Posted on Friday, December 31 2010 @ 13:50 CET by Thomas De Maesschalck
TechPowerUp
reports Intel will release a pair of new X58 Extreme series desktop motherboard in early January. These LGA1366 boards use the latest Rev. 13 X58 northbridge and are equipped with USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gbps support. Here are the specifications of the DX58SO2 "SmackOver II" and its lite variant, the DX58OG.
The DX58SO2 uses digital PWM CPU power circuit, a sporty blue heatsink cluster over the northbridge, VRM area, and southbridge, with heat spread between the northbridge and VRM using a heat-pipe. It features six internal SATA 3 Gb/s, two internal SATA 6 Gb/s, and two eSATA 3 Gb/s ports, two USB 3.0 ports, 8-channel HD audio, and expansion slots that include three PCI-Express 2.0 x16 (x16/x16/NC or x16/x8/x8), two PCI-E x1, and one PCI.
The DX58OG uses the same exaxt PCB as the DX58SO, except that a lot of features are downscaled. The CPU VRM has fewer phases, although USB 3.0 and SATA 6 Gb/s ports are unaffected, there are no eSATA ports, and a 6-channel HD audio CODEC instead of 8-channel, and the third PCI-Express x16 slot is reduced to x1. Both boards feature certain new features that Intel is introducing with its latest Extreme Series boards, namely, BIOS Vault Technology that helps recover BIOS, a Back-to-BIOS button, and a more efficient inter-phase load balancing mechanism.
