i7 platform...

[Lightning98]

Hello,

I'm planing on upgrading my work rig from an aging q6600 to an i7 rig this fall or winter so i have a few questions about the whole i7 motherboard/chipset thing.

I'm wondering since i7 has been here for awhile, does intel plan on releasing any new chipsets in the next couple of months or somewhere along the line for the i7?

I don't really want to pay a premium for it, only to have intel throw out something new in a couple of months.

x58 is pretty good, but it's been out there for awhile now, and i just thought i'd ask before i plan my purchase.

Thanx,
Tom.

[zalbard]

Just go with i7 and x58, unless you are willing to wait for Gulftown for quite a while. It should be compatible with x58.

[Lightning98]

So it not "just around the corner" as they say?
OK then, i was thinking if i get something in a couple of months and they release a new chipset in Q1 2010 i'd be pretty pissed...

[iTravis]

The next chipset from Intel is P55 which will release this September along with their new Core i5/i7 variants on LGA 1156 socket. Even Westmere's flagship is Gulftown has 6 cores/12 threads will use X58 as well so you'll be safe for a while. And the successor to Nehalem is Sandy Bridge probably won't be out till Q4 2010 or Q1 2011 and what socket or chipset it will run on is still a question. Some say the mainstream will run on LGA 1156 with different chipset, others say it might run on LGA 1366, still in speculation after all. If that's the case then X58 wouldn't have such long life cycle like LGA 775 did. Regardless, I still decided to upgrade to a Core i7 with X58 chipset myself.

[Lightning98]

I'm not that interested in the P55 or other mainstream chipsets... still looking around a bit, haven't decided yet if i'll go dual socket or just go with a plain old Gigabyte X58 board.

Thanx for the info btw, looks like i'm all set for the X58

[SoulsCollective]

If server/workstation is your game, i7 is hands-down the superior alternative to i5, and you have a confirmed upgrade path to hexacore hyper-threaded chips at the least and possibly Sandy Bridge as well. While it seems likely that a new chipset revision will come out, I expect this to be no more significant than X38-48: same socket, substantially the same CPU support, just a few tweaks around the edges - so don't feel like an X58 board will be a poor investment.

[Lightning98]

That's pretty good news, because if i invest in an expensive motherboard i'd plan on keeping it for awhile... and just the fact that future CPU's will be released on the same socket is great. Hopefully if i pay a premium for a motherboard the power circuitry will be able to handle a hexacore chip.

And the reason i'm not that interested in the i5 is that this will be the replacement to my work rig, and my company pays for about 60% of the costs to the build so pretty much i don't have any particular limits ... well that's kind of relative , considering that the Quadro FX5800 costs more than everything else put together

But basically what's the x58 chipset do in the i7 architecture? mostly acts as a southbridge? so probably no big reason to update it right? maybe to add USB 3.0 or SATA III at some point i presume.

[Lightning98]

Okay, not to open a new thread for the same question,

i'm looking around for a motherboard, and as i generally like Gigabyte i found their GA-EX58-UD5, and GA-EX58-Extreme board.
The basic difference between these 2 boards is the cooling setup right? And also are these motherboards OK?

Also if i get this for my gaming rig, i'd rather go with a dual socket x58 board for work, so are there any of those around?