Asus has introduced its new motherboard, P6T Deluxe featuring the newly released Intel X58 chipset for the first time. Based on Intel’s upcoming X58 chipset it will have more features than you can shake a fist full of sticks at – overclockers and high end users especially will love this.

With the release of Intel’s Bloomfield CPUs right around the corner and the X58 chipset bringing plenty of new features, many motherboard manufacturers have been hard at work putting together their arsenal of boards ready for the release date.
 
Fulfilling demand for users that require a motherboard able to achieve extraordinary overclocking capability, ASUS, world-leader in motherboard production, has unveiled the new ASUS P6T DELUXE amid high user expectation. This innovative motherboard utilizes Intel’s latest platform, and features the exclusive ASUS Super Hybrid Engine concept that encompasses the TurboV and EPU technologies to deliver the twofold benefits of overclocking and power efficiency. TurboV is an advanced overclocking application that enables easy overclocking without the need to exit or reboot the operating system; while the EPU automatically provides users exceptional power efficiency. Equipped with Super Hybrid Engine, users will enjoy the best overclocking environment and address environmental concerns at the same time.

In the grand scheme of things the P6T DELUXE is essentially going to be to the Nehalem, what the P5B DELUXE was to the Conroe. Ok maybe that’s a bit of a generalisation, but it’s still interesting to look back at the P5B and see how much (or little in some cases) things have changed over the past two years in the world of motherboard design.
 
Probably one of the most interesting features of the P6T DELUXE (and the upcoming RoG board) aside from the entirely new architecture, is the TurboV overclocking application. Once again, we cant show any pictures of this in action YET, but essentially TurboV is a hardware version of tools such as ClockGen and SetFSB which allow “Live” overclocking from within Windows. Many of us will also recognise the LCD display used for the interface. Yes it’s the Asus “ScreenDUO” as originally seen on the P5B Premium Vista Edition.

One final feature that most definitely deserves a mention for all X58 boards is is the ability to run either Crossfire or SLI. This is something that many enthusiasts have long been dreaming about, and based on the strength of Intel’s P45 and X48 chipsets, may well bring about the decline of Nvidia based motherboards. More on this another time though.

Intel announced a number of next generation products earlier this year, including the 45-nanometer Nehalem micro-architecture and Tylersburg platform design. Here is the exclusive look at a full fledged X58 system. The new chipset will be the foundation X58-Chipset, ICH10-R, 45 Nanometer Nehalem and Intel already indicated to us that the new platform will deliver a large boost in performance across all applications compared to currently available products.

With X58, end users will also start anew. Gone is the front-side bus, which is replaced by QuickPath on the X58. Those who are accustomed to overclocking their motherboards using the FSB, will have to start over and learn the new system. Similar to AMD’s HyperTransport, the QuickPath architecture will feature an integrated memory controller on the CPU and provide direct links between the CPU and system memory.

Intel will launch the X58 chipset with the same ICH-10 family of southbridges currently used on its P45 platform. ICH-10 supplies up to four PCI Express x16 paths, of which two, are PCI Express 2.0 paths. Other possible combinations are: one x16 path, two x16 paths, four x8 paths, and one 16 path and two x8 paths.Because of QuickPath however, we’re able to realize far better performance with wide bandwidth and very low latency. According to Intel, Nehalem will initially come with a 20-bit wide 25.6 GB/sec. QuickPath link, which gives a theoretical 2x performance increase in bandwidth over the 1600MHz FSB currently available on the X48 platform.

Memory support will come in the form of DD3 with support for 800MHz, 1066MHz and 1333MHz frequencies initially. Total bandwidth will be 32GB/sec. with support for up to 24GB of total system memory initially. X58 motherboards will provide up to 6 slots of memory but will require that the first slot (DIMM0) be populated.

On hand today, we have Foxconn’s Renaissance X58 motherboard. Foxconn’s board will be the a reference board for many others, with minor differences here and there. On the board, we find the X58 MCH and the ICH10-R south bridge. Power connections include a standard ATX connector as well as an 8-pin CPU power connector.

Other features of the board are ultra-low resistance, crystal, ferrite salt-core inductors, and solid ultra-low SR capacitors. This board in particular uses a six-phase power circuit design but we can expect other manufacturers to introduce variances in the power department.

The two blue PCIe slots on this board indicate that the slots are PCIe x16 2.0. There are also two black x16 1.0 slots. Other features include an Intelsil ISL6336 power management chip which supports the 6-phase switch power design, 2 FireWire IEEE 1394a ports provided by a TI TSB434B22A chip, and a Broadcom BCM5786KMLG chip for Gig-e support. Realtek’s ALC888S audio codec supports full 7.1 discrete analog output and optional Dolby Digital Live, DTS Connect, and Dolby Home Theater for real-time encoding of audio signals to an external processor or receiver.

The board also features vertical SATA connectors, although many manufacturers are now featuring angled slots for better cabling. Debugging LED lights and a clear CMOS button round out the rest of the board.

Each successive generation of IGP chipsets has moved one step closer to becoming the perfect fit for a HD home theater PC (HTPC) setup. At the moment, for the Intel platform, we have to give this accolade to NVIDIA’s GeForce 9 series mGPU. But like any other technology, it’s temporary and who knows what the next year will bring.

What grabbed the headlines was the release of AMD’s 780G chipset, which has quickly gained a reputation for its integrated graphics performance and was the underpinning for AMD’s mobile platform, Puma. This was followed by a few iterations of the 780 and then the 740G. To find out more about these IGP chipsets, we have gathered 4 retail models using these various chipsets and presented them here in this roundup to figure out how they all fare.

Well you’ll find the usual suspects, with the exception of Intel. In fact, earlier this year, NVIDIA had already introduced its AMD IGP boards for this generation, the GeForce 8 series mGPU, using the MCP78S and supporting the latest AM2+ processors. This came in three flavors and we had done a preview of the GeForce 8200 mGPU from Palit. But this wasn’t the biggest development of the year for the AMD IGP scene.

MSI has launched the first motherboards to feature the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI), which is expected to supersede the BIOS code that kicks in when a PC is first booted up. The company says it has begun to introduce the technology into its next-generation range, starting with the P45D3 Platinum and P45 Platinum motherboards.P45D3 Platinum & P45 Platinum offers a new and more flexible enviroment that supports colorful graphical interfaces, multiple languages and has mouse support.

The main difference for the user is that UEFI supports mouse control and a graphical interface before the operating system boots up. It also directly supports functionality such as web browsing and IM, allow these to be used without booting up the full operating system – though some developers, notably Phoenix, offer similar facilities using the traditional BIOS.

The Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) is a specification that defines a software interface between an operating system and platform firmware. EFI is intended as a significantly improved replacement of the old legacy BIOS firmware interface historically used by all IBM PC compatible PCs. The EFI specification was originally developed by Intel, and is now managed by the Unified EFI Forum and is officially known as Unified EFI (UEFI).

Microsoft was originally scheduled to include support with Vista at launch but kit was delayed. Support for UEFI version 2.1 came finally with the 64bit version of Vista Service Pack 1. Microsoft explained in a paper that separate 32bit and 64bit versions of UEFI were required for 32bit and 64bit operating systems and it was not practical or cost-effective to support both on the same machine.

Advantages of EFI BIOS:

• Supports graphical menus and features
• Supports mouse-controlled interface
• Supports pre-OS applications, file oriented (ex: System recovery, games, media player, Internet browser, etc.)
• Supports multi-language
• UEFI support for x64 versions of Windows Vista are included in Service Pack 1

“Because most new PCs now use 64-bit capable processors, Microsoft wants to use the advent of mainstream 64-bit computing as a transition point to enable a move toward 64-bit UEFI as the standard PC firmware,” the paper said.

Intel-based Macs already use UEFI, but Apple has the advantage of having tight control over the hardware. Microsoft points out that its support “means testing multiple Windows versions on a heterogeneous mix of UEFI firmware implementations from different firmware vendors on many hardware platforms”.