Board Features & Specifications

The X58 Pro-E's list of integrated peripherals includes: Gigabit LAN, eight-Channel Audio, USB 2.0, Serial ATA RAID, eSATA and Firewire. Every bit whatever Core i7 motherboard today, the MSI X58 Pro-Eastward is powered by the Intel X58 chipset and likewise makes apply of the ICH10R south bridge.

There are a number of basic features that tin be found on all motherboards using the Intel X58 chipset. The X58 IOH (Input/Output Hub) otherwise known as the "north span" supports upwards to 36 PCI Express lanes. This means that multi-carte du jour configurations of 2x16 are supported, while 4x8 is too possible.

It is important to annotation that while the MSI X58 Pro-Eastward does support CrossfireX, users must buy a special "X58 Pro-Due east SLI" version if they wish to use SLI technology. Nvidia charges a premium to manufacturers to include SLI back up and therefore the X58 Pro-Due east SLI board volition cost more than the X58 Pro-E. Hopefully this volition be made articulate by the manufacturer and merchants offering the product.

The ICH10R south bridge has most a yr on the marketplace, just information technology is however one of the best equipped chips bachelor. This tiny bit gives the MSI X58 Pro-E support for 12 USB two.0 ports, half-dozen PCI Limited x1 lanes, Gigabit LAN, HD Audio, and 6 SATA ports with RAID capabilities.

Based on these specs, all current X58 boards will feature at least 6 SATA ports supporting RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID x, and RAID 5.

Additionally MSI has included the JMicron 363 controller, calculation support for a unmarried Ultra DMA 66/100/133 IDE bus and two SATA ports. Only one of the two SATA ports connected to the JMicron 363 controller is used onboard. The second port is located on the I/O panel, giving the X58 Pro-E eSATA back up.

Another chipset feature is the Intel Loftier Definition Audio (Intel HD Sound). This provides eight independent DMA audio engines that support multiple audio streams with audio codecs. Driving this characteristic is the Realtek ALC889A codec, enabling loftier-quality 192KHz/24-bit audio output.

The X58 Pro-E supports IEEE1394a (FireWire 400) useful for bandwidth-intensive applications like digital video (DV), professional audio, and external hard drives, which frequently consume hundreds or fifty-fifty thousands of megabytes of data per file. The board provides 2 1394a ports due to the inclusion of the JMicron 363 FireWire controller.

The obvious and necessary USB two.0 support is inherited from the ICH10R chipset, with a total of twelve ports, half available on the I/O panel and an additional vi ports using the supplied brackets.

The X58 Pro-E features a single Realtek 8111C Gigabit LAN controller which uses the PCI Express bus for maximum throughput. Those wanting dual Gigabyte LAN controllers volition need to look to the MSI X58 Platinum, though we suspect that well-nigh users volition be more than happy with a unmarried controller.