As you might be aware Intel's new Core i7 processors require an entirely new socket, DDR3 memory, and feature other large changes such as an integrated memory controller. The first wave of motherboards to come out for the LGA1366 Socket were very expensive choices but since then we've seen come out with somewhat lower price ranges. We'll be looking at one of these boards today with Asus P6T motherboard.

The P6T

The Asus P6T is very similar to the step-up Asus P6T Deluxe. The major difference is that the P6T uses 8+2 phase power rather than 16+2 on the Deluxe which should allow the Deluxe to obtain some slightly higher overclocks. Other differences include support for 24GB of RAM on the P6T Deluxe as opposed to 12GB of RAM on the P6, 2 SAS ports and uses a Marvell controller for SATA, eSATA, and PATA as opposed to JMicron. Last but not least there are two Marvel Gigabit ports on the P6T as opposed to a single Realtek Gigabit LAN. The layout aesthetics are also a little different with the P6T Deluxe putting a third PCI-E 16x slot next to another 16X PCI-E slot. If you were to do triple Crossfire or SLI and try and use a dual slot card for that slot that would of course block access to that other 16x slot.

Here we see the CPU power connector, the heatsink surrounding the chipset and CPU. The power adapter should be easy to get to although sometimes it can be a tight fit when it is directly against the PC case. The heatsink is slightly smaller than the P6T Deluxe but we don't find the X58 to be too hot of a chipset in general. There are also mounting holes on the X58 there for a Socket 775 heatsink as well if one was wanting to use that.

Here we see the PCI expansion slots with three PCI-Express 16x slots, two in blue and a third in white in between two PCI slots. In-between the two PCI-E 16x slots is one PCI-E slot. You also can notice the Southbridge heatsink which is fairly small but you don't need much these days for the Southbridge so it should be more than enough.

As far as expansion ports there's an IDE controller and six SATA ports on the side of the motherboard with an additional two vertically above the PCI-E 16x slot.

Here we see the triple channel memory slots which Asus supports of to 2000MHz overclocked.

Bundled with the motherboard is the Asus manual, drivers on a CD, IDE cable, four SATA cables, a 3-way SLI card, SLI ribbon, and a I/O panel for the case.