The release version of the upcoming enthusiast-grade motherboard by MSI, based on the Intel X58 chipset for the upcoming Core i7 series processors, has been pictured at Coolaler. The close-up snaps show the motherboard to be packing quite some booty. It also shows that MSI hasn't used exorbitant cooling for the motherboard. There are two independent cooling units for the chipset and VRM areas. The board sports Dr-MOS component protection, and MSI seems to have spread the MOSFETs evenly, not to congest them at one place. The board provides a diagnostic display feature called D-LED 2, a small LED screen that shows diagnostic information, similar to the LCD poster that ASUS packs with some of its motherboards.

The board features an extensive set of expandability options. It features three PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slots that support both ATI CrossfireX and NVIDIA 3-way SLI for multi-GPU operations. It uses overclocker-friendly features on-board, including the peculiar turbo button. There are also 10 SATA ports, four of which, route to an external controller. All in all, the board looks promising. It isn't the highest MSI would be offering for the X58 plaform, with an even higher motherboard planned. For more pictures, browse through the thread.

A-DATA Technology Co., Ltd., a worldwide leader in high performance memory products, announced today that it is expanding its overclocking DRAM dual channel line with tri-channel kits at 1600 MHz and 1333 MHz.

Recent next generation Intel Core i7 platform using the latest DDR3 technologies has proven that i7's internal controller gives a notable performance increase while using DDR3 tri-channel modules. A-DATA is now ready for production of DDR3-1600+ and DDR-1333+ tri-channel kits. These new modules will be available in 3GB and 6GB configurations and are expected to be available this quarter.

Apparently NVIDIA has decided to give all Intel owners a big present by introducing the native support of its SLI technology for Intel Nehalem. This information was published first at The Tech Report by Scott Wasson, and comes directly from the final editors meeting of NVISION. According to Tom Peterson, director of Technical Marketing for MCP products at NVIDIA, the company will authorize native SLI support on Intel X58 motherboards without the need of its nForce 200 chip - under certain circumstances. Those circumstances actually include a certification process of every Intel X58 motherboard at NVIDIA's Santa Clara certification lab. Once in the lab, the boards must pass basic testing for functionality, slot placement, and other criterions. After that the makers of these boards must select from a menu of licensing options available to them. Afterward to be certified boards will also be required to display an "SLI Certified" logo on their boxes and other marketing materials. Once the above steps are completed without a problem, NVIDIA will provide the board maker with an approval "cookie" key that it must embed in the system BIOS. The combination of this approval key and an Intel X58 chipset will then unlock SLI support in NVIDIA's ForceWare driver software. The whole process of certification is reported to be cheaper than the cost of the nForce 200 chip alone, which is around US $30. That's the interesting part you need to know, now we wait. The full story is posted here.

The high-end offering by MSI based on the upcoming Intel X58 chipset and the 1366-pin land grid array (LGA 1366) is pictured in its full capacity. It brings with it a fascinating set of features and is slated for Q4 2008. Like all the other X58 motherboards, the Eclipse supports QuickPath Interconnect, an FSB-replacement by Intel for the LGA 1366 processors, offering system bus bandwidth around twice as that of FSB 1600 MHz, 25 GB/s.

The functionality of NVIDIA SLI and ATI Crossfire on the same motherboard isn't something new, we saw Intel's high-end D5400XS "Skulltrail" support it, where it used BR-04 chips made by NVIDIA to support the SLI functionality. Not much has changed with NVIDIA's plans on cashing in on the first wave of Nehalem LGA-1366 processor even though it's not ready with a native chipset for the new Intel chip, the nForce 200 (BR-04) chips will be used on some motherboards based on the Intel X58 chipset, thereby making the motherboard support both NVIDIA SLI technology. ASUS will release a high-end motherboard targeted at the gaming and overclocking community branded under the Republic of Gamers (ROG) banner. This board, according to a recent presentation by ASUS supports SLI and Crossfire.

Derek Yu, responsible for the R.O.G. series, told NordicHardware that the new NF200 is already performing adequately in most cases, and above expectations in other. He also revealed that the NF200 (BR-04) chip is hot (temperature-wise), like so many other chips form NVIDIA, and that ASUS has had to look at a variety of cooling solutions to keep the temperatures at bay.

Intel is readying its first wave of processors based on the Nehalem-derived Bloomfield core which should hit shelves sometime this autumn. Meanwhile motherboard manufacturers seem to be in a rush to bring in supportive LGA 1366 motherboards based on the spanking-new Intel X58 chipset around that time. Intel had reportedly preponed launch of the Bloomfield processors till September. It was then known that motherboard manufacturers wouldn't be able to keep up and would take a little later (as in late October) to deck their shelves with supportive motherboards.

Bit-Tech interviewed Richard Liu of ASUS (read here). It can be read that ASUS would be out with not only Intel X58 based motherboards by the (new) launch date of these Intel processors, but also have NVIDIA SLI-supportive motherboards with BR-04 chips ready by that time.

This is for all of you, who are impatiently waiting for that new CPU, the X58 boards with that new socket and that triple channel DDR3 support. Maximum PC has managed to get their hands on everything needed to build one of these systems. They give single, dual and triple channel memory setups a try as well. To top things off, they have even taken a few images. One image from Maximum PC can be seen below, but make sure to take a look at all the other ones on their site.

Leaked slides from Intel are floating around the Internet saying that Intel X58 paired with ICH10/R southbridge will be the first chipset combo to support Intel Bloomfield desktop processors, part of Intel's 45nm Nehalem architecture. The following list shows only a few of the new features that will be presented with Intel's forthcoming high-end platform:

• Intel Bloomfield is a 45nm quad core processor that supports 8 processing threads and use LGA 1366 Socket
• Bloomfield CPUs will come with 8MB of shared L2 cache
• Bloomfield supports IMC (Integrated Memory Controller) and triple-channel DDR3 RAM
• Bloomfield supports QPI and adds seven more SSE4 instructions.
• Motherboards with Intel X58 chipset that will support Bloomfield processors will utilize PCI-e 2.0 slots working in dual x16 or Quad x8 configurations.