Intel's upcoming 6-core, quad-channel high end Sandy Bridge E platform is due out in Q4 of this year. Intel has demos of the platform around IDF, many of which are using its optional closed-loop water cooling solution.

I'm curious to see how the LGA-2011 platform is adopted by end users. Personally I'm not expecting a lot as I believe Sandy Bridge on LGA-1155 is likely the better value as it'll deliver very similar performance in most areas. It'll ultimately be the platform for folks doing ton of offline 3D rendering, video transcoding or other very thread heavy applications. 

Intel split the enthusiast platform into two segments back with Nehalem and Lynnfield. It'll be interesting to see if that high-end split continues beyond Ivy Bridge.

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  • DanNeely - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link

    Looks like they managed to get the memory controller working with 2 dimms/channel after all. Earlier reports all indicated that to get it running as fast as they wanted they had to drop down to only 1 dimm/channel.
  • Grebuloner - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link

    The lack of SAS/SATA ports on that board and their empty solder points makes me a sad panda...throw away PCIe 3 and the attractiveness of the platform wanes...

    Let's hope they fix X79 to what it should have been for Ivy Bridge E...

    /still glad to see 8 memory slots here.
  • IanCutress - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link

    Did we ever get confirmation that they'll be shipped with water cooling as standard?

    With 4GB memory sticks becoming standard, populate 8*4 = 32GB memory. Overkill for even most enthusiasts, perhaps.
  • bah12 - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link

    No wonder MS is only writing the Kernel to the HD for quick boots. Can you imagine the time it would take to write 32GB to disk before hibernate.
  • blue_falcon - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link

    I could use more than 8G for VMs. If the memory was cheap enough 16 would be ideal.
  • alpha754293 - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link

    I've already scheduled a system build with at least 64 GB of RAM. Some of it will be because of possible VMs. Others is because it's to obliterate a 41-day LS-DYNA crash simulation run.
  • alpha754293 - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link

    You can NEVER have too much memory. Mwahahaha....
  • alpha754293 - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link

    You can NEVER have too much memory. Mwahahaha....

    I think the most memory in a system that I've ever worked with was 128 GB. And even then, I STILL ended up with a 90 GB swap file.
  • dexterkarthik - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link

    From the image it seems that the south ridge on the main-board might be cooled actively with a small fan - which might explain the need for the mesh on the heat sink!

    And just 4 SATA connectors - and provision for another 4 only - so this would not be the enthusiast level X79 board - as X79 should support 12-14 SATA connectors.
  • bunnyfubbles - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link

    haven't you heard? Intel is nerfing the platform, no more 10x SATA 6 ports and 4x SATA 3 ports, we're back down to 2x SATA 6 and 4x SATA 3, which is no better than P67/Z68

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