14 DAY TRIAL // ASUS is one computer maker that came to the CeBIT 2009 show in Hanover, Germany with its hands full. We've already had a glimpse at some of the new products it has brought along, including the Eee Keyboard PC, its Lamborghini laptop from the new ASUS K Series unveiled at the expo, and now it’s time to take a look at the company's Z8NA-D6 motherboard, also showcased in Hanover.
This ASUS mobo is the first dual 1366 Socket in 12'' x 9.6'' ATX form factor. Among the features highlighted by the manufacturer, we can count the fact that it is the first dual processor ATX motherboard in the world, which fits perfectly into any standard PC chassis.
In addition, it has 24+8 pin power connector with support for both ATX and SSI power supplies. The standard ATX power supply is meant to reduce the costs, while the server SSI power supply is able to deliver enhanced performance and expandability. Moreover, the board allows for a wide range of processors and memory modules to be installed.
The ASUS Z8NA-D6 motherboard is able to provide support for next-generation Intel Quad-Core Xeon 5500 series processors, and features the Intel 5500 chipset + ICH10R. The memory options range from 48GB RDIMM to 24GB UDIMM, with or without ECC, DDR3 800/1066/1333 RDIMM/UDIMM.
The expansion slots available on the board include one PCI-Express x16 slot (x16Link), two PCI-Express x8 slots (x4Link), one PIKE slot for storage expansion, as well as one MID slot for a discrete audio card. There are six SATA2 300MB/s ports, and the mobo supports software RAID 0, 1, 10 and 5. It also features LSI MegaRAID for both Linux and Windows, with support software for RAID 0, 1 and 10.
Live report by Traian Teglet from CeBIT 2009 Hanover, Germany.
