Early Look: Gigabyte GA-EX58-Extreme

Should have just gone ahead to E-ATX with this board. In this end of enthusiast boards, from Gigabte, the price for such a derivative would not have be intolerable.

Out of curiosity, is this obscenely cramped board made any thicker to also support an oversize aftermarket cooler?

Greetings!

Originally Posted by Amon
Out of curiosity, is this obscenely cramped board made any thicker to also support an oversize aftermarket cooler?

All X58 boards that we've seen to date have an eight-layer PCB...

Originally Posted by Xtrafresh
we've had this discussion before methinks, but on a 300+ pounds board with a full TEN sata ports, is it really that strange to expect a user to toss in 15 pounds for an el cheapo SATA drive? Most of the people that use this will go the whole 9 yards and go for BR-drives anyway.

That makes at LEAST 2000. A simple SATA DVD drive would drive up cost by a grand total of 1%
Spring cleaning, dump the connector!

Otherwise, sexy sexy board!

Don't you mean PATA or IDE?
Cause BR drives use the SATA connector. Dumping the PATA/IDE connector would make more sense.

Originally Posted by Jipa
The color scheme makes pandas cry. Seriously PLEASE, Gigabyte...

I have seen different Gigabyte X58 boards, and the latest one is looking very, very nice
I guess Gigabyte is listening to the people.

Originally Posted by impar
Greetings!

Anyone else thinks three RAM slots would be enough?
Why waste PCB with three other RAM slots that will be vacant in ~99,4% of the systems?

This is an Intel requirement.
The X58 is a triple-channel DDR3 memory only architecture, so 6 memory slots will become standard.
Also, Intel have now linked the memory to speak directly to the CPU – the same type of technology with AMD has been using for some time now.

Greetings!

Originally Posted by MilkMan5
The X58 is a triple-channel DDR3 memory only architecture, ...

I know. For a triple channel RAM system, you need three RAM slots, not six.

Originally Posted by impar
Greetings!

I know. For a triple channel RAM system, you need three RAM slots, not six.

True, but 12GB is impossible with 3 slots as the only 4GB sticks are horribly overpriced (even more so than normal ddr3) and have crappy clocks and latencies.
No, there is no use yet for 12GB in a desktop, but what will you do in a year if you go for 6 with nehalem this year?, yes, exactly, go for 12GB.
4GB is the standard now, so upgrading to 6GB is a given with nehalem as 3 would be a downgrade, so any future upgrade = min 12GB.

Not impossible with three slots, but improbable at the moment. With six slots Intel supports a total of 24GB of memory.

Greetings!

Naokaji, as you say, if going the Nehalem route this year what makes sense is using 6GB RAM (3x2GB).
However, when the need for more than 6GB RAM comes, 4GB sticks will have a decent price/speed/latencies and 3x4GB would make sense.

It depends on the way someone upgrades the RAM sub-system. I always go for the least number of slots occupied.
Currently am at 2X2GB, with two slots empty.
Before was at 2x1GB, with two slots empty.
Before that was at 2x512MB, with two slots empty.

For me, and probably many others, the extra slots are just useless. Having three empty slots in a motherboard PCB looks like a waste of space.

Greetings!

Just to add that there will be X58 motherboards with only three RAM slots:
http://img243.imageshack.us/img243/2682/bloodrageleftsaa1.jpg
From here:
http://www.vr-zone.com/articles/Foxconn_Quantum_Force_Blood_Rage_X58_Sneak_Preview/6126.html

Yes Foxconn's board looks good, so does DFI's (that's six slots mind).

I just found out Gigabyte are making an inexpensive DS4 too that should be available in December.

By Jan it should be an interesting market.