Introduction

Two months back we unleashed the Mighty Supermicro X8SAX workstation (Tylersburg) X58 mainboard, it caused an almighty ruckus in many places with its fast and yet superb stability within the professional arena.   Advised that a secondary mainboard based on this chipset was aimed squarely at the gaming community was in the offering we had been taken slightly by surprise.  Now having some 6 months with X58 chipset experience and knowing its undoubting power it has unleashed within the professional community already it was time to have a look at a territory Supermicro do not often get involved within.   Realistically the company are to the fore as superb workstation and server mainboard suppliers of the highest standards supplying out to many Tier 1's and S.I.'s.  Therefore this has to be a challenge which is a an extremely brave but bold move forward as the multimedia market is very heavily populated with some very established household names.  Though we have to look at the continued success of the company over these last few years moving from strength to strength with bold leadership and careful marketing has made them a force to be reasoned with.

We have firmly established that the X8SAX is without doubt the gold standard and much to offer the professional end user, so what does the C7X58 have to offer?   Initial packaging on arrival took us fully by surprise at the emphasis on green saving and it was extremely focused on the market line aimed at.   A secure well made shipping box that maintains the product firmly into place whilst under the handling of the courier.   Those of you who have had Supermicro workstation boards arrive know on how well packaged they are and notwithstanding an appealing marketed box that stands out well from the crowd.  An attention-grabbing but very positive start to this article.

Therefore what is included in the box.

1 X Supermicro C7X58 Mainboard
1 X C7X58 Mainboard Manual
6 X SATA 2 Cables
1 X I/O Panel
1 X Floppy Drive Cable
1 X SLI Bridge for NVidia® SLI™ technology

Like its predecessor the X8SAX this mighty beast, supports the full 24GB of Non ECC or ECC memory.   That's a whole load of memory for the multimedia end user and its understandable why the professional gamer or multimedia end-user would want such a board.  Today's applications are so demanding and there are many taking that giant leap forward to 64 bit operating systems to gain the fullest potential possible from these mainboards.   Within the Bios of the C7X58 are a huge amount of overclocking variables that will keep those who love to do this very happy for a while to come.   Our time scales here have been tight therefore we did not get the opportunity to look at this in more detail, though it's there.  If its anything like we have discovered within at stock levels then this solid foundation of a mainboard will keep overclockers very happy.

From the X58 (Tylersburg) Supermicro have developed some 8 different mainboards to suit all needs.  It shows how that they have advanced their train of thought on how influential this chipset is going to be within the professional arena.

But before we move any further forward lets have a swift look at what this mainboard actually has to offer the demanding end user.

Primary difference between the C7X58 and the S8SAX mainboard are the support for the faster DDR3 memory up to 1600MHz, dropping of the 64 bit PCI-X slots and finally full support for both NVIDIA® SLI™ and  ATI® CrossfireX™ Technology.

Page 1 - Introduction
Page 2 - Pictures
Page 3 - System Set-Up
Page 4 - Mainboard Baseline Results
Page 5 - PCMARK 2005 ADVANCED
Page 6 - Foxconn 9800GTX+ Single Card
Page 7 - Foxconn 9800GTX+ SLI
Page 8 - Sapphire 4870 TOXIC
Page 9 - Sapphire 4870 TOXIC CrossfireX™
Page 10 - SAPPHIRE HD 4870 X2 2GB
Page 11 - Conclusions