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Asus reveals Matrix graphics cards and Nehalem board
P6T Deluxe features remote overclocking device allows you to overclock your motherboard during benchmarks, while the Matrix graphics cards' Super Hybrid Engine allows you to adjust your graphics card’s GPU and memory voltage
The launch of Intel’s new Core i7 Nehalem processor might still be taunting us from the distance, but Asus has already unveiled its new Socket 1366 P6T Deluxe motherboard for the new CPUs, as well as a bunch of new graphics cards.
Among the P6T Deluxe's interesting new features is a handheld overclocking controller that allows you to overclock your CPU on the fly, even during benchmarks. The device will be available with high-end boards, but Asus also plans to make it available as an optional extra for other compatible motherboards too. While on the subject of overclocking, the board will also include Asus’ Turbo V software overclocking tool, which allows you to adjust the CPU multiplier without rebooting Windows.
As well as this, the P6T Deluxe also features Asus’ Express Gate SSD technology, which allows you to boot to an independent flash-based Linux OS instead of Windows. You will be able to upload Flash games to the onboard flash drive using a thumbdrive too. The P6T Deluxe also takes advantage of the Nehalem core’s triple-channel memory system, with a huge bank of six DIMM slots, and Asus has confirmed that the board will support both SLI and CrossFire multi-GPU technologies.
Asus has chosen an interesting route with the motherboard’s RAID controller too, integrating an SAS (serial attached SCSI) storage chip; a technology that’s usually only used in servers and workstations. In Asus’ own tests, a RAID 0 array of S-ATA drives managed an average read speed of 117MB/sec, but this increased to 179.2MB/sec when using an SAS RAID 0 array – SAS controllers are compatible with both S-ATA and SAS drives. However, unlike a separate SAS card, the board doesn’t have its own processor, so your CPU will bear some of the load. Even so, this is a feature that will be very interesting to test.
Meanwhile, Asus has also unveiled a new series of Matrix graphics cards that feature a hybrid cooler that switches off the fan in 2D mode, while dropping the voltage and core clock speed of the GPU. The graphics cards also feature Asus’ new Super Hybrid Engine; a pair of chips on the graphics card that allow you to directly monitor the GPU, and even adjust the voltage applied to the GPU and memory for overclocking. Three cards have been announced so far, which are based on the GeForce 9600 GT, the GeForce 9800 GT and the Radeon HD 4850 GPUs.
Feast your eyes on the photos that CPC correspondent Antony Leather has sent us from Germany, and if you want more details, check out our follow up story.
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the top $ wont aplly as the top GPU is now the 280 .jj7
Comment by kingjohn721 at 7:47pm 4th November 2008
Three cards have been announced so far, which are based on the GeForce 9600 GT, the GeForce 9800 GT and the Radeon HD 4850 GPUs. jj7
Comment by kingjohn721 at 6:49pm 26th August 2008
I've been waiting for this for the last year. I can't wait to build an ultra high system based on Nehalem. Got my Silverstone TJ07 case ready and waiting.
Comment by ThE_RoEy at 12:34pm 22nd August 2008
Matrix-just makes me think of bullet time speeds:P I was hoping the cooler would be a vapour chamber but it looks good.
Comment by DudQuitter at 3:03pm 20th August 2008
Hey all. The Matrix GPU's in particular sound very promissing and should be with us pretty soon. The ability to easily control the core and memory voltages via Windows-based software sounds very interesting and Asus claims you can clock the nuts off them as a result. We'll have to wait and see;)
Comment by combatus at 11:32am 20th August 2008
I count 8... there is a bank of 6 rotated sata slots along the side (just next to the two vertical ones in fact)
Comment by NotFred at 9:44am 20th August 2008
Now that looks good how may ram slots. This looks like a performance board where are the SATA slots i only count 2 its sad when you can have more graphics cards than harddrives.
Comment by Cool_CR at 11:08pm 19th August 2008
@soddit113 - effectively it's two, as all high-end GPU's are dual slot ..... ;-)
Comment by jon_williams at 7:34pm 19th August 2008
open your eyes jon, that white one at the bottom is another PCI-E X16 ;). this board looks totally amazing, i cant wait to not have enough money for it!!!
Comment by soddit113 at 6:58pm 19th August 2008
Looks like it's only got 2 PCI-E 2.0 sockets - that's no good for GPU Folding ... we need at least 4 sockets :-D
Comment by jon_williams at 6:39pm 19th August 2008
Why aint they got rid of that rusty old ide socket?? Everyone is using sata nowadays.
Comment by true_gamer at 6:25pm 19th August 2008
Awesome!! 3 channel ddr3. I hope this will put crysis to its knees at 2560x1600 everything maxed. Not that i have a monitor that big :(
Comment by true_gamer at 6:21pm 19th August 2008
Holy guacamoleee! must say im excited by this news, that GPU looks sexy as hell not sure about those heatsinks on the MB but still it's nice to see that we are inching towards this new technology
Comment by dr4ygon at 6:21pm 19th August 2008
Awesome! That motherboard looks fairly gorgeous. I can't wait to get my hands on something like that. An interesting thought, though, is that memory manufacturers would assumedly start making DDR3 kits in packages of three modules, to satisfy the triple channel memory controllers of the new cpus. It's an interesting idea, though I wonder if it will actually give a performance gain because of the extra bandwidth? I guess there is only one way to find out, and that's wait and see... But that's some serious food for thought, and I can't help thinking that if Asus are releasing information on this apparently working motherboard, then Nehalem can't be that far away, and may even be on time. I'm very excited about it anyway.
Comment by RedHotsRule549 at 5:49pm 19th August 2008
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