Test: Asus Sabertooth X58

 

X58 chipsættet var som et af de første, der gav slutbrugeren mulighed for at køre nVidia’s SLi eller AMD (ATi)’s CrossFire på samme bundkort, noget der ellers var uhørt. Men det er selvfølgelig en trend, vi gerne ser udvikle sig.

Yderligere tog Intel skridtet mod at integrere memory controlleren direkte i CPU’en i stedet for i chipsættet, et tiltag som AMD stod først med.

Næst var overgangen til DDR3 ram, som ville udvide båndbredden betragteligt i forhold til data-flow mellem RAM og memory controlleren. I stedet for Dual Channel operation valgte man at satse på at køre Triple Channel igen for at forøge databehandlingen internt og minimere latency tider.

Et problem var tidligere, at processorkernen ikke havde direkte adgang til rammene og her lå et åbenlyst flaskehalsproblem. Intel imødekom og løste imidlertid problemet med QPI – Quick Patch Interconnec - en løsning, der i høj grad minder om AMD’s HyperTransport. Selve opbygningen kaldes point to point og betyder, at man har direkte forbindelse mellem nogle bestemte punkter, hvilket kan være imellem processor og processor, processor og RAM eller processor og sydbro. Fordelen består i at øge båndbredden i forhold til den traditionelle Front Side Bus, samt at den ekstra gevinst ligger i, at teknologien er skalérbar i antallet af forbindelser og hastighed.

 

Herudover understøtter X58 også de nyere Intel Core i7 CPU’er såsom 930, 950 og 980x.

 

Intel® QuickPath Interconnect (Intel® QPI) at 6.4 and 4.8 GT/s	Intel’s latest system interconnect design increases bandwidth and lowers latency. Supports the Intel® Core™ i7-965 processor Extreme Edition, Intel® Core™ i7-940 processors and Intel® Core™ i7-920 processors.
PCI Express 2.0 interface	PCI Express 2.0 delivers up to 16GB/s bandwidth per port, double that of PCIe* 1.0. It provides leading-edge graphics performance and flexibility with support for dual x16 up to quad x8 graphic card configurations or any combinations in between.
Intel® High Definition Audio	Integrated audio support enables premium digital sound and delivers advanced features such as multiple audio streams and jack re-tasking.
Intel® Matrix Storage technology	With additional hard drives added, provides quicker access to digital photo, video and data files with RAID 0, 5, and 10, and greater data protection against a hard disk drive failure with RAID 1, 5, and 10. Support for external SATA (eSATA) enables the full SATA interface speed outside the chassis, up to 3 Gb/s.
Intel® Rapid Recover technology	Intel's latest data protection technology provides a recovery point that can be used to quickly recover a system should a hard drive fail or if there is massive data corruption. The clone can also be mounted as a read-only volume to allow a user to recover individual files.
Intel® Turbo Memory	Intel's innovative NAND cache designed to improve the responsiveness of applications, application load times, and system boot performance. Intel® Turbo Memory, paired with the Intel® X58 Express Chipset, also allows the user to easily control the applications or data in the cache using the new Intel® Turbo Memory Dashboard interface, boosting performance further.
Serial ATA (SATA) 3 Gb/s	High-speed storage interface supports faster transfer rate for improved data access up to six SATA ports.
eSATA	SATA interface designed for use with external SATA devices. It provides a link for 3 Gb/s data speeds to eliminate bottlenecks found with current external storage solutions.
SATA port disable	Enables individual SATA ports to be enabled or disabled as needed. This feature provides added protection of data by preventing malicious removal or insertion of data through SATA ports. Especially targeted for eSATA ports.
USB port disable	Enables individual USB ports to be enabled or disabled as needed. This feature provides added protection of data by preventing malicious removal or insertion of data through USB ports.