ASRock launches X58 motherboard

By Marc Mouthaan, Saturday 15 November 2008 20:58, source: ASRock

Though ASRock is mostly known for its position in the budget segment, they have been introducing more and more high-end motherboards recently. They've already launched motherboards based on Intel's X48 chipset and AMD's 790GX. Their latest creation is a board based on Intel's X58 chipset. ASRock's Core i7 motherboard will be branded "X58 SuperComputer" and is to become a serious alternative to big brands like MSI, Gigabyte and ASUS.

The ASRock X58 SuperComputer is meant for Intel's Core i7 platform

The X58 features a whopping four graphics card slots, placed in such a way that there is room for four dual-slot GPUs. All four slots can be used for (Triple-)SLI and CrossfireX configurations. When there are only two cards present on the board, they will each feature 16 lanes. When a third card is placed, the lanes are divided 16x/8x/8x. At the maximum of four cards, each individual card will have 8 lanes. The board also has three regular PCI slots. As the image below shows, only the green PCI-E slots can offer the full 16 lanes.

Four PCI-Express 16x slots for SLI or CrossfireX

Naturally, ASRock has integrated the triple-channel functionality, having six DDR3 memory slots present on the board. These slots can house 4 GB of memory each, making a grand total of 24 GB. The specified max memory speed for the DDR3 is 1600 MHz. ASRocks' X58 SuperComputer has six SATA II connectors which are placed under an angle to prevent obstruction. Thanks to the ICH10R controller, raid 0, 1, 5 and 10 is also possible.

The ASRock X58 has heatpipecooling for the 8-phase power provision

The board's I/O backplate has two Gbit LAN connectors, Firewire, 6x USB and eSATA. There's an optical and coaxial output for audio, analog 7.1 jacks are also present. The board uses the onboard ALC890DTS soundchip.

The cooling is simple yet decent, heatpipes have been placed between the northbridge and the 8-phase voltage regulators around the processor. The southbridge also has a cooling block.

Additional features of the motherboard are ASRock's Instant Boot, Intelligent Energy Saver, OC Tuner and the SmartBIOS. ASRock's X59 SuperComputer is to become available soon at a still undisclosed price.