News - ASRock gives us glimpse of Intel Sandy Bridge Extreme X79 socket

[HEXUS]

Full-retail board on show at COMPUTEX.

Read more.

[keithwalton]

Four way graphics with only 3 x16 sockets ? How does that one work

[kalniel]

Four way graphics with only 3 x16 sockets ? How does that one work

Maybe you can use the x1 sockets too (I'd guess it's for 2x dual cards).

[RIX]

eg 2x GTX 590's or 2x 6990's

[OilSheikh]

This is getting ridiculous. ANOTHER NEW SOCKET ????

I just got Sandy Bridge 1155 recently and that's now no longer the latest.

[kalniel]

This is getting ridiculous. ANOTHER NEW SOCKET ????

I just got Sandy Bridge 1155 recently and that's now no longer the latest.

Different market segment. 1155 is still the latest desktop/mainstream socket. This is a replacement for X58 which is several years old now.

[Ross1]

12 sata ports is highly impressive. Can start throwing away those expensive HBA's and raid cards

[alpha channel]

I couldn't give a rats derrière for quad graphics, so what exactly is the point of this? (other than the ability to run two or more GPUs at full x16 speeds). To me it doesn't really look to give any advantages over the bog standard 1155 platform (and how many people go out and buy a SAS drive... or eight).

At least 1366 offers/offered the ability to ramp up the memory levels to a previously unimagined 24GB in a relatively affordable manner (which comes in very handy when you're doing heavy 3D work with high res textures and extensive high def video work) this looks as if it's going to limit the user to 16GB (can't say I've ever seen a memory module over 4GB that didn't require a mortgage).

[kalniel]

I couldn't give a rats derrière for quad graphics, so what exactly is the point of this? (other than the ability to run two or more GPUs at full x16 speeds). To me it doesn't really look to give any advantages over the bog standard 1155 platform (and how many people go out and buy a SAS drive... or eight).

At least 1366 offers/offered the ability to ramp up the memory levels to a previously unimagined 24GB in a relatively affordable manner (which comes in very handy when you're doing heavy 3D work with high res textures and extensive high def video work) this looks as if it's going to limit the user to 16GB (can't say I've ever seen a memory module over 4GB that didn't require a mortgage).

Skt 2011 processors are going to be much more powerful than skt 1155, especially for workstation type scenarios. Quad channel improved memory bandwidth, which can be useful for workstations, and direct PCI-E v3 connections to the CPU improves GPU bandwidth, also useful for workstations. So I can see lots of points for this. It's also probably a much cooler and cheaper chipset to produce than X58, with far more fast storage available (many sata 6 ports).

The one sticking point is the relatively small number of DIMM slots.. but what new memory density hasn't debuted at ridiculously high prices, only to fall later?

[mapesdhs]

I expect some mbd maker will release a board with a lot more than 4 sockets. 16GB is too low for many
professional uses these days. I know an animator who uses a system with 32GB and he still struggles
with the more complex renders he has to do.

Or maybe the lots-of-slots board designs will be reserved for dual-socket/XEON configurations. Or
perhaps we will soon start to see the first 16GB RAM modules.

Ian.

[alpha channel]

You're right of course kalniel, guess I was a tad disappointed at the lack of easily (read cheapish) memory expandability (of course didn't think about GPGPU tasks), was kind of expecting it to follow in the 1366 footsteps in certain respects.

[PowerPie5000]

I hope the power consumption, temps and overall cost are MUCH lower than the older X58 platform at launch.

[Ciber]

I hope the power consumption, temps and overall cost are MUCH lower than the older X58 platform at launch.

Probably even higher!

X58 was pretty grossly expensive at launch, but I was still happy to plop ~500 down on CPU, mobo and RAM. I was kind of hoping 1366 would be a good platform for a few CPU upgrades, but it seems it will be obsolete very soon plus I haven't felt the need for a better CPU in the 2+ years since.

Proabably best to wait a few months after the release of X79 and then see if you still want it!