Conscience of Intel found: X79 motherboard will be backward compatible with LGA1366

Every time a new processor emerges, compatibility with the old platform has been a topic of great concern to many users. Fortunately, the two major processor manufacturers seem to be getting more and more kind of these years: AMD Socket AM series has maintained a good downward compatibility, AM2, AM2+, AM3, AM3 + always go smoothly along the way Upgrade, even if the bulldozer arrived; Intel has been criticized, especially the LGA1156 to LGA1155 conversion, but it seems there are signs of change, in addition to Ivy Bridge continue to use the LGA1155 interface and compatible with the 6 series chipset, the next generation of enthusiast-level platform The new chipset X79 is also compatible with the current LGA1366 high-end platform.

The X79 motherboard was originally designed for the Sandy Bridge-E processor, using the new LGA2011 socket, and now the LGA1366 series processors can only be paired with the X58+ICH10 chipset, and the two seem to be incompatible.

However, an internal document from Intel shows that Intel will release two Extreme Board series high-end motherboards based on the X79 chipset, supporting LGA2011 and LGA1366 processors, respectively.

The first is "DX79SI", codenamed Siler, which is aimed at enthusiasts and high-end players. It supports LGA2011 Sandy Bridge-E processor and has eight four-channel DDR3 DIMM memory sockets with a maximum capacity of 64GB, three PCI-E 3.0 expansion slots, and support for three. Road graphics card (should have SLI), twelve SATA ports, six of which support SATA 6Gbps, four USB 3.0 (non-native) and fourteen USB 2.0 ports, eight-channel sound card, dual Gigabit Ethernet, Bluetooth And Wi-Fi wireless module, but save the PS/2 interface.

Followed by "DX79TO", codenamed Thorsby, positioning slightly lower, with the processor is now available LGA1366 Core i7-900 series, with three channels of DDR3 memory slots, two PCI-E 2.0 x16 slots, eight SATA interfaces , two USB 3.0 interfaces, six-channel sound card, Gigabit Ethernet card and so on.

Although the users of the LGA1366 platform are all high-end players, few people will change the board and keep the old one. Even if AMD has a bulldozer, AMD basically has no hope of leveraging Intel's position in the high-end field. The latter is completely unnecessary. "Ren Xiangxiu", but in any case, this downward compatibility is certainly worthy of praise, but also will be welcomed by users. The only problem now is that the X79 is a single-chip design. It is essentially a South Bridge. The X58+ICH10 is a traditional combination of North and South Bridges. How does the X79 provide North Bridge functionality when paired with the LGA1366?