Gigabyte shows off robust Core i7 prototype motherboard

Surely you've been wondering what types of motherboards would be surfacing to support Intel's Core i7, no? Regardless of your answer, we're pretty sure the gamers and performance mavens in the house will appreciate Gigabyte's latest effort. The prototype mobo, coined Extreme Edition, was recently displayed at NVIDIA's NVISION 08 expo, and if the final version is anything like this, we'd say some records are in real danger of being obliterated. The unit was said to be based on the X58 chipset and provide support for up to six graphics cards, 24GB of DDR3-1333 RAM (or 6GB of DDR3-1900/2000 using overclocked 2GB DIMMs) and a separated 12-phase power supply for the CPU. Interested yet?

[EpicWinrar @ Aug 27th 2008 8:52AM]

WANT

[ZaxCG2 @ Aug 27th 2008 9:44AM]

2nd'd.
Oh wait. It probably has a price. Nevermind.

[Sachin @ Aug 27th 2008 5:06PM]

24GB? I can't wait for the day when the world goes x64.

[Sam @ Aug 27th 2008 8:46PM]

Why wait? It works fine now, and if everyone waits then everyone has to keep waiting. x64 is not the support nightmare it was a few years ago. I've been on Vista 64 for more than a year now and everything works. Performance in games is even comparable to xp32, and my 4gb of ddr2 all gets used.
I would suggest waiting until near the end of the year though for ddr3, it's a lot cheaper than it was but it still has a long way to fall and the nehalem release is sure to give it a good kick down the hill.

[slarity @ Aug 27th 2008 9:00AM]

Gigabyte never appealed to me in my days of building pcs. Recently however, Ive used about 5 DS3Ls in a few budget builds for friends and I gotta say they are very nice. I think I might actually stick with them now instead of my usual MSI/Asus

[shawn.zenz @ Aug 27th 2008 9:02AM]

SLI?

[Serial 8-Ball Mouse @ Aug 27th 2008 9:11AM]

"Due to space constraints there is only Crossfire and no SLI support."

[Homeboy @ Aug 27th 2008 9:03AM]

A separate power supply for the CPU? Soon our computers will consume more electricity than a refrigerator.

[steve @ Aug 27th 2008 9:48AM]

once you put 6 videocards in there, the thing might need it's own dedicated circuit breaker!

[I LOVE THE CAPS LOCK KEY @ Aug 27th 2008 6:05PM]

220v 40amps.

[andres @ Aug 27th 2008 6:33PM]

vegeta, how many amps does it draw?
ITS OVER 9000!!!!

[dhytspam @ Aug 27th 2008 9:03AM]

That's gonna be pretty expensive to kit out.

[avester @ Aug 27th 2008 9:05AM]

Only thing I'm interested is that can I afford the power bill after I've bought that and 6x 9800GX2:s in Tri-Dual SLI.

[Analyzer @ Oct 5th 2008 10:22PM]

This motherboard does not support SLI if you haven't read

[bob sakamano @ Aug 27th 2008 9:06AM]

most colorful motherboard ive ever seen

[brickwood @ Aug 27th 2008 9:09AM]

stupid fast!

[bertross @ Aug 28th 2008 4:24AM]

crazy awesome

[jonathan @ Aug 27th 2008 9:09AM]

NICE 8 memory slots!!! its ABOUT DAMN TIME!!!

[DiGiC @ Aug 27th 2008 9:14AM]

Theres 6 I can count, not 8.

Looks very nice, I'm sure I wont be able to afford something like that for a while :(

[Analyzer @ Oct 5th 2008 10:25PM]

There are six, not eight, slots. Look Carefully.

[Nathan @ Aug 27th 2008 1:04PM]

I WANT.

This looks amazing, i just want to see some more specs on the i7 than "4 cores 8 threads." Supported FSB? Hopefully 2000+MHz. Clock? 4GH+ would be nice.

[Aurimas @ Aug 27th 2008 9:13AM]

6 graphic cards or 6 GPU's? There are only 4 PCI-e x16 slots. Like there are any decent PCI and/or PCI-e x1 cards available. Or graphic cards can be inserted into DDR3 slot and vice versa. ;)

[Haro @ Aug 27th 2008 9:19AM]

i can count 6 PCI-E, but the space between PCI-E is very small, what kind of card will be used ??

[drumdbeat @ Aug 27th 2008 9:42AM]

Yeah but he said PCI-e x 16, the other two appear to be PCI-e x 4.....

[futurepastnow @ Aug 27th 2008 2:41PM]

Yes, but the two x4 slots are open-ended, so you could easily stick an x16 card in them.

[Catsceo @ Aug 27th 2008 2:52PM]

You can put graphics cards in DDR3 slots and visa versa?! Are their any on market?

[chyan @ Aug 27th 2008 9:19AM]

It looks cool. Heck!

[Big Wizz @ Aug 27th 2008 9:21AM]

inching closer and closer to Skynet....

[boe @ Aug 27th 2008 9:59AM]

Does it come with USB 3.0? How about SATA 3.0? I'm not buying any new MB until it supports these even though the SATA 3.0 may not be necessary for any of my current hard drives, who knows what will be out using solid state drive technology. Is it SLI or crossfire?

[I LOVE THE CAPS LOCK KEY @ Aug 27th 2008 9:16PM]

USB 3 and SATA 3 functionality can later be added via PCI-express addon cards and as long as you do not have any USB3 or SATA3 peripherals, there is little point in fretting over it or being an early adopter.

[mackid105 @ Aug 27th 2008 9:38AM]

yes! i want this and the i7 core now! any word on price of this yet? i should be building a computer early next year and want an idea of cost.

[mcatrage @ Aug 27th 2008 10:35AM]

At least a grand between the motherboard, processor, and ram. Probably more like $1500-$2000 when starting out with the extreme chips.

[crsh @ Aug 27th 2008 9:38AM]

All we need is the CPU.. where is Intel at with the Core i7 ship date?

[Jeremy K. @ Aug 27th 2008 9:49AM]

"Triple Channel DDR3"

[Reece @ Aug 27th 2008 7:22PM]

:O

That's like nine channels!

[ShadowKain @ Aug 27th 2008 10:22AM]

A Watercooled Northbridge by that picture? Maybe they will include waterblocks for the CPU? Either way awesome...

[1stJunglist @ Aug 27th 2008 11:32AM]

It does look like a water block on the northbridge, that would be so insane if it came setup for watercooling right out of the box.

[NotATreoFan @ Aug 27th 2008 10:46AM]

I only use Gigabyte or Intel boards in my builds. I've never had one fail in 5+ years.

[Rohit @ Aug 27th 2008 11:00AM]

There's every color of the rainbow on that board except purple... I think.

[jahcriado @ Aug 27th 2008 11:11AM]

All I can say is: DAAAAAAMMMMMMMMM!!!

[injate @ Aug 27th 2008 12:22PM]

Are those 4 parallel SATA plugs on the side in addition to 4 perpendicular SATA jacks? i7 will obliterate the universe.

[Joe @ Aug 27th 2008 12:27PM]

Damn you! Now I have drool all over my keyboard.

[Lukasz @ Aug 27th 2008 12:34PM]

Now the question remains:
will it blend Crysis?

[michas_pi @ Aug 27th 2008 2:28PM]

Only if it's done in a Doomtec blender.

[Schnozberry @ Aug 27th 2008 12:57PM]

Wow. I'm glad Intel had decided to realease a computing platform that rivals my Washer/Dryer combo in electricity consumption. What does anybody need these kinds of specs for? You can spend half as much as this system will cost you and see really no appreciable drop in performance. How long will it take gamers to figure out that all the beefy hardware in the world won't do you any good until software optimization catches up to the platform? Look how long it has taken people to program well for this generation fo game consoles? Most games and applications haven't even caught up to Quad Core processors yet, let alone 3 or even 6 graphics cards. Intel/AMD/Nvidia sure seem eager to charge you $2500 for that extra 12 frames per second.

[Artimus The Just @ Aug 27th 2008 1:29PM]

What is a "12-phase power supply"???

[BirdofPrey @ Aug 27th 2008 2:17PM]

6 video cards huh?

If you can find me 6 videocards that don't have a fan taking up a second card slot and won't melt themselves in its abscence I might try it.

[Chris @ Sep 24th 2008 11:56PM]

*cough*Radeon 4850*cough*

[Evan @ Aug 27th 2008 2:39PM]

That photo takes me back... it's been years since I've built my own PC with that style of motherboard.

What do people do with 6 PCI-E slots? Back in the day everything needed a separate card - video, sound, network, even the IDE controller! Now most of that is on-board.

[futurepastnow @ Aug 27th 2008 2:39PM]

That's great, but I'd like something a little more budget-oriented. To use Gigabyte's nomenclature, I'm thinking of a GA-X58-DS3R. I don't need six graphics slots or ten SATA ports.