Gigabyte's Core-i7 MB to have chipset waterblock standard

[AminoAcid]

I thought some of you may find this interesting...

This article ("Sneak peak: Four Core-i7 X58 Motherboards") was just posted this morning on Toms Hardware...
http://www.tomshardware.com/picturestory/471-nehalem-x58-motherboard.html

As someone who's been delaying my next upgrade in anticipation of Intel's next-gen chips and chipset, I've been checking the various hardware news sites daily for anything I can find out about them.

Built-in chipset water cooler on this board is pretty rad, seems like WC is getting more mainstream every day (at least in the enthusiast market).

http://media.bestofmicro.com/nehalem-x58-motherboard,H-X-165237-13.jpg
http://media.bestofmicro.com/nehalem-x58-motherboard,H-W-165236-13.jpg

Though I have to ask; who needs 10 USB ports on the back of their motherboard? ...and 10 SATA ports??

Cheers,
Amino

[Spawn-Inc]

Though I have to ask; who needs 10 USB ports on the back of their motherboard? ...and 10 SATA ports??

Cheers,
Amino

i will agree with the usb ports, but i would love 10 sata. i have 2 dvd sata drives and 4 hard drives, i would like to have 2 more hdds for a raid setup but ohwell i guess thats whats cards are for...

[ghost_recon88]

Reminds me of the Asus Maximus Formula SE they put out that included a NB waterblock :D

[sno.lcn]

A couple of their higher-end boards already have it, like my EP45T-Extreme. I honestly don't know how well it works though, due to the design. It's a tiny block, screwed to a plate (you can see in the pic) which is mounted to the top of all the fins. Even benching over 600fsb, that block barely even gets warm.

That board will also have an add on heatpipe for the NB too, it'll fit in those round grooves that you see next to the waterblock.


I can't wait to get this board though, should be amazing :clap:

[nd4spdbh2]

personally i think these integrated WB's are a waste of time and money.... if your gonna do water cooling right you buy your own block... and for us guys who dont do water cooling it would be nice to have a good stock air cooling solution (which this board does look like it has but IMO its kinda weird to put it in practice that way)

[thorilan]

i agree with nd4

[AminoAcid]

i will agree with the usb ports, but i would love 10 sata. i have 2 dvd sata drives and 4 hard drives, i would like to have 2 more hdds for a raid setup but ohwell i guess thats whats cards are for...

6 harddrives total? Holy schmoly.
NAS is your friend!

Seriously, I plan on never having more than 2 relatively small drives in RAID 0 in any of my PCs for the next few years, holding my OS and installed apps with a NAS box in RAID1 for my library storage, and to hold backups of my local drives.

As for the built-in watercooling...
I hear what you guys are saying, I didn't realize that they'd already done it, or that it was implemented so awkwardly (I see what you mean about it sitting on the fins). It's sort of a vice-grips solution ("the wrong tool for every job").

Oh well. Obviously I'm new to the whole water cooling thing and coming in with the typical newb's naive excitement :D. I loath the idea of having to upgrade even more HW with a major CPU upgrade. They've already got us upgrading MB & Memory with each new CPU cycle, and power supply with every other cycle... I'm thankful I can't write off hardware on my taxes!

I'd been thinking myself of whether there'd be any advantage to simply sitting a generic block on top of a the fins and glooping up the fins with thermal paste, but it sounds like your experince is that it doesn't do anything. I mean it's gotta be better than passive air-cooling right??

Cheers,
Amino

[Spawn-Inc]

A couple of their higher-end boards already have it, like my EP45T-Extreme. I honestly don't know how well it works though, due to the design. It's a tiny block, screwed to a plate (you can see in the pic) which is mounted to the top of all the fins. Even benching over 600fsb, that block barely even gets warm.

from what i saw in a review and what the review said, the waterblock gets bad contact with the actual core on the nb. the use a plat of copper which touchs the core then change to fins, then to the water block.


http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/3oh6/gigabyte/ep45t-extreme/layout-13.jpg

Looking directly from the side, we can see a thin base plate that makes contact with the P45 NB, but sitting directly above that, is a series of cooling fins. These fins then attach to the nice and thick upper plate that has the water block, provides the base for the Hybrid Silent-Pipe Module, and finally the heat pipes that then carry on to the PWM areas. Our question to Gigabyte is, how exactly do you think the water block, Hybrid Silent-Pipe Module, or those heat pipes are going to remove heat from the chipset? The cooling fins in between the two layers of the whole assembly are for dissipating heat, not transferring it. There is very little mass in contact with the chipset which is required to absorb large heat loads when the system is really being pushed. The argument here then is that the P45 chipset runs cool. Well, if it runs so cool, what is all this elaborate cooling for then? Is a water block even necessary? What about the heat pipes that are supposed to be transferring heat to the PWM area where the cooling fins then dissipate the heat? To put it bluntly, this design is probably the most inefficient we have seen to date. You can see the photos, come to your own conclusions.

6 harddrives total? Holy schmoly.
NAS is your friend!
Seriously, I plan on never having more than 2 relatively small drives in RAID 0 in any of my PCs for the next few years, holding my OS and installed apps with a NAS box in RAID1 for my library storage, and to hold backups of my local drives.


i have 4 hard drives, the other 2 are DVD burners. i have 3x 250's (1st is my os, 2nd is programs, 3rd is split with xp benching only and vista 64bit) and 1x 500 for backup. but it kinda doesn't make sense on my part to have that drive plugged in all the time as it uses up its life, but i also look in the drive at least 10 times a day so.

[SkiBum1207]

hmmm well it doesnt look like it makes much sense...as the heat pipes are routed it almost seems like the water block would cool the PWMs better than the northbridge, i doubt much heat will be able to be conducted through those tiny vanes