Asus Shows Off Dual Socket 1366 Motherboard
Asus is shaking things up in the netbook world, but it hasn't forgotten about the enthusiast crowd.
During CeBIT Germany today, the Taiwanese computer giant showed off its newest motherboard. Dubbed the Z8NA-D6, this newest mainboard will allow for two LGA1366 processors to be used in the same system.
Asus also claims that at 12-inches by 9.6-inches, the Z8NA-D6 is the world's first dual socket ATX motherboard, which allows for it to be used in virtually any ATX computer case (note: Intel's Skulltrail is an Extended ATX mobo). The power connector is another point of interest. The 24+8 pin connection allows for both ATX and SSI power supplies to be used, the latter of which is traditionally used in servers.
The motherboard is based on Intel's 5500+ICH10R chipset, and can support all 1366 processors, including the upcoming Xeon 5500s. Supported memory includes up to 48 GB of RDIMM or 24 GB of UDIMM, with ECC support. The one shortcoming of this board is the lack of PCIe 2.0 x16 slots. With only one on the Z8NA-D6, you can forget about any sort of SLI or Crossfire setup. As for other expansion slots, the Z8NA-D6 comes with two PCIe x8 slots, one PIKE slot, and a PCIe x1 slot, which will likely be used for a soundcard. Like any other Asus mobo, expect this one to come with RAID software already included on the board.
The Z8NA-D6 may be the first dual socket 1366 motherboard spotted (no price or release date yet), but we doubt it's the last. 1366 Skulltrail, anybody?
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1366 Skulltrail? no thanks, might be fun for you "reviewers" to play with since you get it for free but i dont think many consumers bought the original so why would we want a 1366 version?
I've wanted Nehalem-based Skulltrail since the original came out. Get a decent board out there and sign me up!
3D Studio, you shall never foil me again bwahahaaaa!
Plus, that'll be something to really rub in the faces of the Mac crowd. OK, they got their new i7 Mac Pro but it seems Apple's gone short-sighted with it. A properly-done official Nehalem Skulltrail will rock something serious.
Just don't bother gaming on it, it's not a gaming rig.
Shame it couldnt do gaming, it would have been nice to see what bench marks it would have turned out, why dont they make a bigger version of the board with sli ? hmm it seem to me that companys are holding back a little.
@UNICOMPLEX:
It's not that Skulltrail can't game, it's not intended primary as a gaming rig. However, specifically regarding the 1366 board in this article, I think it's very shortsighted that Asus hasn't allowed for SLI given that the new Quadros can be paired up now - having multi-chip systems with a pair of Quadro CXs in SLI would tear through all the media software I use.
Still, Asus won't be alone and somebody's made a dual socket 1366 board for the new Mac Pro so I expect we'll see more of them soon.
Whether it's official Skulltrail or simply a multi-CPU board that takes advantage of QPI between CPUs is probably irrelevant.