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| Part Number | MBX58ICH19 |
| Manufacturer | XFX |
| Chipset | Intel X58 |
| North Bridge | Intel X58 |
| Socket | LGA1366 Socket |
| Processor Types | Core i7 |
| Number of CPUs | 1 |
| QPI | Up to 6.4GT/second |
| Memory Type | DDR3 |
| Memory Channels | Triple |
| Maximum Memory | 12GB |
| External Graphics | PCI Express x16 x3 |
| IGP | None |
| South Bridge | ICH10R |
| Audio | 8-channel |
| IDE | 133/100/66 |
| SCSI | None |
| SATA | 3.0 GB/s |
| RAID | 0, 1, 0+1, 5, 10 |
| LAN | 10/100/1000 4 LAN Ports |
| Firewire | IEEE 1394a |
| USB | USB 2.0 |
| Expansion Slots | |
| BIOS | AMIBIOS |
| Form Factor | ATX |
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The X58 chipset is Intel's first to support both SLI and Crossfire without an NVIDIA chip on the motherboard to support SLI. XFX uses the X58 chipset as the basis for this motherboard which supports up to 3-way SLI or 3-way Crossfire assuming you have the video cards to run them. Due to time constraints I was unable to run 3-way SLI or Crossfire testing.
Currently, the X58 chipset is the only one available to support Intel's Socket-1366 CPU in the form of the 920, 940 and 965 XE CPUs. The new CPU family has the memory controller on the CPU itself and not on the Southbridge as on previous Intel motherboard chipsets. In place of the Front Side Bus of the Core 2 Quad and earlier family we have the Quick Path Interconnect. QPI allows up to 6.4 Gigatransfers per second between the CPU and the chipset.
The X58 supports triple-channel memory, meaning that memory bandwidth is effectively tripled compared to single channel memory. The XFX board can handle up to 12GB of DDR3-1333MHz memory. Faster memory is available online and the board can support it through overclocking. Note that the X58i board has six DIMM slots, meaning that memory need to be installed in alternating slots to get triple channel mode.
Windows Vista was first released in 2006 and today is the default operating system for the majority of computers on the market. Vista introduced features like Windows Aero, Windows Sidebar, and improvements to the other Windows features. The X58 motherboard is Vista Premium Certified meaning that it will work well with the Windows Vista Operating system.
Hyper-Threading was introduced with the Intel Xeon CPUs. HTT allows the operating system to see a single processor as two logical processors. This allows the CPU to operate on two threads at the same time, improving performance when HTT is supported by the application. Intel's Matrix Storage technology controls the RAID array on the computer.
