Intel Skulltrail Enthusiast Platform Preview

[Rob Williams]

Consisting of two Extreme Quad-Core processors, Intel is looking to redefine what we know as "high-end". Skulltrail is touted as being the "ultimate" enthusiast platform, offering SLI and Crossfire support, huge overclocking abilities and enough sheer power to make the competition weep.

You can read the full article here and discuss it here! Questions regarding points that I might have overlooked in the review can also be asked here.

[Greg King]

Solid review of a system that I will NEVER be able to afford.

It's impressive to see such a system being built for the bleeding edge enthusiast but it was a comfort to see affordable chips like the E8400 keep up with the others in a gaming scenario. Clearly the Skulltraill platform, or any similar setup, is for the encoder as the benefit in multicore gaming just isn't seen with 8 cores. This platform would be interesting to revisit in a year or so when the game developers get their games up to speed on the multi threaded front.

TigerDirect.com has a great deal for the RAM needed for this board, already in stock. Single stick, 4GB, FB-Dimm 667MHz memory. The only downside is that it's relatively slow, but come on! Look at that! 4 gigs on one stick! That means you can stick one each in the first and third slots, keeping everything nice and cool, especially with a RAM fan.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...1&Sku=C19-2510

They also have the PC Power and Cooling 1000 watt PSU recommended in the article.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...&Sku=P227-1004

Oooh! I'm already putting together components on my Tiger Direct wishlist. They don't have the m-board or processor yet, but when they do, I plan to make this into a system with more computing power than Africa!

[Rob Williams]

Purchasing a 4GB stick for the sake of it wouldn't make any sense. The D5400XS board tops out at 8GB, so the best idea is to pick up four sticks of 2GB, for $80 more than that single 4GB stick:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...?EdpNo=2280016

Once you get your rig built, come back and show it off! The board and CPUs won't be available until late Feb or early March, so there will be a little wait.

[slugbug]

Same here, I'll never be able to afford that.

[On_Wisconsin]

That's one insane setup...

[Merlin]

Looks nice.
I would have liked to see the DDR2 800 be higher and the PCIe 1.1 to be 2.0 for the new cards coming out.
But I bet it still ROCKS

Merlin

[Rob Williams]

Originally Posted by Merlin

Looks nice.
I would have liked to see the DDR2 800 be higher and the PCIe 1.1 to be 2.0 for the new cards coming out.

I couldn't agree more. It would have been nice to see DDR3 even, but given the chipset that Skulltrail is based off of, I can understand why Intel chose to take this route. I have no doubt that if once released, potential is seen, then Intel will essentially merge the benefits from both the 5400 and X48 together and release an even more desirable platform.

For all of you who say "it's too expensive", bear in mind that smaller LGA771 processors will work in the system just fine. Stay tuned, as I plan to cover this in more detail in the coming weeks.