According to the product brief, the board will be supporting both AMD Crossfire and Nvidia SLI configurations via three PCI Express 3.0 x16 slots, include eight DIMM slots, two Firewire and 14 USB 2.0 ports, as well as two SATA 6.0 Gb/s and four SATA 3.0 Gb/s connectors. There is no native USB 3.0 support, however, as Intel takes that route via a separate NEC controller to support this feature in two available ports. Also, there are two PCI Express 2.0 x1 slots and still one remaining PCI interface.
Intel will be marketing this board toward "champion gamers" and enthusiasts "who live to push their systems way beyond the limits." The DX79SI will come Intel's Extreme Tuning Utility, an Express Installer as well as ESET Smart Security 5 Antivirus.