DFI X58 T3e8H Revision One
Today we have an exclusive: Diamond Flower International have come up trumps with their new system board. The world of the computer enthusiast has been awaiting the X58 chipset from Intel with baited breath. Rumors of tri-channel DDR3 and the chipset being able to support BOTH ATI Crossfire and nVidia SLI have been running amok the hardware forums on a number of sites for quite some time. Today we can lay to rest some of the more wild rumors and confirm others.
DFI have been very busy with their design and have come up with some very interesting specifications.
| Chipset / CPU | Intel X58 + ICH10R (Socket 1366) |
| Front Side Bus | FSB 133MHz |
| RAM | DDR3-1333MHz |
| PCI Express | 40 Lanes PCIE (16/8/8/4) |
| Power | 8 phase digital server PWM system |
| Chipset Power | Extra 2 phase PWM for DRAM / 1 phase for Northbridge / 1 phase for VTT |
| Cooling | Heat-pipe cooling system with “Flame Freezer” module |
| Display | Debug LED |
| Other | Advanced power/reset button |
| BIOS | Replaceable CMOS design |
| Other | ABS technology ready |
| Multi-GPU | Supports both ATI Crossfire and nVidia SLI |
DFI X58 Mainboard Images
Click for a Larger Image
Initial Design Thoughts
As clearly shown, this looks to be a fairly early design without the thermal array coupled to the system board itself. A good idea, which is a real credit to DFI in this reviewer’s opinion, is the removable BIOS chip; this allows BETA testers to swap out their BIOS. This can also be of use to overclockers. Another point is that the clear CMOS header has been re-placed to a more suitable area, unlike the P45 board which was placed too close over the PCI express slot. Notice the tri-channel DDR3 RAM slots, as rumored over these last few months. Turning towards the onboard power/reset switches, these look to have a more ‘classy’ feel and it does make sense to develop these this way. Next we heard rumors that the X58 will support both SLI and Crossfire. This has indeed borne out to be correct, so many overclockers will be glad to finally ditch those nVidia chipset motherboards and opt for an Intel chipset instead.
DFI looks as though it is heading the right way with this motherboard; however it will be interesting to see what DFI can come up with to cool this beast of a system board.
gilgamesh
