Intel X79-based boards to be at COMPUTEX 2011

Intel's X79 Express chipset is set to receive some love from motherboard makers at COMPUTEX Taipei 2011. Lucky SOBs will be able to catch a glimpse of demos running at stalls. Intel X79 boards are set to be ready as early as August and Sandy Bridge-E processors roughly one month later.

What is funny is that it doesn't bring a heck of a lot to the table, some stand out things are: PCIe Gen 3, Quad-Channel DDR3 - yet no USB3.0 support, shame.

Below, a run down of what the new desktop chipset and Sandy Bridge-E processors will offer:

Sandy Bridge-E CPU Feature Overview

Up to 6 cores and 12 threads
32-KB instruction and 32-KB data L1 cache per core
256-KB shared instruction/data L2 cache per core
Up to 15 MB L3 cache (up to 2.5 MB per core) shared among all cores
Up to 40 PCIe Gen 3 Lanes (2x16 & 1x8)
4 lanes of DMI2/PCI Express 2.0 interface
4 Channels DDR3-1600 (1 DIMM per Channel)
Intel Turbo Boost Technology 2.0 (thermal control is the only limiter)
130W TDP
LGA2011 Socket

Sandy Bridge-E comes in 3 SKUs :

Sandy Bridge Extreme Edition : 6 cores / 12 threads, 3.3GHz clock, 15MB L3 cache (2.5MB per core), Max. OC
Sandy Bridge E : 6 cores / 12 threads, 3.2GHz clock, 12MB L3 cache (2MB per core), Max. OC
Sandy Bridge E : 4 cores / 8 threads, 3.6GHz clock, 10MB L3 cache (2.5MB per core), Limited OC

Intel X79 Express Chipset (Patsburg-HEDT) Overview

10 SATA 6Gbps ports with SAS capability
4 SATA 3Gps ports
PCIe 3.0 x4 uplink for dedicated storage bandwidth
8 PCIe 2.0 lanes
14 USB 2.0 ports
Integrated Gigabit Ethernet MAC (Lewisville PHY)
Intel Rapid Storage Technology enterprise 3.0
SAS RAID support (0/1/10)
SAS Expander support
SATA RAID support (0/1/10/5)
Write Journaling
Open Source Linux support
100MHz BCLK
Supports processor, memory and chipset overclocking
Supports Intel Extreme Tuning Utility 3.0 (XTU)
8-layer PCB, 2oz copper recommended

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