CES '09: Morsels From Our Meetings

Features
By Chris Angelini
published

Gigabyte's Affordable X58 And Ace's Maui

Gigabyte Goes Crazy For X58

So many of the X58 boards we’ve looked at already (and indeed, will be looking at in our upcoming X58 motherboard roundup) represent the target market for Core i7 right now—enthusiasts with money to spend on high-performance hardware.

However, the company had its entire lineup of X58-based boards on display at CES. And while it does cover the power user base, we were most impressed with the EX58-UD3R, which is now selling for less than $200. Yes, the board only includes four DDR3 memory slots and does sacrifice SLI licensing in order to keep costs down. But it still boasts a pair of 16-lane PCI Express (PCIe) 2.0 slots with CrossFireX support and the X58 platform’s other salient features. That’s quite a coup for Gigabyte, which is inching the X58 platform closer to the $150 range of many 790GX-based boards and eroding some of the price advantage Phenom II holds over Core i7.

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There are several competing models between the UD3R and Gigabyte’s next highest X58 offering, the EX58-UD4P (at $260). However, now you have the six memory slots and SLI support back in play. Much of the cost difference between the UD4P and the $300 EX58-UD5 is attributable to the commodity cost of the extra onboard cooling, according to company representatives, making the UD4P the best no-compromise value from Gigabyte.    

Ace Computers Shows Up With A Little Bit Of Maui

Late last year, AMD sent us a complete HTPC based on its Maui platform—think Spider, but for your living room. We haven’t had a chance to spend enough quality time in front of Maui to get a solid evaluation of the technology written up yet, but we wanted to make it a point to stop by Ace Computers this year to see what actual system builders are doing with the platform.

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The closest match to the system AMD sent us was Ace’s LMS 400, based on the same MSI-7411 motherboard and armed with Intersil’s D2Audio DAE-3 audio engine with a 5x100 W amplifier card. The LMS 400 is so well-equipped, in fact, that it could very well replace several components in your entertainment rack. Blu-ray playback, 1080p output through onboard Radeon graphics, CableCard/HD tuner support, and the five-channel amp cover the bases.

We snapped shots of another model that we weren’t able to find in Ace’s press kit, which is also based on the Maui platform.

Chris Angelini
Chris Angelini
Chris Angelini is an Editor Emeritus at Tom's Hardware US. He edits hardware reviews and covers high-profile CPU and GPU launches.
6 Comments Comment from the forums
  • neiroatopelcc
    So a new socket is planned for mainstream core i7 systems? If that's the case, why even invest in an x58 in the first place?
    Reply
  • squatchman
    Reading hard!

    "Core i7 variant later this year with on-chip graphics, a different socket interface, and two channels of DDR3 memory support. "

    It sounds like a crippled version of i7. Dual channel memory that takes DDR3 and some weak IGP? No thank you.
    Reply
  • enewmen
    At about that time, the socket LGA-1366 and LGA-1567 will be moving to server space while the LGA-1156 is for Desktop platforms. The good news is the Desktop platform when Sandy Bridge is released should be a lot faster for apps like games, recoding, etc. While the server platform will be better for databases, VMs, and other high-IO applications. I don't know yet if Sandy Bridge will be LGA-1156 or 1366, but I guess 1156.
    .001 cents worth. Lots of info on the web.
    Reply
  • cangelini
    squatchmanReading hard!"Core i7 variant later this year with on-chip graphics, a different socket interface, and two channels of DDR3 memory support. "It sounds like a crippled version of i7. Dual channel memory that takes DDR3 and some weak IGP? No thank you.
    It's all about getting that architecture into the mainstream though, right. For as well as it performs, i7 is still an expensive proposition.
    Reply
  • JonnyDough
    Too expensive. Which is why Phenom II seems to be picking up a bit of steam. Intel always seems to have issues with socket changes.
    Reply
  • TwoDigital
    Reading through multiple web sites (including Intel's 2009 roadmap presentations) the socket 1366 is being targeted at 'enthusiast' users. They are also releasing a socket 1567 server connect (replacing the current Xeon socketj 771) and an entry-level socket 1160.

    Rumor has it the 1160 will retain the dual-channel memory controller system. The current i7s are based on LGA 1366 and the high-end motherboards I would expect to stay that way for the foreseeable future.
    Reply