Sabertooth X58

[xmanrigger]

Well guys, the verdict is up.

Is the Sabertooth a good board? You bet your sweet ass it is. Is it water friendly? You bet your sweet ass it aint! Unless you can find or customize your own block for the NB, dont bother with this board. The NB is one hot mofo. If I hadnt getto'd a 200mm fan hanging and blowing on it, I could have lit a doobie off the NB. As I sit here and type with the i7 950 at stock as well as the memory being at only 1066mhz, the fucking NB is 50C. Before I hung the 200mm fan, the NB was as high as 70C at 3700mhz. Bunk mobo maybe?

With that said though, I was able to reach some nice clock speeds. A stable 4508mhz clock was easily obtained and I benched through-out the night at that speed. The highest clock attained was 4600mhz, but no luck getting it stable with time spent.

Although a 4X PCI-e slot would have been nice, they did add a second PCI-e 1X slot below the PCI-E 16X slots. With my P6X58, the only PCI-e slot is the very top slot. With my X-Fi in that slot, fittings on a VGA water block can be an issue.

My conclusion on this board is it is a great clocker and is a really cool looking board. Unfortunetly, the NB isnt very cool. Unless you plan on air cooling with a cooler that has a big-ass fan to disperse a fuckload of air, stay away from this board. It is just too fucking hot. A 50C temp on the NB at idle is pretty shitty in my opinion. Then apply a slight oc and you are over 70C. I had to put this bitch in the window so it was drawing -2C air just to keep the NB around 40C when overclocking.

PS. I did a dual GTX560Ti build using the Sabertooth X58 a couple months ago. The client was very impatiant so I didnt get to do much testing at the time. I am going to get together with him and see if he is experiencing the same temps. I am kinda worried now because I sent it on it's way with a 3.8GHZ OC.

Also, the only bench I was running at the time was 3DMark 11. Unfortunetly, Futuremark`s site was down and still is, so no way to verify my scores. Pull your fuckin panties up BigMyke, I fuckin got you in a big way.

[Snyxxx]

I have several Rampage III Formulas running i7-950s. I get high temperatures on the NB and SB in the 50s at idle. I am watercooling the CPU and 580s.

I am in the same boat in regards to NB and SB waterblocks. Mine are all connected together with heat pipes to the two MOSFETs. I guess I could repalce the MOSFETs with Enzotech air coolers, but the copper look would spool my hole red/black/nickel look.

I refuse to put a ghetto fan to cool the NB/SB, but I have not spent enough quality time with the rig though and may need this in the future.

I may just get Red to nickel plate the Enzo MOSFETs and be done with it.

[cyriene]

I have to ghetto cool my x58 NBes with small fans to keep them from spontaneously combusting.

[jedimasterben]

My Rampage II Extreme's NB was ridiculously hot, in the mid 70s all the time, idle or load. Was about to put the NB under water but it died two days before I got my NB block in.

[Grnfinger]

I have my Rampage II E NB under water.

temps are decent, I wont see 50c full load.

Some complained about poor NB contact.. removing the board from the case and applying thicker washer to the mount puts extra pressure on the heatsink making better contact.
Some Maximus II p45 boards were so bad the NB burnt up on first boot frying the board.

[xmanrigger]

Wow! Censorship at ASUS forums.

It seems I hit a soft spot with a post in their forum. This leads me to beleive there may be a big problem with the Sabertooth's temps.

I made a simple post, asking other Sabertooth owners if they were experiencing extremely high NB temps as well. Nothing more, and I actually gave props to the mobo.

I just went back to see if there was a reply and my post has been deleted.

Nice, now how is that for customer service?

EDIT: I couldnt find any reference to any Sabertooth in their forum.

[Snyxxx]

Odd. There are posts in the Rampage III Formula Asus forum of high nb/sb temps and what you are seeing is pretty normal from my years with Asus boards.

[xmanrigger]

Odd. There are posts in the Rampage III Formula Asus forum of high nb/sb temps and what you are seeing is pretty normal from my years with Asus boards.

Cant think of any other reason they would delete it. I didnt trash talk it, I actually said it was a good board, just runs really hot. And asked if anyone else using it had really high temps. That was it.

[ablatman]

Cant think of any other reason they would delete it. I didnt trash talk it, I actually said it was a good board, just runs really hot. And asked if anyone else using it had really high temps. That was it.

Did you get any kind of notice that your post was deleted? Does your postcount reflect that you made that particular post?


If the answer to both is no, then I'd say it's likely that they restored their forum from a backup and lost your post in the process, or that they had some other glitch that dumped some posts.


Most boards I have been on do not lower post count on post deletion, nor do mods/admins generally remain silent if/when they delete your shit...

[xmanrigger]

Did you get any kind of notice that your post was deleted? Does your postcount reflect that you made that particular post?


If the answer to both is no, then I'd say it's likely that they restored their forum from a backup and lost your post in the process, or that they had some other glitch that dumped some posts.


Most boards I have been on do not lower post count on post deletion, nor do mods/admins generally remain silent if/when they delete your shit...

Not sure what my count was. dont track it. But you maybe right. Like I said, i didnt trash talk it. Although it does run hot, it is a very nice board. Good clocks, nice features.

[Snyxxx]

Did you go back to the right Sabertooth forum, maybe a mistake and posted in the x58 and went back to the P67 version? :shrug:

[xmanrigger]

Well, it was a complete waste of time. As I am typing this message, the NB temp is 88C with no fan blowing on the heatsink.

I removed the NB and found some pretty ugly looking TIM. It was really hard, and was difficult to clean off. I cleaned both surfaces with 99% Isopropanol, applied AC MX-2 in a thin layer, and reinstalled the heatsink. That was best suggestion from ASUS forums. From Ulrich which whom I have come to respect over the years.

After seeing the state of the NB TIM, I then removed the SB heatsink and did the same to it. The TIM on the SB was of a different type. The coverage accross the chip wasnt the greatest by the looks of the stain.

Unacceptable to say the least. I am RMA'n this b*tch if they will.

Too bad because it had very good potential. Sweet overclocker, if you have a side fan on your case blowing on it. I will be damned if I will stick a fan on it. Side panel fan isnt an option either, as the case will have a full window on the side panel, if it is on at all.

With my builds, I try to have the beauty and awesomeness inside. A blingy case is nice, but not even secondary on my list. Its quality and interior design takes precedence over outside appearance for me. In my opinion, showing off a nice clean uncluttered build of kick-ass components and custom work/wiring is far more sexy than a 'cool' looking case. Hell, I dont even use a side panel, the case is usually wide open. The bling is inside. And no, I anint talking about a fucking light show from a Pink Floyd concert. Bling as in sweet components. I was hoping the Sabertooth was going to be one of them. NOT

I bought this board this board for it's aesthetics, as it was going into a full blown custom water build for my son's PC. The EK Supreme as well as some other goodies for it just arrived yesterday from Gary's Love Shop.

I have now getto'd a 120mm Gentle Typhoon again in my case to cool the NB and it is now down and holding at 45C. SLIGHTLY lower temps as with factory installation and TIM. This board either HAS to be air cooled with CPU fan blowing on NB, a fan literally installed on heatsink, or a side panel fan. Not so liquid friendly.

I did take pics during the process. So if anybody interested, I will post them. Not sure how they turned out, I still haven't looked at them.

'rigger

[xmanrigger]

If I recall correctly, somebody else here has a Sabertooth X58. If so, could you post NB temps?

[xmanrigger]

Well, when installing the EK Supreme HF water block on the Sabertooth, I noticed the TIM that came with it was AC MX-4. I removed the NB heatsink a second time and applied AC MX-4 this time, and did notice a reduction in the NB temp. It is now hovering around 83C-86C with a 3800mhz overclock and no fan on the NB.

This is an improvement over the factory TIM and installation. I think a 0.5mm-1mm thermal pad would work better, but I dont have any to test. Prior to the application of MX-4, the NB would climb as high as 107C and then crash with no overclock using MX-2.

In conclusion, I wish manufacturers would get their shit together and quit billing their products as something they are not. The Sabertooth is Military Grade? Who's military? The Afgan's? Shit, I bet the Chinese military grade is a higher level than this.

I still would like to RMA this board though. I am not sure I want to trust the integrity of the NB cooler, short of putting a water block on it also. Here is a question; Can I seperate the NB cooler from the mosfet cooler by cutting the tubing and crimp/solder the end closed, and use a water block on the NB?

By the way, I am only using 1X Swiftech 120.3, 1X MCP350, and 3X 120mm gentle Typhoons for cooling, and it is managing the i7 930@3800mhz @34C (EK Supreme HF) and the GTX480 (BP BlackFreezer) clocked as high as 890/1950@40C without a prob running benches and gaming. I got a loop getto'd at the moment to test temps to see if I can get away with only the above mentioned. Seems to be handling the task quite well so far. I almost threw in a TC120.4 on my last order from Gary, but thought I would give this rad a go first. Kinda glad I did. I wasnt sure it would handle both at first.

[BigMyke]

Can I seperate the NB cooler from the mosfet cooler by cutting the tubing and crimp/solder the end closed, and use a water block on the NB?


I wouldn't void the warranty.

[Snyxxx]

I have the same issue with the Rampage Formula III. I refuse to put a ghetto tie-wrapped fan over the NB/SB.

I am thinking about getting the Watercool Nickel NB/SB blocks and just get the Enzotech MOSFET coolers (Copper) and get Red to Nickel plate them.

High NB/SB temps are common with Asus boards. I haqve a MCP Temp = 93°C and SPP Temp = 67°C right now as I type at idle. Just comes with the territory.

I refuse to get a Kooshit full cover board block. Looks like shit.