14 DAY TRIAL // ECS has already unveiled some motherboards with support for the Sandy Bridge-E series of CPUs, but that doesn't mean it is ready to stop, as one latest model made it more than clear.
The folks over at VR-Zone were able to get an early look at the X79R-AX Black Extreme motherboard form Elitegroup Computer Systems.
While the item won't actually start selling until the Intel Sandy bridge-E CPUs show up on November 14. 2011, it did get detailed beforehand.
Featuring the ATX form factor, it is, as the name suggests, a high-end platform, even though it has 'only' four memory slots.
That said, the number if PCI Express x16 slots is also four, meaning that it will be easy to set up powerful multi-GPU setups.
Additionally, ECS implemented 12 SATA ports, four of which are SATA II (3.0 Gbps) and the other eight SATA III / 6.0 Gbps (two are enabled by an ASMedia ASM1061 controller).
Furthermore, ECS threw in PCIe 3.0 compliant ASMedia ASM1480 switches, PORT-80 Diagnostic LED, Power/Reset Buttons and, for endurance, Solid Caps and Chokes.
Needless to say, an I/O panel is present as well, since no self-respecting mainboard will show up without a suitable array of inputs and outputs.
In addition to dual LAN (two Gigabit Ethernet connectors), there are two eSATA 6 Gbps ports, Bluetooth V2.1+EDR, Wifi, 7.1+2 channel audio (from a Realtek ALC892) and four SuperSpeed USB 3.0 connectors.
Some users may remember that we wrote about this particular motherboard a while back as well.
Unfortunately, just like back then, there is still no information on how high a price it will have when it finally shows up in about two weeks.
While waiting for those final details to crop up, prospective buyers may wish, for the sake of comparison, to check out the X79R-AX Black Deluxe, among others.
