Computex 2011 - X79 motherboards

[HKPolice]

I'd be more than happy with a 5.7Ghz Ivy bridge on air wouldn't you? 57x 'limit' is not an issue at all.

16x PCIe 2.0 is not being fully saturated even with a 6990 which is effectively only 8x PCIe 2.0 per GPU. Why would you think PCIe 3.0 would need more memory bandwidth when the GPUs don't even need it??

Quad channel Ram & PCIe 3.0 is not a bad thing but it's just not needed at all for current or even future GPUs and games within the next year or 2. It'll be great for other applications like benching, rendering or folding but excessive for gaming compared to what Ivy bridge can offer.

Anyone who actually paid attention to Sandy Bridge would KNOW that the 2600k only has 57x as top multiplier. And that memory bandwidth + PCI-E 3.0 would probably need a much more demanding title than the games in those reviews. Just saying it isn't needed because games don't push a system enough is like saying you don't need fast hard drives because games have loading screens.

[bamtan2]

how the hell do you expect to mount the fans while using high heatsink dimms???

this platform is for serious users, not people who think they need dimm heatsinks

[Macadamia]

this platform is for serious users, not people who think they need dimm heatsinks

I bet serious users LOVE 4 ram slots. /s

I'm quite open to getting a SB-E rig for really crazy motion work, but having to buy 4 sticks at once and not having any upgrade opportunities kinda blows.

Hopefully there's a mobo maker that has 6 slots or such- tbh I'd want the extra cores and RAM support more than losing one channel.

[M.Beier]

LGA 2011 + HIgh ram sticks = no cpu cooler fitting (that's of any decent size).

Looks like this is a WCing only platform.

Edit:

I wonder how OCing will be with 4 sticks. We need a little voltage bump w/ 4 sticks now on 1155. This might damper OCs JUST a tad. I bet WRs will be with 1 or 2 sticks like normal.

LN2 pots, evaps, waterblocks wont have a problem - what is the issue here?
I bet alot of webstores will bundle their computer solutions with H70 watercooling with the new generation....

Needless to say; Im looking much forward to having a X79 in my hands =)

[MadHacker]

Intel is supose to have a board with 8 DIMM on it.

Intel's highest end Sandy Bridge E board is Siler

OC, CF, SLI and 8 DIMM slots

Intel's X79 and Sandy Bridge E are meant to live as a workstation products, but as life sometimes tends to be unfair to both products and people, these workstation parts will have to dress up as desktop drag queens until the end of their existence.

They won’t be cheap either, as whenever Intel uses extreme prefix, it ends up quite expensive, sometimes even over $999 for a CPU. With that in mind, the new DX709SI board also codenamed as Siler will finally replace the venerable X58 platform.

Currently highest end board selling is DX58SO2 and this one is set to get replaced by Siler. Siler is a native DDR3 motherboard with USB 3.0 support and Dual LAN, if these are the features that can excite anyone these days. The more fun part is that the board supports Overclocking and it’s made with that in mind.

It also supports 2x 16 PCIe graphics slots and you will be able to use booth Crossfire and SLI, whatever makes you feel better.

[Iconyu]

I'd be more than happy with a 5.7Ghz Ivy bridge on air wouldn't you? 57x 'limit' is not an issue at all.

16x PCIe 2.0 is not being fully saturated even with a 6990 which is effectively only 8x PCIe 2.0 per GPU. Why would you think PCIe 3.0 would need more memory bandwidth when the GPUs don't even need it??

Quad channel Ram & PCIe 3.0 is not a bad thing but it's just not needed at all for current or even future GPUs and games within the next year or 2. It'll be great for other applications like benching, rendering or folding but excessive for gaming compared to what Ivy bridge can offer.

That isn't much of a climb down when you were obviously wrong but I'll let it go.

2.0 isn't saturated because developers avoid relying on it by design not because they can't. They put very low res textures in game so when there is a gap between loading and rendering you don't notice it as much, in most cases the hard drive is the bottle neck but if you have enough ram on a system it'll be cached.

All Ivy bridge will offer is a better on board GPU and some new chipsets. It's not some great white hope, it's just a shrink so Intel put a better GPU in the same diespace. It won't overclock much better because it'll be capped, you can get a 2600k to 5ghz on air if you're lucky anyway. I seriously don't know why everyone is so hyped about Ivy Bridge, it's like getting excited about a 1156 socket 32nm over a i7 920. Unless Intel release an extreme edition it won't be news. If you're lucky Ivy Bridge-E might come out within 6 months and that will be worth getting excited about.

@Macadamia: The reference design allows for Eight Dimm's but at a reduced frequency, the price of 4GB Dimms isn't high enough for 16GB to be a worry. For most users the motherboard will still cost more than the ram.

[Hondacity]

looks beautiful

[Hornet331]

I bet serious users LOVE 4 ram slots. /s

I'm quite open to getting a SB-E rig for really crazy motion work, but having to buy 4 sticks at once and not having any upgrade opportunities kinda blows.

Hopefully there's a mobo maker that has 6 slots or such- tbh I'd want the extra cores and RAM support more than losing one channel.

Serious users dont care for ATX boards anyway... that platform screams for EATX.

[Kensek]

And with me using my Dimas Bench Table they can even go up to a Double E ATX size (EEATX)

[Tenknics]

6 months? from now? or after SB-e launches?


Try another 18 months for Ivy-E. I really don't understand where all this hype for Ivy is coming from when SB hasn't been fully launched and fleshed out yet. Ivy is a 2012 product...It will be exactly like the SB launch (minus the sata fiasco). Mainstream Ivy 1055 in Jan/Feb (now pushed back to march/april) and Ivy-E socket 2011 in the fall, 2012!!

It's another year and half away and people are talking about it like it's right around the corner...WHY!?




Also, on a side note, why would you want 6 dimms on a 4-channel setup? You wouldn't be able to run all 4 channels properly if you filled all 6 dimms.
You had 6 on nehalem/westy because it was TRI channel, and 3 goes into 6 evenly. 4 Cannot go into 6 evenly..You need 4/8/12 dimm slots..

I'm personally disappointed that 4 dimms will be the norm...But what else can you do? I don't expect the majority of people buying this platform to have 8 sticks of ram. And if they did, how many people would actually need 32gb of ram? Otherwise it'd be a waste of money buying 2gb/1gb dimms, because you could get 8gb/16/gb with 4 dimm slots anyway.. Also, I'm sure it's more expensive for the mobo companies to make and its more expensive for the user to buy that many sticks.. I personally wanted to crack 20gb of ram but I guess 16 will be sufficient until 8gig dimms become affordable.

[rintamarotta]

Just engineering boards, doubt that memory slot configuration will stay there i think final retail boards will come with 4 slots in right side of the board as been so far, at least E-ATX boards if not ATX boards, that socket is just monster.

[HKPolice]

this platform is for serious users, not people who think they need dimm heatsinks

Would you please care to show me some dimms for "serious users" that don't have any towering heatspreaders on them?

Even the cheap kits come with big spreaders now.

[sin0822]

memory slots that way for trace length!

That socket hold down will be a to insulate

[paulbagz]

Don't think they're will be 2x Dominator GT fans on those RAM slots any time soon =/

-PB

[MadHacker]

well I'll have fun modding some waterblocks for the ram

[p2501]

That quantum force board looks mighty tasty, I also like how the retention system is threaded for direct metal HSF mounting.

I'm wondering if waterblocks would need to be scaled up or would one be able to reuse old blocks (e.g. supreme hf) for this platform, contact area would be enough I guess.

[sin0822]

yea the foxconn board looks pretty badass, just like their current board actually.

[dpa]

loving the socket, looks straight down MEAN!

[Vapor]

I worry about what happens when the threading for the socket mounting holes strips

[keiths]

Only four DIMM slots is a downgrade. WTF.

[Vicey]

I can't wait to see some benchmarks.

[-Sweeper_]

Only four DIMM slots is a downgrade. WTF.

LGA2011 intel MBs will have 8, probably other manufecturers will do the same on uber-expensive models

[bamtan2]

Would you please care to show me some dimms for "serious users" that don't have any towering heatspreaders on them?

Even the cheap kits come with big spreaders now.

there exists memory without ricersinks on them. the entire kit concept is a scam, again not for the most serious of gentlemen. the memory kit was invented by sleezy memory companies like OCZ to liquidate their lower density products onto unsuspecting users who would have been better off buying one higher density board. this is why you have a hard time finding anything else. the proper stuff is buried in crap.

Just engineering boards, doubt that memory slot configuration will stay there i think final retail boards will come with 4 slots in right side of the board as been so far, at least E-ATX boards if not ATX boards, that socket is just monster.

the early "engineering board" was already shown a while ago, and it looked just like this. this is done. memory slots are on both sides.

[paulbagz]

I find that there has to be a reason why the DIMMs are situated the way they are, engineering samples or not.

-PB

[[XC] Synthetickiller]

LN2 pots, evaps, waterblocks wont have a problem - what is the issue here?
I bet alot of webstores will bundle their computer solutions with H70 watercooling with the new generation....

Needless to say; Im looking much forward to having a X79 in my hands =)

Just focusing my commment towards the air cooling guys out there. You know who you are!

You know... I just thought, if the DIMM slot arrangment stays the same, installing ram will be a PAIN on the left side (or right if you're inverted ATX).

Now I'm curious what the standard cooler for this guy will be? Typical intel low end stuff or towers like the 990x?