Intel's newest gaming platform, Skulltrail

Intel seems like it's going to be making a bigger push at gamers with the launch of Penryn, and HotHardware managed to score some deets on the company's upcoming "Skulltrail" platform, which is built-around server-class hardware reconfigured for gaming. The new mobo pictured here supports dual quad-core Penryn Xeon processors, SLI graphics, and four PCI Express x16 slots, as well as two standard PCI slots. You're also looking at a whopping six internal SATA ports, dual eSATA ports, six USB ports, a lone FireWire port, and Gigabit Ethernet. That's quite a foundation for a gaming rig -- let's just hope pricing is at least pretend reasonable, eh?

[phlavor Posted Dec 28th 2007 3:44PM]

You guys do know that this hardware won't make any of you suck less at video games right?

[Wwhat Posted Dec 28th 2007 3:48PM]

So here's my guess: $335.-

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 28th 2007 4:47PM]

Dream on.

[BBowmanVT Posted Dec 28th 2007 3:48PM]

Can you fit 4 GPU's on there? I'm assuming you can't because the last two are too close together, but I was just wondering.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 28th 2007 3:49PM]

Too bad, they are using the stupid 771 chipset. I'm still wondering why they aren't building a dual socket for the 775 chipset. Greed?

[tiuk Posted Dec 28th 2007 3:57PM]

Wow, it takes serious balls to name your product SKULLTRAIN and expect to be taken seriously. You've got to respect them for that.

[loofthri Posted Dec 28th 2007 4:46PM]

good thing the name is skulltrail, right?

[Torch Red Posted Dec 31st 2007 12:48AM]

One things for sure, AMD may be skullfracked unless they get their act together.

[broli Posted Dec 28th 2007 4:26PM]

Good move from Intel. Renaming a server motherboard and call it a gaming platform. The important hardware is even still server hardware (which is more expensive)! I guess Intel is well known for this name changing and selling it as a different product policy, look at the whole cpu range which differ mostly on clockspeed and a huge price gap.

[xzavier Posted Dec 28th 2007 4:41PM]

ULTRA COOOMBOOOOOOO!!!

[blash Posted Dec 28th 2007 5:04PM]

ummmm..... since when has:

1) there been proper dual-processor support in games, i.e. when are we going to see games that use all 8 cores?
2) there been SLI on an Intel mobo (SLI has always only been on nVidia chipset mobos, Intel mobos have always used Crossfire)

and 3) how the f*ck are you going to fit 2 air coolers for the processors in there?! Looks like you're going to have to use water with this monster if you want to do anything other than stock.

Other than that, that looks like a seriously awesome mobo. Intel build quality + SLI = pure pwnage, plus it has a ton of all the other little stuff to make it even better. +1 if the price is right (meaning, there hasn't been a mobo priced up to $300 and worth it in quite a while if ever for the gaming market, now is not a time to start but up to $400 is OK but pushing it).

[Telanis Posted Dec 28th 2007 5:35PM]

No one has posted that Intel doesn't have "real" multi-core chips like AMD! I'm shocked!

I guess my rebuttal about how AMD doesn't have "real" 64-bit processors is kind of moot then. (They slightly extended the x86 commandset for 64 bits, instead of moving to Intel's much more agile Itanium 64 architecture. Unfortunately the industry has followed suit)

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 29th 2007 12:24PM]

Maybe it was because Itanium was a full-blown failure supported by no one but HP. AMD64 was the next logical step on the evolution of x86 processors. If I was going to get something incompatible with x86, why would I bother with Itaniums when I could get much better PPC processors with actually better support?

[PEZ Posted Dec 28th 2007 10:33PM]

All real gamers play hopscotch.

[codemunki Posted Dec 29th 2007 11:28AM]

Seems silly to "make a bigger push at gamers" and then create a product that less than 1% of the PC gaming market will be willing to spend cash on. 2 quad core Xeons and 4 GPUs in SLI costs about 4-8x what the average gamer is willing to spend on a gaming rig. The power supply to run that beast probably costs more than an Xbox360 Arcade.

I'm getting bored of these new gaming technologies that will be obsolete by the time anyone can afford them.

[Chris8pie Posted Dec 29th 2007 1:08PM]

An Intel bord supporting SLI, am I reading that right?

[OneLove Posted Dec 29th 2007 4:49PM]

Is there a MB with built in SSD yet?

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 2nd 2008 5:10AM]

Wuaw, that MOBO is a real powerhorse.
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