Gigabyte shows X58 mobo with seven PCIe 2.0 x16 slots

[Matthew DeCarlo]

Gigabyte has launched a new motherboard that begs the question, who needs PCI slots anyway? Built around Intel's flagship X58 chipset, the GA-X58A-UD9 is home to seven PCIe 2.0 x16 slots, but not one PCI, PCIe x1 or any other expansion slot for that matter.

Powering the slots is two Nvidia nF200 chips, which deliver support for four-way SLI or CrossFire setups. The XL-ATX motherboard is also fitted with six DIMM slots ready to tackle DDR3 2200+ RAM, 12 SATA ports (two of which support 6Gb/s), two USB 3.0 ports, and dual gigabit Ethernet.

Additionally, the GA-X58A-UD9 boasts a 24-phase power design with "mutual back-up to each 12 phase," an onboard debug LED for simplified troubleshooting as well as power, reset, and clear CMOS buttons. Overclocking features include dual BIOS ROMs, hardware overvoltage control IC, an overvoltage and temperature reminder, and more.

We haven't spotted a price for Gigabyte's new board, but somewhere beyond $350 seems plausible, as the company's GA-X58A-UD7 already runs that territory.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/38950-gigabyte-shows-x58-mobo-with-seven-pcie-20-x16-slots.html

 

[princeton]

Can I have it?

 

[TomSEA]

Wow... I mean just WOW.

 

[oldikes]

lol, with those things, you could run crysis, MW2, and portal at the same time...

 

[slh28]

So what's the point of having 7 slots and only space for 4 cards? Also a lot of sounds cards are PCI or PCIe X1.

p.s. is that a FLOPPY DRIVE connector I see on this top of the range board?!

 

[Matthew DeCarlo]

You can place PCIe x1 cards into x16 slots, and I reckon if someone is going to blow ~$400 on a motherboard, they probably wouldn't mind buying a new sound card if they currently have a PCI model. There are tons of PCIe sound cards around.

 

[cyrusjumpjet]

yeah, those headers on the bottom of the board look really accessible... ;p /sarcasm

impressive, if only just for the heck of it.

 

[Guest]

This is old hat. EVGA and ASUS already have these boards out. Exact same config with the exception of the EVGA one which is slightly larger than the ASUS and this one. I have the ASUS one. Pretty neat but the dual NF200 chips get a little warm. Heat sink does a great job at keepin it cool though. I hear its the same with all versions.

 

[dividebyzero]

So what's the point of having 7 slots and only space for 4 cards?

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=816
Not all cards are dual slot

Anyone who can benefit from GPGPU computation would be more than happy with the board layout - including the extra lanes afforded by the nF200 chips.

 

[Lurker101]

Silly question time. How much heat would be generated by running four graphics cards in such close proximity?

 

[red1776]

Lurker101 said:
Silly question time. How much heat would be generated by running four graphics cards in such close proximity?

Not silly at all, if you run enclosed tunnel cards that vent the hot air out of the back of the case it makes little difference. I you run cards that vent the hot air into the case you need to have good case ventilation, the trick is to get the heat away from the GPU heatsink and let the case fans carry it out. I run 4 GPU's in crossfire that vent inside the case and they top out in the the low 60'sC.

 

[Guest]

@red1776

Can I has your system when you're done with it next year?

 

[maestromasada]

That!!!! That??? That's cool!!!

 

[Guest]

I think a little bit of wee come out.

 

[Guest]

sucks when the gigabyte MOBO takes a massive crash load and never powers up again .....
what do ?

 

[BlindObject]

Oh my gawd. I can only imagine how heavy this machine would be.

 

[Tomorrow_Rains]

LOOL!! Does this run Crysis?!?! if it does then i want it..

 

[yukka]

Its been a long time since I have seen a techie picture that made me want to touch myself..

 

[LinkedKube]

And I paid 450 for 3 slots, I've been bamboozled.

 

[Guest]

You can run a PCI-E 1x card in a PCI-E 8x or 16x. I have a 1x TV tuner card running in an 8x slot. I would have to lose my PCI soundblaster X-FI card though.

 

[Guest]

with the onboard sound you dont really need a sound card anymore the quality coming from the onboard is more then acceptable

 

[Badfinger]

I saw picture of this when I looked up: overkill

 

[kakarot27]

imagine a system with 4 5970S!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! thats 8 gpus 8)

 

[Burty117]

Guest said:
with the onboard sound you dont really need a sound card anymore the quality coming from the onboard is more then acceptable

Well, it depends, if you have a good sound system (say a bose or B&W for example) the onboard sound isn't very good at all compared to a dedicated sound card, plus you may get a few frames extra in games as the sound proccessing gets moved directly to the sound card.