- Design for Intel socket 1366 Nehalem Core i7 Extreme/Core i7 45nm processors
- Intel X58/ICH10R Chipset
- 12 Phase Power Design
- Support 6 DIMM DDR3-1866 (OC)/1600 (OC)/1333 (OC) up to 24GB maximum capacity
- Support ATI CrossfireX and Nvidia SLI technology
- 100% XDC Japanese Solid Capacitors
- BIOSTAR Space-Pipe with high efficiency copper heat-pipe
- BIOSTAR G.P.U. (Green Power Utility) technology for energy saving
- BIOSTAR TPower Utility
- On board Dual GbE
- 1394a, external SATA, SPDIF Out (Optical/Coaxial)
The BIOSTAR TPower X58 motherboard is based upon Intel’s X58 Express chipset. This chipset was introduced a couple of years ago along with the Socket 1366 Core i7 CPUs to replace the Core 2 Quad CPUs and X48 chipset. The main introduction of the chipset brought improved performance and triple channel memory to the Intel side of the fence. Another feature is the ability to do Crossfire or SLI.
The board uses an ICH10R Southbridge chipset. This brings support for SATA RAID as there is a non-R version for chipsets that don’t have the R-suffix. The separation of Northbridge and Southbridge chips has ended with the introduction of the H55 Express chipset but the X58 design allows the manufacturers to provide full x16 PCI Express lanes for two video cards whereas the mainstream chipset has to split the available lanes into two x8.
The TPower X58 has a 12 Phase Power design. This is an 8+4 design that is designed to throttle CPU temperatures when the system is idle or when an application doesn’t require the power of a 3D game or application like encoding MP4 videos. When using 2D applications the system powers down, using less phases when the power isn’t required. This helps save the environment as computing devices are doing with more frequency.
The board has 2-phases specifically for the memory offering increased memory voltage stability and durability. The board has 100% Japanese made XDC capacitors. The Space-Pipe is a high-efficiency thermal solutionSpace-pipe. The X58 and ICH10R are covered by a heatsink on this motherboard with heatpipes leading out to the MOSFETs and rear I/O area. This will run up to 10C cooler than a chipset fan over the heatsink.
