News LGA2011 motherboard showcase

Next-gen Intel motherboards viewed up close and personal.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/motherboards/2011/06/02/intel-lga2011-motherboard-showcase/1

 

Why yes, yes I did. I think my aging Core2 dual-core will probably just about see me to the release of Ivy Bridge in Q1... Though as ever the temptation to upgrade is hard to ignore...

 

i want one now!!!!

 

It worries me slightly that there's two banks of memory on each side of the CPU. Bloody hell, is that the reference Intel design, or something?

 

We suspect it's for the quad-channel memory that LGA2011 CPUs are rumoured to support. I think Intel is still cagey on confirming that, however.

 

Someone broke the link

 

I was considering an LGA2011 Ivy Bridge upgrade along with a new GPU... But I am thinking of waiting a little longer. So far my C2Q Q9400 with GTX 260+ is still doing well enough. I know its borderline but with the CPU sitting at 3.2GHz (from 2.66) and the GPU only having a small boost too, I haven't found anything to be too much to run at max settings apart from Crysis at later points and Arma 2. I could always wait for Haswell...

 

Intel still hasn't confirmed it, but my suspicion (from last year when I saw a leaked system diagram) is pretty much 100% now as several memory vendors are already working on quad-channel kits for release when LGA2011 hits.

 

I just can't see the point in waiting until the next hardware iteration for most gamers. The i5-2500k is not going to be a bottleneck for a gaming system for most of the next decade imho (especially with its OC'ing abilities).

 

but we want moar POWER!

true its pretty useless for gamers atm, but people will still buy it because its new and shiny and nice (cant blame them). if you're running 2x 6990 or something of that ilk it could be useful.

on another not, how are these ram slots going to effect big CPU coolers? i can see tall heatspreaders being a thing of the past

 

I suspect that's probably right. Putting the 4 banks 2 on each side of the socket is probably to minimise the length of the traces, as that may determine maximum speed. The traces to the nearer banks will doubtless be folded back on themselves a few times to make sure they are all of equal length. Motherboard design is a fearsomely complex process!

 

For the mainstream, I absolutely agree that LGA1155 will be sufficient for the foreseeable future (but "most of the next decade" is hella long in technology terms so I'm sure we'll see a replacement to LGA1155 before then), but then LGA2011 is a replacement for LGA1366, which was never a mainstream chipset anyway. It's for workstations, power-users and elite enthusiasts who want / need the best of kit. The additional memory bandwidth of a quad channel design would likely be great for people doing heavy number crunching in photo / video editing, for example, or for certain server applications like highly loaded databases.

 

that looks awesome, but it also looks like asus haven't finished there boards, yellow pcb? *VOMITS*

 

These are all just basic templates, there's plenty of time for fine-tuning... I wouldn't worry about the PCB lacquer color just yet

 

Molex sockets on the Asus boards? They can not be serious

 

I doubt this is a finished board the prototypes always have random things on them!

 

i have personally put on hold my new build so i can go LGA2011, i just hope that we get chips like the k brand that o/c like mad (i havn't read up on it so if there are please let me know) my current rig is useless now for gaming (c2d e7400 & 9600GSO) but it will mean i'll have plenty of games to keep my entertained when i finally do upgrade.

 

That Molex is probably there to provide additional power to the PCI-E slots in multi-GPU setups. Namely, those slots receive their power from the main ATX power connector (20+4-pin), which only has one 12V wire. Each slot is supposed to provide up to 75W of power, by PCI-E specification. Imagine running a 4-way SLI or CF and having 300W (25A) drawn from one 18AWG (or 16AWG, best-case scenario) wire. Not good. 18AWG can carry up to 14A continuous (while heating up to 80-or-so °C), and 16AWG can carry up to 18A continuous. Molex is also not a very good solution, seeing how it too has only one 12V wire. Sill, 2 wires at 25 amps means that even an 18AWG wire would suffice. There is also the question of motherboard traces and their carrying capacity... Perhaps putting a 6-pin PCI-E connector there would be best/safest (just as MSI does on some of it's boards), this way the power traces can be shorter and going from multiple sources, and there are more wires in play, meaning lower voltage drops and less chance of melting the insulation...

 

Release of these coincides with the next part of my student loan

I hope to god XSPC release a 2011 faceplate for the RASA, my water-cooling is primed and ready

 

what, my single core athlon 64 939 3500+ is out of date? when did that happen?