New X58 motherboards?

[AD-15]

hello,

I was hoping to start a new core i7 (bloomfield) build soon, however, I am wondering whether I should hold this off to see if any new motherboards for the LGA1366 chipset surface soon?

Bloomfield i7 is almost one year old now. From what I've seen before, motherboards have become obsolete pretty quickly, and replaced by new revisions. The P45 chipset came out only one year after the P35 did.

Also, there have been many new hardware advances being talked about recently, what with SATA3 and USB3. From what I understand, these technologies have already been implemented on boards that are currently available using discrete chips? Surely integration into the Intel Southbridge will follow soon? And with it of course new mobos? Maybe even an entirely new chipset?

The only thing is, we have heard no news whatsoever of new motherboards, and Hexus posted an article this morning I think, citing industry heavy weights saying "Wintel" integration won't come for another 18 months at least.

I was planning on buying the Rampage II extreme, but it's "age" makes me feel as though a replacement is just round the corner.

[Vimeous]

Yesterday's Hexus news points to USB3 for Wintel being 18mths away so I'd suggest only SATA3 should be of concern for now (http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=20361).
Similarily if you plan to buy all your storage now the first SATA3 drives wouldn't overstretch SATA2 so it wouldn't be my primary concern (http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=20334).

AFAIK only ASUS 1156 boards currently offer SATA3 (no doubt a short-term situation) if it's that critical but you'll be paying through the nose for both CPU and mboard to get it.

The 1366 socket certainly seeems to have a reasonable life left with 6core CPU's yet to appear.
Why not pick a P6T-based board for your current needs then chop-it-in for a SATA3 upgraded board when they're revealed?

[kalniel]

hello,

I was hoping to start a new core i7 (bloomfield) build soon, however, I am wondering whether I should hold this off to see if any new motherboards for the LGA1366 chipset surface soon?

This 'old' set of X58 chipsets will still be 100% compatible with the new westmere gulftown CPUs. That's probably all though, so if you really want something spanning three generations then you probably need to look to an AMD solution.

Of course, that's just on the CPU side, but that's the important bit. You are unlikely to be contrained by anything else that you couldn't get around simply by using an add-in card if you have to.

I wouldn't be surprised if some extreme solutions come out that use an ONFI slot for something like braidwood in the future.

[Hawker1986]

I believe the only new thing coming to X58 any time soon is SATA3 before the end of the year hopefully, Gigabyte are releasing mobos that have it on with an "A" after name. Personally im waiting for that just so its compatible with the next gen of SSDs.

Hawker

[kalniel]

Next gen SSDs will still be compatible with this gen motherboards, don't worry.

[oolon]

Its like all things computer related as soon as you buy it, its obsolete! If you wait a year your always be able to get something with a better wiget on it. Its going to be some time before we see USB3 devices, and they will be very expensive to start with so unless you have a pressing need for faster accessories, I would wait for the technology to come down in price. 3 areas I can see need for speed, gigabit networking (use an internal card), hard drives (use an e-sata), and scanners... errr... well only a problem if you want big high resolution stuff.

Personally I got a board with lots of multilane PCI-e slots in it so will buy an add in card if I need to use USB3, before this computer gets junked.

[Clunk]

I believe the only new thing coming to X58 any time soon is SATA3 before the end of the year hopefully, Gigabyte are releasing mobos that have it on with an "A" after name. Personally im waiting for that just so its compatible with the next gen of SSDs.

Hawker

Gigabyte told us about 6 weeks ago that the A boards had been cancelled.