First Details on Intel X79 Express Chipset

The source posted a few slides from an Intel presentation on the X79 Express chipset.

So, X79 Express is designed for high-end motherboards with the future Socket LGA 2011. The corresponding Sandy Bridge E-series processors, which are supposedly slated for Q4'2011, will feature built-in quad-channel DDR3 controllers and 32 PCI Express lanes.

As you can see on the second image, X79 Express will be somewhat of an I/O hub. It will offer 8 PCI Express lanes, an audio codec, 14 SATA and 14 USB 2.0 ports, and a Gigabit Ethernet interface. 10 of the 14 SATA ports are SATA 6Gbps, 8 will support SATA/SAS drives. Intel Rapid Storage technology will also support RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 modes.

Compared with the P67 chipset using the DMI interface (PCIe 2.0 x4), X79 will be able to use 4 more PCIe 2.0 lanes by enabling the corresponding option in EFI. Considering the area of application, another important feature is support for CPU/memory overclocking.

Note that there's no mention of USB 3.0 or Intel's own Thunderbolt.

Source: it.com.cn

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