Sneak Peek: Four Core i7 X58 Motherboards

[Guest]

i've got my eyes on evga's x58 due to their lifetime warranty

 

[thr3ddy]

12GB or RAM? Isn't that a bit of a downgrade from the P45 chipset which supports up to 16GB? Just a thought.

 

[Turas]

Take off the IDE connector allready. I can understand some normal motherboards retaining these for backwards compatibility but think by now it would be long gone from enthusiast boards.

 

[clist]

[citation][nom]Turas[/nom]Take off the IDE connector allready. I can understand some normal motherboards retaining these for backwards compatibility but think by now it would be long gone from enthusiast boards. [/citation]

I couldn't agree more! Same thing for the PS2 ports which Chris (the reviewer) seems to welcome. For chrissakes, it's time to start getting on the hardware manufacturer's cases about getting USB working 100%, ditching the PS2 ports, the IDE ports, the floppy drives, and giving us working 64-bit drivers for our hardware so we can get out of the 90s...

I'm no Mac fanboi, but I do love them for the fact that they're able to say at regular intervals; 'sorry, but we're not going to offer backward compatibility with out-dated hardware; it's for your own good, time to upgrade'.

 

[RandyFast]

We need HW manufacturers to start coming up with 64bit drivers for vista. It's been around for almost TWO years; and still many companies refuse to write 64bit drivers...what a bunch of MORONS!
BTW: I'll be happy with my P5E for at least a year. 😉

 

[bounty]

Are there going to be any sub 300$ X58 boards? I think some of us want a good Intel board + SLI that overclocks... but don't need a handheld overclocking PDA + powersave grapher + 477 SATA ports with our name emblazoned in gold on it.

 

[Turas]

I have had great luck so for with 64 bit drivers for Vista, but yeah things were a little slow.

 

[The Hegemon]

Excellent Article/Sideshow. I'd like to see more things like this on Toms.

 

[favoritetort]

this does not mean that vendors will start selling three-module kits. the memory is stil dual-channel, not triple-channel all of a sudden. it just means that instead of two matched pairs you can install three matched pairs for more memory. since 64-bit architecture, the memory addressing is no longer the limiting factor, but dimm capacity is and number of slots are.

 

[favoritetort]

Oops. Actually, i7 will support tripple channel memory and there are vendors with three-module kits. this does not however follow naturally from having six slots on a board.

 

[drysocks]

why doesn't it follow?

 

[Guest]

This is going to rock. X58, Core i7, some games, beer, and paradise.

 

[kyeana]

^ and a sever money hit to the ol bank account 🙂

 

[pogsnet]

I could buy a motorcycle with this one. =) Free hacksaws? or Free AXE

 

[slickron42]

No HDMI ports

 

[reconspartan]

So if you were to put in three dual gpu ati cards on one of these boards would one of the cards not be recognized? Could that be fixed by driver support? Also, what of something like three 9800gx2's or whatever they are. SLI limited to three cores?

 

[cangelini]

Recon,
If you take a look at the top of a Radeon HD 4870 X2 board, you'll see that it only has one CrossFire connector. With two cards installed and a bridge across that hardware link, you wouldn't have anything to attach the third board to. Therefore, it wouldn't work in a "6-way" configuration.

 

[reconspartan]

Oh geeze. I guess I should have taken a look at it first. Thanks for the response Mr. Angelini.

 

[dragonsprayer]

gigabyte is the only one with cooling - my first mobo is dropping in this dual loop baby:
http://i329.photobucket.com/albums/l373/warpedsystems/WSZBP-28A.jpg
THG - thank you for the preview! Asus get the water blocks back up!

 

[cangelini]

[citation][nom]reconspartan[/nom]Oh geeze. I guess I should have taken a look at it first. Thanks for the response Mr. Angelini. [/citation]

No worries, my pleasure!

 

[MasonStorm]

Indeed one can use three of the newest, fastest GPUs on these boards, regardless of where the PCI-E slots are located...it's important to note that when liquid cooling is used, these double-slot cards can easily be made into single-slot cards. BFG makes them that way, so that one could just buy them; personally, I made three single-slot GTX 280s by buying stock, air-cooled versions, and the liquid blocks separately. Then, I used a case nibbler tool to cut down the mounting brackets to be single slots. Pretty easy mod, actually, especially when compared to the other things that enthusiasts do, such as phase-change cooling (now THAT was a headache).

 

[Guest]

I'm quite interested in that MSI board, always been a fan of their stuff. Even their "harro" manuals.

 

[Guest]

Boards will need to be certified by NVIDIA for 2 way and 3 way SLI configurations through an "SBIOS." Not all boards will support it just because it has PCI-E slots or because the spacing isn't correct.

 

[phantom93]

Can't wait, however I will have to sit on the sidelines for a bit until I build my next rig. However I get to see hwo this will do before making my purchese. INTEL FTW!

 

[Medox]

However, because of the way they’re laid out, you can only install three single-slot cards, which eliminates the possibility of 3-way SLI using GTX 280s or 260s.

Yeah but what about flexible x16 riser cards?