybe not all to important.

PS. why do you ever need PCI-E 1x 4x and such with an 16X ? 16 X ports support 1x and 4 X addin cards ;)


Asus have done a great job on this board in terms of layout :D
Everything is on the right sides (the two), looks clean, professional, and not flashy flashy uneeded.
 
well, i run crossfire in 8/8x with two overclocked 4870's, benched it versus an gigabyte MA790fx-dq6, well my minimum fps was 3 fps higher and max 10 lower, my gameplay experience was the same, what does 300 fps vs 290 matter.

In demanding games it was worth about nothing, i dont see any reason to get a tricard setup when you got those 4850x2 4870x2 9800GX2 GTX295 dualcards in an normal 16//16X pci-e and be able to get one videocard more into the rig, in less space, less power cables. but with added noise though.

pci-e 2.0 8/8x = pci-e 1.x 16/16X

agree'd with kyle on that one!
 
Just read the snippet. Haven't read the article, but....

Why would anyone scorn a legacy free motherboard? Why don't they just not buy it? That is of course, these will be used in prebuilt computers like dells/HPs/etc?
 
what do you use legacy products for ?.

well, if the products isnt supported under linux its nice, well mostly anything is supported in Linux atm. except some broadcom products(wireless) but do work with some work.

well, my old A64 gateway uses legacy nics :p
 
Got this tonight. Will need to put it to work Tuesday for you guys.

Kyle,

We have a new bios that so far has addressed the 3-way SLI issue, but we are still in midst of testing before making it public.
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qkool said:
Just read the snippet. Haven't read the article, but....

Why would anyone scorn a legacy free motherboard? Why don't they just not buy it? That is of course, these will be used in prebuilt computers like dells/HPs/etc?
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They would scorn it in fact if they were in need of legacy features. Sorry, I thought that statement did not need any explanation.

5. to reject, refuse, or ignore with contempt or disdain: She scorned my help.
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And from the way I see it from what is posted here in a broad sense, "scorn" fully fits many of the comments as to how the word was used. You guys are not the most tolerant of individuals...
 
AtkinS said:
uhm, i dunno if this is really something worth "benchmarking" but rather actually just testing stability, temps, design which is done perfectly done here, but it feels like the benchmarks is just scrool scrool, ohh an 10 mb faster in an memory benchmark of the 28 thousand megabytes of bandwidth..
an fps higher there, lower there, doesnt seem to matter what motherboard you get in terms of speed when it comes down to the same chipset.
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I would not publish benchmarks at all anymore if I thought reader reaction would not be hostile. Benchmarks mean nothing in motherboard review anymore IMO. Should be one sentence instead of three pages. "It worked exactly as it should have in terms of performance."

Edit: Let me add, that does not mean that we would not run the benchmarks, just not spend pages talking about them and showing the metrics.
 
I'd be worried about the NF200 chip shortening the lifespan of the NB chip. I kind of missed the effect of the NF200 chip on latency and such, particularly PCIe device-device and device-host traffic. Would have been interesting for GPGPU applications and such.
 
Elledan said:
I'd be worried about the NF200 chip shortening the lifespan of the NB chip.
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Could be a valid concern but might not be an issue. The hottest temperature recorded by Kyle on the NB and NF200 heatsinks was 190 degrees (88C) but this was after 6 hours in the incubator at 140 degrees (60C). The board continued to perform flawlessly. If it's going to be constantly 140 degrees inside your tower case, longevity would likely be an issue. However, in a real world install in a tower case, I don't think this will be an issue.

I'm ordering this board from NewEgg on Friday and we'll see what the real world temperatures are like.

Kyle Bennett said:
Now all this said, the board never faltered under these very stressful heat conditions that none of our readers should ever be faced with if you are exhausting at least some of the heat from your case properly.
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on a separate note, this mobo would be killer to run 6 single slot cards in parallel to perform computer simulations and whatnot for research purposes. Hm...then again, I remember someone already did something like this with 3 9800gx2's, which would be 6 gpus as well...
 
Well said Dan, better than my response would have been.

All X58 boards from all manufacturers are having issues of some kind. 99% of them are BIOS related. This is to be expected with new technology. I don't see any evidence whatsoever of hardware engineering problems just very immature BIOS. All of these boards are slowly starting to get better as they get into the hands of more users.
 
Dan_D said:
Well the Striker's not withstanding the ASUS boards I've used have all pretty much been top notch. I see no evidence that ASUS is ready to "tumble." This is especially true considering that ASUS is the largest motherboard manufacturer in the world supplying motherboards to nearly every major OEM. They also manufacturer quite a few other things.
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Very Astute Observation, I also have had tremendous Luck with Asus Boards, that far Outweigh the Negatives. I've had Problems with ABIT, and they went Down in Flames. My Gigabyte Pentium 4 Board was disapointing, MSI Mobo's also seemed Brittle, and didn't last.
ECS does seem to make decent boards, but they're considered a Budget Solution. They all have Problems, but ASUS usually does what it's supposed to do right out of the Box, and seems to hold up better than most over the Long Haul, and that's the Most Important issue facing small Builders like myself.
 
g1tigi said:
on a separate note, this mobo would be killer to run 6 single slot cards in parallel to perform computer simulations and whatnot for research purposes. Hm...then again, I remember someone already did something like this with 3 9800gx2's, which would be 6 gpus as well...
Click to expand...

That's why I was initially interested in this board. My company may need to do exactly such a thing next year (though with 4 GPUs per slot). From the looks of it, though, it seems not an as attractive board as one might initially suspect. I'd much prefer to get a board with this NF200 chip.
 
Why the heck is the thing so freakin' expensive.

And why doesn't ASUS offer more boards without all the legacy crap?

All I want is a solid 1366 board with possiblity of 2x SLi and no legacy crap.
 
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