Intel will be replacing the current X58 Express high-end desktop platform with the X79 Express, according to Chinese website it.com.
This is newsworthy because Intel's performance desktop processors are based on the LGA1366 (Bloomfield/Gulftown) socket used exclusively on X58 chipset-based motherboards.
According to the rumour, X58/LGA1366 is likely to be phased out by Q4 2011 and replaced with the X79.
Rather than continue with a chipset that will be three years old by Q4 2011, which is a long time by Intel standards, the X79 Express will support Sandy Bridge chips instead.
Backing up its story with a detailed slide, it.com suggests that X79 will support the Enthusiast variety of SB chips. Intel being Intel, a new range of performance CPUs requires a new socket, LGA2011. This would mean no backward compatibility with any current chips.
Now, the huge pin-count increase over incumbent Sandy Bridge LGA1155 processors can be interpreted as greater on-chip integration by Intel. Rumour has it that the LGA2011 chips will include four memory channels - adding said channels is a sure-fire way to increase pin-count - and a higher-speed interface with the X79 chipset.
Other notable features include two full-bandwidth PCIe lanes for graphics and no less than 10 SATA 6Gbps ports, which may be the reason for Intel allocating four additional lanes for storage bandwidth.
PCI gets the boot, IDE is long-forgotten, and the high-end desktop/entry-level server aspirations of the chipset are substantiated with SAS (serial-attached SCSI) support.
X79 certainly won't make for a cheap motherboard, but since when does Intel do things cheaply in the high-end space?
