Great Wall of Nehalem

INTEL WAS EXPECTED to start showing off its next milestone, the Nehalem platform, more during Computex, and that's exactly what happened: while various vendors were showing Nehalem mobos (usually behind closed doors) Intel simply displayed one or two Nehalem boards from each major OEM, all on a pretty big wall in their new Nangang hall booth - yes, for everyone to see.

The desktop boards were (barely) hidden under the X48 sign, with clear board name and obvious elongated Nehalem sockets there. But, unmistakably, you could recognise the enlarged CPU socket and the smallish X58 TylersburgDT chipset - no more memory controller and FSB in the chipset means no more chipset overclocking needed.

Take a look at the entries from Asus, Foxconn, Gigabyte and Intel itself here:

Asus T6T-VC1

Foxconn Renaissance

Intel DX58SO

MSI Tylersburg Diamond

Abit IX58-Max

If you notice, quite a few of these boards have "asymmetric" channel configurations. For instance there are three DDR3 channels but four DIMM sockets. So, the first channel enables 2 DIMMs but the other two only have a DIMM socket each. Nehalem can organise the memory addressing in such a way that only the uppermost addresses end up on that effectively single-channel spare DIMM. I still prefer truly symmetrical setups.

Then, there were dual-CPU workstation and server mobos, based on the TylersburgDP chipset flavour, and most with plenty of PCI-E x16 slots:

Asus TEB-D

Flextronics TX65H

MSI MS9199

Intel Urbana

Intel Bluff Creek

Tyan Tempest S7012

Supermicro X8DTN+

Here, you'll notice many mobos with 12 or even 18 DIMM slots. Odd number? No, it is simply two CPUs times three channels times three DIMMs per channel. In that config, though, you're reduced to DDR3-1333 speed - which should still be more than enough for a six-channel server memory setup.

Overall, the boards seem production ready, the PC and dual-socket " Skulltra il 2" follow ups will support XMP enthusiast memory timings as well, and the new heat sinks and cooling systems for the biggie LGA1366 sockets are right there too.

Chris "Fugger", Shamino, Kingpin and the rest of the top overclockers at the Foxconn "Quantum Force" booth also seem to have good words in for the Nehalem's clocks - but first take a look at their Penryn E-0 stepping overclocks tomorrow at the said location. Can anyone say 6.5 GHz quad-core?

In summary, Nehalem is there. As the clock speeds seem to have dramatically improved to the point that Intel can launch a 3.6 GHz Yorkfield or Harpertown Penryns without affecting the Nehalem benchmarketing, we can expect the initial rollout real soon now. µ