Core i7 - Pics of Gigabyte X58-EXTREME, LGA 1366 Socket

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AuDioFreaK39

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TweakTown - Intel's Next Generation Architecture “LGA 1366” platform - GIGABYTE X58-EXTREME

As Nehalem’s launch quickly approaches, Intel's platform will transform to the LGA 1366 package. The first chipset supporting LGA 1366 is the upcoming x58. Asus, Gigabyte, Foxconn, and MSI have all shown us their motherboards based on the x58 chipsets and we have seen Gigabyte’s X58-EXTREME many days ago.

windwithme from the Expreview Forums posted some more pics of the X58-EXTREME. Thanks to him we’re now able to have a further look at this small monster.

Edit: According to Tweaktown, the final version of X58-EXTREME comes with 12-phase powering, not 6-phase as the pics show.

GIGABYTE GA-X58-EXTREME
gx5801zc1.jpg


gx5802ih2.jpg


Bottom-Left Corner:
2 x PCI-E x16
2 x PCI-E x8
2 x PCI-E x4
1 x PCI
As usual, Intel "X" series chipsets can support ATI CrossFire technology.
At this time we've also learned that X58 will support NVIDIA SLi technology.
In the future, we may can see X58 motherboard integrate both GPU technologies.
gx5803as1.jpg


Bottom-Right Corner:
6 x SATAII (ICH10R)
1 x IDE
EXTREME series has Power/Reset and Debug LED
gx5804bf4.jpg


Top-Right Corner:
6-DIMM DDR3, not quite the same as the old 4-DIMM design. This will vary by board of course.
gx5805wo1.jpg


Top-Left Corner:
This time GIGABYTE uses 6-phase PWM, but not 12-phase as with LGA 775.
Does that mean LGA 1366 is more energy efficient?
gx5806jd6.jpg


IO Interface:
8 X USB 2.0
2 X RJ-45 LAN
1 X S/PDIF
1 X 1394
silver button is "Clear CMOS"
gx5807ek1.jpg


GA-X58-EXTREME high-res thermal module
gx5808qk8.jpg


gx5809fc8.jpg


Intel's next generation shortly upcoming LGA 1366 socket:
gx5810ig2.jpg



A few X58 specs might be changed in the final release, ex: 10 SATAII's, more LAN ports, etc. Just wait for the released version. ;)



P.S. Notice in the last picture the motherboard reads "DDR3 1900". This goes to invalidate Fudzilla's claim that Nehalem won't support more than DDR3 1066
​
 
Looks good, except for the "Clear CMOS" button. I could see myself hitting that on mistake too often.
 
I've got a couple of complaints on the layout. First off all SATA connectors should be right angle connectors. it is the only thing that makes sense with many video cards being nearly a foot long. The position of the floppy port sucks. Though that shouldn't be a huge deal considering that most people probably don't have floppy drives anymore. Anyone who is using Windows Vista certainly doesn't need it even for temporary use. I can't stand the angle of the PATA IDE port.

Finally the colors are hideous. Though that's par for the course where Gigabyte is concerned.
 
Dan_D said:
I've got a couple of complaints on the layout. First off all SATA connectors should be right angle connectors. it is the only thing that makes sense with many video cards being nearly a foot long. The position of the floppy port sucks. Though that shouldn't be a huge deal considering that most people probably don't have floppy drives anymore. Anyone who is using Windows Vista certainly doesn't need it even for temporary use. I can't stand the angle of the PATA IDE port.

Finally the colors are hideous. Though that's par for the course where Gigabyte is concerned.
Click to expand...

I have the same complaints about the SATA headers, IDE placement, floppy placement, the north bridge heat sink isn't cut away for that x4 openback slot.


But damn
2 x PCI-E x16
2 x PCI-E x8
2 x PCI-E x4
:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: those x4's looks tasty
 
Ockie said:
I have the same complaints about the SATA headers, IDE placement, floppy placement, the north bridge heat sink isn't cut away for that x4 openback slot.


But damn
2 x PCI-E x16
2 x PCI-E x8
2 x PCI-E x4
:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: those x4's looks tasty
Click to expand...

Good catch on that PCI-Express x4 slot and the chipset cooler interferance. I didn't spot that right away. I know I would have in person though.
 
Looks nice, though I wish it supported SLI as well, I heard it only supports Crossfire for the time being. Hopefully Gigabyte will make x58 boards that supports both SLI and Crossfire in the future.
 
maybe that mobo comes w/ a bag of skittles?

looks sweet....well minus the color combination
 
I wish Gigabyte would do something about the colors. I guess they aren't likely to listen. It took YEARS for MSI to stop their BS memory color coding scheme despite us hammering them for years on it.
 
No CPU clamping gadget on the socket. Anyone know how the CPU is held in? With 8 holes in a pattern - are the inner ones for some kind of CPU holder and the outer for coolers?
 
Dan_D said:
I've got a couple of complaints on the layout. First off all SATA connectors should be right angle connectors. it is the only thing that makes sense with many video cards being nearly a foot long.
Click to expand...

It looks like the one x16 slot does have right angle connectors for it, and the other has no connectors at all in the way (?) These would be the most likely slots for video card use. I don't think there's anything else for x8 or x4 that's nearly so large as a top tier video card that would cause a problem for the remaining connectors...
 
Very nice looking motherboard, very excited!

Only downs - just like with other DDR3 Gigabyte boards, they use those hideous watermelon colored sockets for the memory.

And why is there no CPU retention bracket?
 
Yeah, sometimes Gigabyte makes their boards way too colourful, but to me, I don't seem to mind, I care about the performance and how it works. I've been a loyal customer to Gigabyte for years and I'm very satisfied with their products.

I do agree that the colours of the RAM slots do look stupid though.
 
novadude said:
CMOS reset button right next to the USB ports? great...
Click to expand...

I would fully expect that tapping this button doesn't clear CMOS. It's probably a 5 second push-and-hold or something similar. The people who design these boards aren't usually total idiots.
 
Surly73 said:
I would fully expect that tapping this button doesn't clear CMOS. It's probably a 5 second push-and-hold or something similar. The people who design these boards aren't usually total idiots.
Click to expand...


You are giving Gigabyte too much credit.
 
Surly73 said:
I would fully expect that tapping this button doesn't clear CMOS. It's probably a 5 second push-and-hold or something similar. The people who design these boards aren't usually total idiots.
Click to expand...

i would assume it doesnt work with the PC on. + a flash drive could wedge the cmos btn down
 
Socket 775 has only been out 2 years and now they are releasing a whole new socket.

God Damn.
 
haadij404 said:
Socket 775 has only been out 2 years and now they are releasing a whole new socket.

God Damn.
Click to expand...

That's not too bad and since they are switching to an integrated memory controller it doesn't surprise me that they'd put out a new socket. If not for technical reasons (which I'm sure there are) they'd do it to prevent people from installing a Pentium 4, Pentium D or Core 2 processor on an X58 chipset motherboard which wouldn't be compatible with the older processors as it has no built in memory controller unlike previous chipsets.
 
E.E.L. Ambiense said:
Try four years...
Click to expand...

It sounded more like four years to me since the Pentium 4 Prescott core CPUs came out on LGA775 first and dual core Smith field and Presler cores came later. Hell the Core 2 itself has been around about two years.

Oddly the Wikipedia article on Socket "T" says that it was released in 2006 which didn't sound right to me. In fact I know that's not right.
 
Dan_D said:
It sounded more like four years to me since the Pentium 4 Prescott core CPUs came out on LGA775 first and dual core Smith field and Presler cores came later. Hell the Core 2 itself has been around about two years.

Oddly the Wikipedia article on Socket "T" says that it was released in 2006 which didn't sound right to me. In fact I know that's not right.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I had a Pressie 478 and I recall they released it in 775 soon afterward. Wiki seems to be wrong, as usual. ;)
 
Nice.....looks like a beast of a board (forgetting the fruity color scheme, lol) I'm curious to see how triple-channel memory performs.....I wonder how much benefit we'll see over today's dual-channel.
 
I understand that these boards use three DDR3 sticks, right????
Why are there 6 memory slots then??? would that be double-triple channel???:eek::eek:

I like the board. Inside the case the colors don't look so bad.......mostly......maybe?
I've used Gigabyte for a while now, you get over the color scheme.:eek:
 
magoo said:
I understand that these boards use three DDR3 sticks, right????
Why are there 6 memory slots then??? would that be double-triple channel???:eek::eek:

I like the board. Inside the case the colors don't look so bad.......mostly......maybe?
I've used Gigabyte for a while now, you get over the color scheme.:eek:
Click to expand...

No. Six slots populated would be two independant triple channels. They don't interleave between channels. What will probably upset me is that there will be issues with all six DIMM slots populated just like there are issues populating four now.
 
strend said:
Looks good, except for the "Clear CMOS" button. I could see myself hitting that on mistake too often.
Click to expand...

there's no way that button will be there in the production version of the board - it's got to be there just for testing. i like the way they have the power and reset buttons right there on the board - maybe adding the clear-cmos button somewhere around there could work - should need to be held down for at least 5 seconds tho (i'd prefer 10-15), just as a safety precausion.

they could really use some more usb connectors on this io pannel - there's only 8 that i see - why not add another of these spiffy 4-count usb blocks where the button is, or some e-sata (doesn't look like there are any of those yet)? in fact the board looks like it's a little light on the sata all around. i agree that they need to add another one or two of those right-angle sata banks as well, to support more hdd's and to make sure to get around longer graphics cards.

i'm currently using the gb X38 ddr3 variant, and my only huge complaint with it is that it can only handle 2 sticks of ddr3-1600 (or up), so having 4 slots is completely useless on the x38. I'm extremely curious to see how/if the 6-slot system performs with full-speed ddr3 - i guess being able to use 3 sticks this time around would still be an improvement, just a little weird.

as for the colors, gb seems to be very friendly to the build-process, making it very easy to tell what should be plugged in where at a glance; but they seem to be completely unaware that most enthusiast builders want to be able to look at the inside of their system after it's built without getting a headache! :p a better solution here would definitely be to print labels on or beside key components that can be read easily, and give the board a decent color-scheme!

edit: ooo - look, the edit button is back! thx!
 
madFive said:
there's no way that button will be there in the production version of the board - it's got to be there just for testing. i like the way they have the power and reset buttons right there on the board - maybe adding the clear-cmos button somewhere around there could work - should need to be held down for at least 5 seconds tho, just as a safety precausion.

they could really use some more usb connectors on this io pannel - there's only 8 that i see - why not add another of these spiffy 4-count usb blocks, or some e-sata (doesn't look like there are any of those yet)? in fact the board looks like it's a little light on the sata all around. i agree that they need to add another one or two of those right-angle sata banks as well, to support more hdd's and to make sure to get around longer graphics cards.

i'm currently using the gb X38 ddr3 variant, and my only huge complaint with it is that it can only handle 2 sticks of ddr3-1600, so having 4 slots is completely useless on the x38. I'm extremely curious to see how/if the 6-slot system performs with full-speed ddr3.

as for the colors, gb seems to be very friendly to the build-process, making it very easy to tell what should be plugged in where at a glance; but they seem to be completely unaware that most enthusiast builders want to be able to look at the inside of their system after it's built without getting a headache! :p a better solution here would definitely be to print labels on or beside key components that can be read easily, and give the board a decent color-scheme!

edit: ooo - look, the edit button is back! thx!
Click to expand...

I've got news for you, that button will likely be there on the production version of the board. ASUS has put those on some of their boards before. No reason why Gigabyte wouldn't follow suit.

I too would like to see some eSATA ports on the board. As far as internal SATA ports go, I don't think it's going to make a huge difference. I think that few people use more than 3 or 4 anyway. Many people that do will probably be using some kind of add in RAID controller anyway.
 
Newsflash. There are two buttons down there (power and reset). Same buttons / functions as the ones on your cases. Bench testing, etc. Gigabyte feature.

The clear CMOS is the jumper pins just like other Gigabyte boards. Just unfortunate placement of the silkscreen.



Make sense?
 
strend said:
Looks good, except for the "Clear CMOS" button. I could see myself hitting that on mistake too often.
Click to expand...

I like it there.

As long as it isn't sensitive and requires a little bit of pressure it wouldn't be a problem IMO, and much handier than busting out the jumper to clear it
 
What's the deal with the waterblock on the chipset? I thought moving the memory controller onto the processor would have resulted in a chipset that runs much cooler relative to x38/x48 and p45.

Also I really hate those terrible heatsink-messes with everything connected with heatpipes. If I'm going to watercool my chipset and cpu voltage regulators, it will be with decent blocks (ek most likely). Taking the heatsink-mess off of my maximus formula was quite a job. Also with interconnected heatsink-messes, you have to replace the sinks on the voltage regs, the chipset AND the southbridge. I really don't see any reason to connect the southbridge heatsink to ANYTHING else on the board with heatpipes.
 
AthlonXP said:
Nice, but I hate this whole rainbow color scheme.
Click to expand...

I honestly don't see why more companies print boards using black pcb like Asus does. It looks great. The next step would to be stop color coding the interior finger slots =D

board.jpg
 
That's a Foxconn board by the way, it says it on the cpu cover on the socket.
Click to expand...

Foxconn makes little components like sockets, etc for lots of motherboard manufacturers. Asus/gigabyte are the ones that buy those parts, and solder them on PCB, etc.
 
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