ASUSTeK, Gigabyte and MSI have unveiled the first photos of their cards based on the X58 chipset and destined to the future Core i7 (ex-Nehalem).
ASUSTeK P6T Deluxe (source) :
Gigabyte GA-X58 Extreme (
source) :
MSI X58 Eclipse :
Of course what immediately jumps to our attention is the presence of 6 DIMM destined to accommodate DDR3 memory. You may recall, the Core i7 « Bloomfield » intended for the Socket 1366 and planned for the last quarter has three channel memory support while the more affordable Lynnfield and Havendale “only” support two and use a different Socket. Note these CPUs will not arrive before
the third quarter of 2009.
For PCI-Express we find two x16 ports with ASUSTeK, three with MSI and four for Gigabyte. In terms of the northbridge, the X58 has 32 PCI-E 2.0 lanes and can function in 2x16 or 4x8. The three motherboards are equipped with integrated power/reset buttons which will please those who like to tinker and are allergic to casings.
For cooling, ASUS and MSI offer a passive solution while Gigabyte has integrated a waterblock on the Northbridge. ASUSTeK already offered this type of solution on the ROG (Republic Of Gamer) series and we can only assume that it will be the same on its ROG X58. Moreover, this motherboard should also have the nForce 200 chip, an absolute condition for SLI support on the X58.
