Today, ECS launched its second LGA 1366 motherboard revision
based on the X58 chipset which will be known as the X58B-A2
Black Series. According to the company, this board is targeted for “overclocking
beginners,” as it is relatively affordable and doesn’t compromise on any
“great” features.
To start, the ECS X58B-A2 Black
Series features a VRD 11.1 compliant 6 phase power design, which means
that it can gear down to a single power phase for maximum efficiency if needed.
Gigabyte marketed several of its LGA 775 boards with this feature last year,
which it referred to as “DES Advanced”.
As with most current X58 boards, the Black Series supports
up to 24GB of triple-channel DDR3 1600MHz and a QPI speed of 6.4GT/s. However,
only ATI CrossFire is supported by the two PCI-E 2.0 x16 slots that it carries.
Additional features of the board
include one PCI-E x4 slot, two PCI-E x1 slots, one PCI slot, six SATA II ports supporting
JMicron JMB362 RAID, two eSATA II 3.0GB/s ports, and standard Realtek 8-channel
HD audio. There is also a debug LED at the bottom left, which have been
appearing on many overclocking-minded boards lately.
No pricing and availability information have been revealed
yet, but the first generation X58B-A currently goes for $210 on Newegg, so we can
expect a slight price premium for the new model.
X58B-A2 Black Series Rev 2
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Motherboard
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