Mates ,
After I Have finished The Preview For the Core i7 CPU ,i am Now Shifting the focus To the New DX58SO Board i got .For starters the Board Was Packed In a Huge Box .The Parcel Was Send To Me From Bangalore On 6th And Reached Me On 8th evening .The Packing Was Something Like this.
After i Opened The Box ,These Were the Items That Were Inside this Black Beauty .
Now Let Us Discuss Each of The Items In the Packing In Little Details ,The First Is the 4 Serial ATA Cables ,these Were Transparent Blue Coloured With one 180 Degree And Other side 90 Degree Lockable Serial ATA Cables .The Company Was Foxconn ,Well superb .Here Take a Peek .
The Next In Line Is a Small Fan ,Few Nuts And Bolts and a Plastic retention To Hold The Fan And Mount It On The Heatsink of the North Bridge.This Is the North Bridge "Well Not Really Cos There Is No North Bridge " But Still .The Fan is Not Really a Requirement But Recommended And Its Kudos on The Part Of Intel To Provide a Optional Accessory .Here Have a look At the Same .The Fan is Also of Transparent Body And Seems Blue Coloured Led Version To Me ,The Quality Was Superb .
The Next In Line Are The Power Cable To Convert 4 Power Signals To 8 If Your SMPS Supply Does not Have Any .Also in The Picture is the Metal Back Retention Plate And a Plastic Cover For The South Bridge Chip The ICH10R .Have a Look At These Also .
This Motherboard Is Bundled With One CC Also ,I Will And Should suggest That You All Keep Using Latest Drives From Intel Site Only As There Is Constant Update Of the Drivers By Intel this is Highly Recommended .Here Have a Look
Well There is Also a Quick start Manual In The Box ,the Same Was So Huge That I Made it Sit In My Home Sofa and Clicked a Snap .Here Have a Peek
There Was Also a One Page Document Meant for The Reviewer .Also Was a Envelope With "Whats New From Intel Desktop Boards " . The Pic Of the Same Is Shown Here .I am Yet To See whats Inside This .Should Be Some Intel Document Describing More Of The Desktop Board .
After Removing The Top Contents You will See a Solid White Packing On the Top Of The Intel Board ,Same Type Of Packing is There under the bottom of the board also .Here Have a Look At the Solid Packing .
After Lifting That White Protective Packing The Board Is Right There Shining In Its Full Glory In a Protective Antistatic Packing .Here Have a Look At The Same Also .
Once The Motherboard Was Lifted Out Of the Packing I Removed the Protective Cover And Click Some Shots of The Board ,Here Lets Talk About It In More details .The Complete Board Pic Is Here .
The Board Has 4 Ram sockets ,The Top Blue Once Are The Triple Channel Banks ,To Get Most Performance You Can Fix All Three Blue Banks with Ram ,People Who Have Dual channel DDR-III Memory Can Go Ahead And Install Two channels And Still Get Great Performance ,It Can Also Be Used With Single DDR-II Memory Also ,Recommended Frequency is DDR-3 1066 .You will Also Notice the Six Phase Design For The Power Section Also Covered With Blue Coloured Heatsinks .The So Called North Bridge Is To The right Middle Side of This Photo And covered With a Blue Heatsink .This is where we have to put the active cooling fan to as i was discussing earlier .You Will Also Notice the Power SMPS Connector On The Top of this North bridge .Having The Power Connector Here Will Be a Issue For The People Having smaller Cables And SMPs In The Bottom Of The Casing Like The Coolermaster CM 690 And The Coolermaster HAF "High Air Flow ".There is Also a Regular 4 Pin Male Connector Right Below The Sound Socket ,This is where We Have To Connect a Normal 4 Pin Power Connector ,this Area Feeds The Power To The PCI Express Bus ,If you do Not Want To Use This Connector You Can Also Connect a SATA Power Connector To The Bottom Left of The Board ,In This Pic you Are Not Able To See That Clearly ,I will Add Another Pic to Show that .On The Right Hand Side In the Lower Portion You will See 6 SATA Ports and Also the South Bridge The ICH10R .Also There Are The Following
1
CI Slot X 1
2
CI Express X16 Slots X 2
3
CI Express Slot X 4 X 1 On The Top
4
CI Express X1 Slots X 2 Also
Now Let Us See Individual things On The Board .See The Pic Below .
If You Follow This Image You Will See That The Design Is Completely New To People Like All of Us ,We Are Not Accustomed To This Design . To the Left side Is the Esata X 2 Ports ,Then We Have 8 USB Ports .There is a Firewire Port and Also a Gigabit LAN Port ,You Can Also See the Sound sockets With a Optical Fiber Link Also ,According To The Reviews on The Net This Board Has a Great Onboard Sound system and Should Be Enough for Many People .People Who Have PS/2 Mouses And Keyboards Can Also Use The Same In This Board Via Using a USB to Ps/2 Converter ,The PIC of The Same Is Here .This Is Mostly For 100 To 150 Bucks in India ,We Will Have It Online Tommorow But We Already Sell This In The Store BTW .
The Next Pic Is a More Detailed View of The Ram And The Power Stage of The Socket Lga 1366 Of This Board .
If You See This Pic I See No Problem in Installing Any Good Third Party Heatsink To The Same .You Can Also See The 4 Pin Male Power Connector To Power PCI Express on The Middle Left and The 4x Brown PCI Express Slot ,Well This Slot Can Take The X16 GPU Card Also But it will Run At X4 Speed .This system is Ati Crossfire Ready And Not Sli Ready .You Can Put Two X16 Crossfire Cards Or 2 X16 and 1 X4 Card .A Blown Up Image of The Bottom Of The Card Is Also Here .
Well in This PIC You Can See the x4 ,The X16 ,The X1 ,The PCI ,The X16 And The x1 Slots ,Right Under The Last x1 Slot is a Serial ATA Power Connector That Can Also Power Up The Board's PCI Express Power Requirements ,You Can Install The 4 Pin Male Connector Or the Serial ATA Power Connector ,I Am Not Sure If Both Can We Used At Same Time Also ,I Will Check That Out in The Review .You Can Also See The 6 Serial ATA Connectors And The South Bridge ,This South Bridge Can Be Covered With The Black Plastic Cover i Showed In the Post On The Top .Some People Keep On Saying That the Large GPU Cards Will Block the 2 Serial ATA Ports on The Top and The 2 In The Bottom ,Well i Checked The Pics of Other Brand boards Also and They Also Have The Same Issue Up There ,To Overcome This We Can use The 90 Degree Connectors to Connect To Onboard Sata .More USB headers ,The Front Panel Header And The BIOS Control Connector ,Also a Firewire Header And HD Audio Header is Right There On The Board's Bottom .There is Also a Switch That is Connected To The Board Itself To Switch it On If a Cabinet is Not There ,this is a Boon To Overclockers And system Testers ,This is Not Very Clear in The Pic but it is right above the yellow jumper of the BIOS and is white in colour .The PIC Below Clearly Shows That
You Will Also Notice The 9 Pin Power Connector In the Bottom Of the North Bridge .The Red Colour Fan Connector For The Front Fan Of the Cabbie .The Serial ATA Power Connector is Also Visible In The Pic In The Left side of the Board under the x1 PCI Express Connector .There is Also a Onboard speaker .There Are Also Few More Fan Connectors The 4 Pin For The Processor and Aux Fan "No Idea About Aux Fan ",then There is One For The Back of The Cabbie and One for the North Bridge also ,Other Then the CPU and Aux All 3 Are 3 Pins .Lets Now Shift Focus To The Power supply Connector .Here Have a look at the pic .
The Power supply Connector is Right To The Right Of The Ram ,The 3 Pin Fan Connector For The North Bridge is Also Visible There .You Can Clearly See The Spacing Around The Processor socket ,Great Job there Intel .Now Lets Shift To The Backside Of The Motherboard .See The Photo Here
Here You Can See a Large Metal Under The Main LGA 1366 Socket and Also 2 Strips of Metal Under The North Bridge ,this is The Keep the Board From Deformation Due To Heatsink Pressure .Its Very Common To Have the Socket BGA Balls Deform Due To Pressure if This is Not There .I will Close My Preview With a Reaction "Great Design And Great Board " ,I am Not Waiting For My DDR-3 Memory .Once i Have This I will Have a Small Review of This Board and the Extreme Core i7 965 .Well See You amigos .
Pricing :
- Expected Pricing is Around 12k to 13k That is 250 USD .
hyeah: