Preview pics - Bloomfield reference board (for Nehalem CPUs)

[AmberClad]

pics
Pretty unusual looking, compared to your standard fare LGA775. It's using the old Bonetrail/Skulltrail logo instead of the recent "digital skull" version. I laughed at the comment printed under the last PCIe x1 slot :laugh:...

Edit: For those who don't understand the inside joke, as far as what it says under that slot.

Should have gone in the Motherboards forum, but Astrobill distracted me with the IHS thread. Doh!

 

[Idontcare]

The four memory slots are located at the top of the board and we presume the three blue slots are for tripple-channel memory. However, it's odd that there's a single black slot as well and we're not sure what the intention of it is. We actually expected to see six memory slots, but this might well come on later boards.

There's an Intel dude over on the XS forums (forget his nick ATM) that said this is exactly what we'd see...4 slots, 3 of which would be in triple-channel and the fourth is just an expansion DIMM slot that operates in standard bandwidth mode (not 3x) for those people who require that extra 1-2GB of DDR3 memory.

Kind of like putting 3 sticks into an existing 4-slot dual-channel board today.

 

[PottedMeat]

Wow there are DC/DC converters everywhere. I like how they're they're kinda 'artistically' laid out around the socket. A lot of low profile/smd mosfets/diode pairs all in a row, maybe supposed to be heatsinked?

 

[LittleNemoNES]

Are those rectangles radially arranged around the CPU socket ram modules?

(sorry, I'm not an engy)

 

[fleshconsumed]

Really really poor layout. Putting memory slots at the top moves heatsink further away from exhaust fan and leaves less space for expansion slots (doing away with NB alevates the latter problem, but the layout is still less than ideal).

 

[JAG87]

why are people complaining about the layout here and on XS... this is just an early sample board

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: gersson
Are those rectangles radially arranged around the CPU socket ram modules?

(sorry, I'm not an engy)

Nah, power modules (VRM)