14 DAY TRIAL // Even though ECS wasn't present at this year's Intel Developer Forum, this hasn't stopped the company from showcasing their own motherboard solution for LGA-2011 processors based on the X79 Express PCH, which is known as the X79R-AX.
The motherboard features the characteristic ECS look and it sport four DIMM slots that are placed around the LGA 2011 socket.
These work in a quad-channel mode and support DDR3 speeds of up to 2400MHz, depending on the number of DIMM sockets populated.
To the left of the memory sockets, ECS has placed four PCI Express x16 slots, which are driven by the 40 lane PCIe controller integrated inside Sandy Bridge-E processors.
Judging from the color coding of the PCI Express x16 slots, only two of these appear to work in x16 mode, while the other have only 8 PCIe lanes routed to them. The motherboard is, however, compatible with both SLI and CrossFireX 4-way GPU setups (The PCIe slots drop to x8 when all are populated).
Other expansion options include a pair of PCI-E x1 slots, eight SATA 6Gbps and four SATA 3Gbps ports and an on-board USB 3.0 pin header for routing two such ports to the chassis' front panel.
More USB 3.0 ports are available on the rear I/O panel, where ECS has also installed a Bluetooth radio transmitter, the board's 7.1 channel audio connectors and a Clear CMOS switch.
Two additional Power and reset switches are placed on the board's PCB near a BIOS debug display.
CPU power is delivered by what seems to be a 14-phase PWM, which is cooled by a low-profile heatsink.
Intel's Sandy Bridge-E processors are expected to debut in mid-November 2011 and this is most probably when the ECS motherboard will also make its appearance. (via VR-Zone)
