We’ve heard a few weird names for the chipset which will replace the still-mighty Intel X58 chipset, and it’s now confirmed to be called the X79 chipset. This chipset will be using the LGA2011, and will be needed for the upcoming Sandy Bridge-E processors.

The platform replaces the current LGA1366 with X58 chipset, providing an upgrade path for high-end enthusiasts and workstation users. Memory support will move up to quad-channel DDR3-1333, so where the current Bloomfield can provide up to 25.6GB/s of bandwidth at the specified tri-channel DDR3-1066, LGA2011 kicks that figure up to 42.7GB/s—a 66% increase. The additional memory bandwidth should be particularly useful with certain workloads on the hex-core chips.

The X79 chipset will include native support for SATA 6Gbps, up to 10 ports and 4 additional SATA 3Gbps ports, while USB 3.0 support is still missing. Let’s just pray hard that Intel suddenly come to their sense and add Thunderbolt or USB 3.0 for X79 chipset. The X79 will natively support dual x16 PCI-Express graphics, or quad x8 graphics, but this time the PCI-E lanes come directly from the CPU instead of going through the chipset, thus making latency to GPU access even lower.

There’s another extra, as the CPU (chipset) has the option to use four additional PCI-E lanes from the PCH dedicated to storage bandwidth, presumably to help with performance on fast SATA 6Gbps devices (e.g. SSDs). So expect a marginal boost of SSD performance on X79 chipset.

There’s no mention of whether Intel will stick to QPI, or use the slightly cost effective DMI 2.0. Then again, DMI 2.0 only provides up to 20Gbps between the CPU and chipset, which doesn’t seem to be enough as 10 SATA 6Gbps ports with fast SSDs would easily saturate that.

Sandy Bridge E seems to be a very exciting platform, but let’s not forget that you’ll face a strong dilemma when the first 22nm CPU Ivy Bridge platform goes live shortly after SNB-E platform.

SOURCE via Anandtech