Intel X58 Extreme DX58SO Motherboard

Introduction:

Intel’s recent launch of the X58 chipset has led to many reviews praising the new chipset and CPU as being the fastest available to the consumer right now. Intel has the entire high end covered with the under $300 Core i7 920, the $500+ Core i7 940 and the $999 Core i7 965 XE. Intel sells their chipsets at a retail price of nearly the same as the CPUs meaning that a new system based upon the new CPU will cost over $1000 when you add in the cost of memory and hard drives and other components.

AMD has a hard time competing as their CPUs are not competitive with the latest offerings from Intel. I’ve reviewed motherboards from ASUS, ECS, and MSI based upon this chipset but what about the reference board from Intel? Intel generally makes good stable reference boards leaving the tweaking to the other board manufacturers based upon their reference design. Intel has tried to shake the feeling by releasing tweaked boards like the X48 Bonetrail 2 reference design. Last month they released the X58 chipset with the codename Smackover. The reference board is called the DX58SO and is on the review bench today.

Features:

Intel launched their new LGA (Land Grid Array) Socket 1366 Core i7 CPUs just a month ago and the only motherboard chipset that supports the new CPU is the Intel X58 chipset. The Core i7 re-introduced Hyper-Threading technology and supports Intel’s Shared Smart Cache technologies. The LGA-1366 is the first Intel CPU to have the memory controller on the CPU not the Southbridge as earlier chipsets would have.

The X58 chipset is the first Intel chipset to natively support both SLI and Crossfire on the chipset level. Unfortunately, NVIDIA has not certified the Intel X58 motherboard for SLI though the various motherboards based upon this from other manufacturers support SLI out of the box. The DX58SO motherboard does fully support ATI’s Crossfire multi-GPU solution where you can install two ATI cards and run them together, but it is not currently SLI capable.

One of the key features of modern motherboard design that have been adopted by many manufacturers is the Solid Capacitors. An issue with some motherboards is leaking capacitors that cause the motherboard to not function properly. Solid capacitors have the advantage of not breaking off and leaking making the motherboard last longer and more stable at higher power frequencies. Intel’s DX58SO board has Solid capacitors.

Intel first introduced support for DDR3 support to their motherboard chipsets with the launch of the X38 chipset in 2007. The X58 chipset got rid of support for the earlier DDR2 standard and standardized on DDR3 memory support. As the memory controller is now on the CPU the Core i7 has direct access to the memory instead of going through the Northbridge as earlier CPUs would. The X58 chipset supports up to triple channel memory with memory bandwidth up to 76.8GB/second.

Conclusion:

Intel has a lot to be happy about with their new CPU and X58 family launch, firmly taking over the enthusiast market with new processors that are clearly faster than the last generation. The DX58SO motherboard is nearly as fast as the other boards on the platform, with minor differences due to the board manufacturer tweaks in performance. Feature-wise, the DX58SO has done away with legacy connections like IDE and PS/2. The only troubling thing about this board is the layout, with SATA ports that are not sideways facing and the positioning of the 8-pin power connector. I wish everyone a safe and prosperous Holidays as this article was written in the midst of them.

source:http://www.motherboards.org

MSI 790GX-G65 Motherboard

Inroduction

Micro Star International is a Tier-1 motherboard manufacturer based in Taiwan that manufactures hardware for computers and computer related equipment. Their boards are popular among the enthusiasts and they have been around since 1986. Their motto is Quality Products Create Faithful Customers.

AMD recently launched their AM3 CPUs including the Phenom II X4 810, Phenom II X3 720 and Phenom II 710. Their competition with Intel is currently at the mid-range of the market as their CPUs are not performance competitive with the latest fastest Core i7 CPUs. To go along with the AM3 launch there has been a launch of AM3 motherboards to support DDR3 memory. Today's review is of the new MSI 790GX-G65 board.

Features

The MSI board is based upon AMD's 790GX chipset. There are three things that this chipset has support for AM3 CPUs, DDR3 memory and integrated graphics. The Socket AM3 is a 938-pin package designed to support the latest AM3 CPUs. The memory controller is on the processor, meaning that the AM3 CPUs support DDR3 memory and this board supports it as well. Integrated HD 3300 graphics are the top of the heap in terms of performance for integrated graphics solutions.

AMD has launched several AM3 CPUs including the 810 we are using in this review, the 720 X3 and 710 X3 CPUs and more to come later this month. Due to the nature of the interface, AM3 CPUs will work on AM2+ boards, but AM2+ CPUs will not work on AM3 boards due to the missing pins and the use of DDR3 memory for system memory that is not supported by the AM2+ CPU.

APS stands for Active Phase Switching. APS uses the lower power modes of the CPU, memory and Chipset PWM when the system is not under load. Power savings of up to 27.6% are observed with APS enabled compared to a motherboard without APS. Auto Max FSB allows the overclocker to overclock quickly and automatically.

M-Flash allows the user to update the BIOS simply by using a USB drive. You can also sboot from a USB drive by using M-Flash if the BIOS crashes. MSI uses all Solid capacitors as is the custom with most motherboard manufacturers. Solid capacitors have a longer lifespan than regular capacitors and are much less likely to leak than the older capacitors. Chokes are inductors responsible for storing power and regulating current. Shielded chokes reduce core power loss and offer lower EMI emissions.

The integrated graphics core on the board is the HD 3300 from ATI. The HD 3300 has a core clock speed of 700MHz compared to the 500MHz core clock speed found on the HD 3200 on the earlier 780GX motherboard chipsets. The HD 3300 supports all features of DirectX 10.0 and in fact is a HD 2400XT modified for the motherboard with 40 SPs. MSI outfits their 790GX-G65 with 1 Gigabit for SidePort memory. SidePort memory works with your system memory to provide integrated graphics and can improve performance 15% over using the system memory alone.

Conclusion

AMD's launch of the AM3 platform is an interesting one from many angles. For the new computer owner the move to DDR3 memory is pretty clear as fewer and fewer motherboards with DDR2 memory support are hitting the market today compared to a year or two ago. DDR3 memory on the AMD platform requires AM3 CPUs. The extra memory resulted in increased performance in 3DMark Vantage and 06 over a slower AMD Phenom II X4 940 using DDR2 memory. MSI has put together a solid package in the form of the MSI 790GX-G65 motherboard, with good features, excellent bundle and very decent overclocking the MSI board is an easy choice over some of the other 790GX boards with support for DDR3.

Source :http://www.motherboards.org

Microsoft SideWinder X6 Review

Lefties are always left out when it comes to the ergonomics of a device and ambidextrous peripherals are often entry level, or they just aren’t good enough. Microsoft sees the problem and came out with the Microsoft Sidewinder X6 keyboard. The Sidewinder products are usually meant for gamers, making the X6 a gaming keyboard as well!

Lefties are always left out when it comes to the ergonomics of a device and ambidextrous peripherals are often entry level, or they just aren’t good enough. Microsoft sees the problem and came out with the Microsoft Sidewinder X6 keyboard. The Sidewinder products are usually meant for gamers, making the X6 a gaming keyboard as well!

The X6 is decked in a very hard and sturdy black plastic. The build quality is really good on the X6. There are plenty of extra buttons, keys and knobs on the X6, for example there are two huge knobs on the top part of the keyboard, one for volume and the other for the backlit LEDs in the keyboard. Yes, the keys are backlit so gaming in the dark will not boring anymore.

The best part of the X6 is that the number pad can be detached and attached to the left of the keyboard! The number pad is another part by itself that is magnetically attached on either side of the monitor. This will be a godsend to the lefties who uses the number pad for gaming.

Like what we said earlier, the X6 is a gaming keyboard and is evident at all the little touches put in my Microsoft for the gamers. For example, there is a “Cruise Control” button that lets you continue an action without holding down a key. Then, there is a “Mode Button” for switching in between standard mode and gaming mode.

There is also a very interesting “Macro Record”. All you need to do is to press the button, record the keystrokes you want, and press the button again to assign it to one of the 30 macro buttons. The next time you press the macro button, the keystrokes will be repeated. Great for those who play games with plenty of keystrokes!

The only thing that we didn’t like about the Sidewinder X6 is that it doesn’t have the ability to adjust it height unlike other keyboards. We found that the X6 is a little too low for our likings and not being able to adjust it means we have to live with it.

The Sidewinder X6 is really nice for gamers, as well as lefties with its removable number pad. The height of the keyboard is a little too low for us and it didn’t have adjustable legs. We hope that Microsoft can take this into consideration for future keyboards.

Pros: Ambidextrous keyboard, Backlit keys and Programmable buttons

Cons: No height adjustable and the keyboard is too low for us

source :http://hardwaretechreview.com