An image of an as-yet unannounced Gigabyte motherboard has found its way on to the Internet, and reveals a massive seven PCI-E x16 slots.
The board - which is believed to be planned under the name of X58A-UDP7 or X58A-UD9 - was revealed over on Expreview.com, although sadly whoever provided the picture didn't manage to snag any firm details.
Working from the image and purported model name, the new board appears to be based around the Intel X58 chipset and uses the LGA1366 socket for compatibility with Intel's Core i7 range of processors. The main feature, however, is the PCI Express slots.
With a total of seven full-length PCI-E x16 slots, the Gigabyte X58A-UDP7 could potentially accommodate seven single-slot graphics cards - or a smaller mix of double-slot and single-slot cards - in an SLI or CrossFire configuration, providing you've got a power supply up to the task.
While such a system might be just a tiny bit overkill for your average gamer, it could find a use in deskbound mini-supercomputers such as the FASTRA and FASTRA 2 systems built at the University of Antwerp, which use the GPGPU capabilities of multiple graphics cards to churn through common supercomputing tasks on the cheap.
So far, Gigabyte is remaining tight-lipped about the product, so we'll have to wait and see when - or even if - the X58A-UDP7 is officially released and exactly how much it'll set you back.
Are you excited at the thought of seven graphics cards running on a full PCI-E x16 bus, or does the idea of a computer drawing that much power give you sleepless nights - no matter how fast it might be? Share your thoughts over in the forums.
Addendum 17:30pm 16th April 2010: Gigabyte emailed to confirm this will be called the GA-X58A-UD9 when released.
The board - which is believed to be planned under the name of X58A-UDP7 or X58A-UD9 - was revealed over on Expreview.com, although sadly whoever provided the picture didn't manage to snag any firm details.
Working from the image and purported model name, the new board appears to be based around the Intel X58 chipset and uses the LGA1366 socket for compatibility with Intel's Core i7 range of processors. The main feature, however, is the PCI Express slots.
With a total of seven full-length PCI-E x16 slots, the Gigabyte X58A-UDP7 could potentially accommodate seven single-slot graphics cards - or a smaller mix of double-slot and single-slot cards - in an SLI or CrossFire configuration, providing you've got a power supply up to the task.
While such a system might be just a tiny bit overkill for your average gamer, it could find a use in deskbound mini-supercomputers such as the FASTRA and FASTRA 2 systems built at the University of Antwerp, which use the GPGPU capabilities of multiple graphics cards to churn through common supercomputing tasks on the cheap.
So far, Gigabyte is remaining tight-lipped about the product, so we'll have to wait and see when - or even if - the X58A-UDP7 is officially released and exactly how much it'll set you back.
Are you excited at the thought of seven graphics cards running on a full PCI-E x16 bus, or does the idea of a computer drawing that much power give you sleepless nights - no matter how fast it might be? Share your thoughts over in the forums.
Addendum 17:30pm 16th April 2010: Gigabyte emailed to confirm this will be called the GA-X58A-UD9 when released.
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