OK, it doesn’t look too different from its P35 chipset on the surface but it might be of interest to some. It’s about the same size and should be the same TDP – we’ll know more when we talk to Intel directly.
MSI’s P45 Diamond model is pretty special – not only does it have more SATA ports than you can shake an armful of hard drives at (don’t, you’ll drop them!) – six native from ICH10R and no less than seven from a silicon image chipset and possibly one dedicated to eSATA duty, it also uses a PCI-Express lane splitter chip from IDT. This makes the single PCI-Express x16 lane into two x8s for proper CrossFire – no longer are we subjected to an imperfect x16 and x4. In addition there should also be CircuPipe cooling and Hi-C low profile capacitors.
Foxconn also showed off its P45 Digital Life ELA board with three PCI-Express x16 slots – two x8 from the same IDT splitter chip and the third at x4, as well as a very strangely placed northbridge plopped between the CPU and memory! The ELA nomenclature comes from the “Eagle Lake” codename Intel gave the P45 chipset – Foxconn are apparently proud of this because “it helped Intel design the Eaglelake”. It’s P45A-S is better looking with its black PCB, but it lacks the IDT splitter chip and now only has a PCI-Express x16 and x4 slots, even if the layout is a bit more traditional.
Discuss in the forums.
MSI’s P45 Diamond model is pretty special – not only does it have more SATA ports than you can shake an armful of hard drives at (don’t, you’ll drop them!) – six native from ICH10R and no less than seven from a silicon image chipset and possibly one dedicated to eSATA duty, it also uses a PCI-Express lane splitter chip from IDT. This makes the single PCI-Express x16 lane into two x8s for proper CrossFire – no longer are we subjected to an imperfect x16 and x4. In addition there should also be CircuPipe cooling and Hi-C low profile capacitors.
Foxconn also showed off its P45 Digital Life ELA board with three PCI-Express x16 slots – two x8 from the same IDT splitter chip and the third at x4, as well as a very strangely placed northbridge plopped between the CPU and memory! The ELA nomenclature comes from the “Eagle Lake” codename Intel gave the P45 chipset – Foxconn are apparently proud of this because “it helped Intel design the Eaglelake”. It’s P45A-S is better looking with its black PCB, but it lacks the IDT splitter chip and now only has a PCI-Express x16 and x4 slots, even if the layout is a bit more traditional.
Discuss in the forums.
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