Key Specs
ATXX58
LGA1366
Two PCIe x16; one PCIe x4; two PCIe x1
One
Four (triple-channel)
16GB
None
The DX58SO may be officially billed as the Intel Desktop Board Extreme Series DX58SO, but its code name—"Smackover"—and the robotic skull surrounding the Intel logo on the chipset’s heat sink are good indicators that this new motherboard is aimed squarely at the enthusiast crowd. With support for dual graphics cards, extensive overclocking options for both processor and memory, and a full load of ports, Intel’s new board is ready to capture the eyes of enthusiasts who’d typically embrace performance brands like Asus and MSI.
This ATX motherboard is one of the first to use Intel’s new LGA1366 socket and X58 Express chipset, supporting the new Core i7 processor series. The DX58SO officially supports memory speeds of up to 1,333MHz, though overclocking options will let you use 1,600MHz or faster memory. The board has four DIMM slots, accommodating up to 16GB of RAM. For best performance, you’ll want to populate three of them to enable triple-channel access, which significantly increases memory bandwidth.
Intel’s BIOS has deep overclocking options, letting you adjust the maximum multipliers by processor core and increase the host clock frequency, which replaces the front-side bus as the tweaking value of choice for enthusiasts looking to up the speed of ratio-locked processors like the Core i7-920 and Core i7-940. When using the multiplier-unlocked Core i7-965, you can adjust Intel’s dynamic overclocking feature and increase the maximum multiplier depending on how many cores are in use. For instance, you might run at 3.86GHz when only one or two cores are stressed but drop to a stock 3.2GHz when all four cores are in use. You can make many overclocking adjustments on the fly from within Windows, using the Intel Desktop Control Center software.
The DX58SO does away with most legacy ports. Not only is there no PS/2 keyboard port or IDE hard drive connector, but the floppy connector is AWOL as well. The board is generously equipped with six Serial ATA ports (though one will be blocked if you use a long, double-wide graphics card like the GeForce 9800 GX2). And the DX58SO has loads of modern expansion ports, with a whopping eight USB 2.0 connectors on the back panel, along with Gigabit Ethernet, FireWire, digital and analog audio, and two external SATA (eSATA) ports. The motherboard has four additional internal USB connectors, as well as internal FireWire, Consumer Infrared, and HD audio ports. The board’s eight-channel HD audio comes courtesy of a RealTek ALC889 codec.
The DX58SO includes two PCI Express (PCIe) x16 slots, which can support a pair of AMD graphics cards in CrossFireX mode, as well as one PCIe x4 slot, a pair of PCIe x1 slots, and a single PCI slot. Though X58 boards are technically capable of supporting both CrossFireX and SLI dual-graphics setups, Intel and Nvidia haven’t worked out the proper licensing agreements for the DX58SO for SLI support.
Overall, the DX58SO’s layout is good, putting most ports in easy-to-reach spots at the perimeter of the board. The heat-sink designs let you install huge coolers without worrying about conflicts. A small snap-on fan, lit by a blue LED, is included for the chipset heat sink. It’s somewhat loud, however, so you’ll want to forgo it unless you’re pushing up the host clock frequency.
Though it lacks extreme features such as the six memory slots of the Asus P6T Deluxe, the Intel DX58SO is a stable, well-equipped platform with a good set of overclocking features for both casual tweakers and hard-core performance fans.
