X79 Motherboards from Gigabyte & MSI at IDF 2011
by Anand Lal Shimpi on September 13, 2011 10:39 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- Intel
- Motherboards
- IDF 2011
- Sandy Bridge E
- Trade Shows
IDF isn't a traditional trade show in the sense that the majority of the show isn't built around a wide open show floor with tons of booths and product demonstrations. The majority of the show is built around Intel's own tech sessions that offer the audience information on things Intel is involved in. There is a daily tech showcase however to allow Intel's partners to show off some of their goods.
Although Sandy Bridge E is still a couple of months away from launch, Intel's partners were allowed to show systems as long as they didn't divulge clock speeds or allow for anyone to play with the USB ports. Both Gigabyte and MSI had boards on display which you can check out in the gallery below.
Major themes? Cheaper boards have 4 DIMM slots (1 DIMM per channel) while the more expensive boards will have 8 DIMM slots (2 DIMMs per channel). All mentioning of PCI Express Gen 3 seems to have been forbidden (note the last image where PCIe Gen 3 has been marked out on the board). There are currently no PCIe 3.0 devices on the market which makes validation a bit of a problem at this point.
Pricing is still unknown but we can expect motherboards to be priced north of X58 solutions.
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juampavalverde - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link
Holy cow! 8 DIMM slots on a desktop board, that's just... massive. No PCIe 3.0 for Intel, mhh this guys arent going straight with the chipsets (integrated or not).ph0tek - Wednesday, September 14, 2011 - link
I'm really happy to see 8 DIMM's. All previous X79 boards i see only had 4 DIMM's which was pathetic for a highend platform. I would have had to downgrade my memory capacity from 24GB to 16GB, unacceptable. But now i can have 32GB with 8 DIMM slots, nice.knedle - Wednesday, September 14, 2011 - link
Actually, there are 8GB DDR3 DIMMs, but they are so expensive, that it's unimaginable, anyone would want to buy them, for their price.Anyway 8 times 8GB = WOW!! 64GB of RAM! :D
hechacker1 - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link
We can only hope there's a decently priced enthusiast part like the 920 was. I remember jumping on it and a mobo when it got around the $300 mark.So far, a good investment considering the state of the art of high-end computing really hasn't moved forward (though the lower end chips have come a long way for way less money).
That and something with 6 or 8 cores that doesn't break the bank.
etamin - Wednesday, September 14, 2011 - link
nice to see some USB 3.0 onboard headers. Sadly, still no SB controller integration. Does anyone know how many PCIe lanes a NEC/Renesas controller takes up from the SB (if it does work that way)? and can these PCIe lanes be saved if the USB 3.0 controller were integrated in the SB?Paazel - Wednesday, September 14, 2011 - link
a) 12 SATA connections? Really??b) Looks like a new HSF mounting mechanism!!! Looks similar to what you would use with a back plate. Pushpins RIP.
Unrelated, but that Creative X-Fi onboard is cool; why doesn't ASUS integrate their XONAR products?
MonkeyPaw - Wednesday, September 14, 2011 - link
I agree on those pushpin HSFs. Such an inferior solution to AMD's simple clip and ARM. I guess it's still an improvement over the old "screwdriver" clips that left you wondering if you were about to mangle your motherboard.Mumrik - Wednesday, September 14, 2011 - link
"a) 12 SATA connections? Really??"What's you point? Did you want more?
I'm already using the 8 I have on my P67 board and am rather annoyed that so few boards have more...
knedle - Wednesday, September 14, 2011 - link
Actually, 4 of available SATA3 ports, are SAS capable, so they can be connected to hdd backplates, usually one hdd backplanes takes in 2 SAS connectors, and lets you connect up to six drives.This way you can use 4 SAS ports, to get 12 SATA drives + 8 SATA drives from onboard SATA ports = 20 hdds, seems enough for me. ;)
IanCutress - Wednesday, September 14, 2011 - link
Looking good.