Intel X79 board in Computex

[imamage]

Just saw them in Intel Booth

[bamtan2]

you missed the closeup of the ECS, sapphire, etc... the best ones, on the right

[R101]

Sapphire Intel board? Was I hiding under a rock or what?

[blindbox]

Yeah, the sapphire's one has 6x pci-e x16 slots.

[Computurd]

Yeah, the sapphire's one has 6x pci-e x16 slots.

using what, the NF200?

[blindbox]

using what, the NF200?

Mechanically, I meant.

[Computurd]

well yes, but im saying, is that native to the chip>? or did they have to use a 'port multiplier' of sorts, ala NF200? or variant?

[Lanek]

Surely, i don't think x79 have enough lanes for Quad x16 anyway .

[kl0012]

Surely, i don't think x79 have enough lanes for Quad x16 anyway .

In fact quad x8 PCI-E 3.0 has the same BW as quad x16 PCI-E 2.0. There is a high chance that SB-E will allow quad x8 even without additional NV chips (if a rumor about 40 integrated PCI-E lanes is true)

[Lanek]

Don't forget there's not only GPU's who use the PCI express lane, but too the SATA (2-3), the USB (3.0) etc etc... all depend how much are available for the GPU's ( who take the bigger parts ) .

Then im right with you, defacto, it's completely possible to pass them in 8x with the bandwith of PCI-Ex 3.0 ..

[rintamarotta]

Hardware p0rn at its best. Sad we're not able to get hands of those boards soon.

PCI-E 3.0 8x @ Quad SLI oh boy.. this generation will rock hard, there aint even graphics cards that can use full bandwidth of PCI-E 3.0 16x.
40 lines of PCI-E 3.0 will be enought for quad 8x, that 8 remaining lines are more than enought for all SATA6G, USB3 etc.. you may need.

[sholvaco]

The 40 CPU lanes available can be distributed among the expansion slots in any way the board engineers please, although 4 of them are intended for an optional data interconnect between the CPU and X79 PCH on boards that use lots of SATA/SAS connectivity. USB 3.0, additional SATA controllers and whatnot will most likely use the PCIe 2.0 links provided by the X79 PCH.

As an example this MSI prototype uses up the CPU lanes for a x16/x8/x16 electrically hardwired split and probably skimps on the optional data link:



You also need PCIe 3.0 capable peripheral devices to take advantage of the increased bandwidth. If you filled your expansion slots with four GTX 580 for example you'd still only get x8/x8/x8/x8 at PCIe 2.0 speeds. Current peripheral hardware is based on PCIe 2.0 protocols and cannot "speak" PCIe 3.0 because of differences in encoding and lower clock speed, while on the other side PCIe 3.0 controllers are backwards compatible and will downgrade accordingly (like speaking to a child ).

[sholvaco]

using what, the NF200?

Now that you mention it there is something that visually resembles NF200 on the Sapphire board. Either NF300 or are they sacrificing PCIe 3.0 for moar slots?

The smaller 4 channel switches like the ones on ASUS and Gigabyte examples are already available in PCIe 3.0 flavor: http://www.nxp.com/news/content/file_1742.html

[[XC] Synthetickiller]

Sapphire Intel board? Was I hiding under a rock or what?

They have a LGA 1155 board already:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...155%20sapphire

Nice layout, but not the best OCer.

Looks like they are trying to do an MSI Big Bang type board, layout-wise.

If that's the case, maybe MSI will liscense Vegeta as the logo for the next big bang board.

[Brother Esau]

Snot Yellow....My Favorite!

[3NZ0]

Snot Yellow....My Favorite!

I'd see a doctor if my snot was yellow.

They are unpainted pcb's from what I've gathered.

[PatRaceTin]

why Ram slot need to be split??????

[Etihtsarom]

Can't get over how big that socket is.

[antiacid]

split ram slots = bye bye easy watercooling of the ram (blingy but come on...why take it away?)


Also, why is it only gigabyte and sapphire with somewhat full lanes on all slots? How hard/expensive is it to turn a x4 into a x16 plastic slot?...

[deathman20]

why Ram slot need to be split??????

Needs to be split due to the trace lengths. Ram slots have to have equal lengths to the CPU for communications. If one is longer there will be issues with data. So splitting it makes it easier to put 2 slots on either side to get equal lengths of runs to the CPU without possibly increasing the layers on the board (added expense) or other issues that could arise from it.