XFX in the meanwhile has been thinking about making a HD4000 series graphics and with the conjunction of the current NVIDIA brand, but NVIDIA however haven’t built any new motherboard lately to support the new LGA1366 socket for Intel so XFX quickly use the new X58 chipset that is to support both triple SLI and Crossfire to increase or double the frame performance and double the asking price of the graphics, with XFX as I mention will have ATi cards to produce, the X58 chipset is a welcome place for XFX to start with the new product range.
The XFX MB-X58i-CH9 is a real ATX form factor with a black PCB colour to go with the black aluminum and copper hybrid cooling in the North and South Bridge but still not that excessive as the 790i board but it still produces a lot of heat when under load so keep those fans in handy. In first glance though the board has a max of six phase power regulators and toe more unusual is the location of the CPU power connector in the middle of the board which is going to obstruct the air flow in the back of the case even for is the POST decoder located in the top of the first PCIex slot. Given that the X58 has squeezed the transistors and the chips in the ATX board also the addition of the NF200 chipset can be a problem with adding enthusiast features. Even ASUS have that problem with the P6T deluxe had to have a vertical BIOS battery to give space for others. But XFX features however are dual Ethernet six USB ports and enough hard-drive port that you need and a PATA port that you are not going to use. And even the XFX board is also has the multiple graphics solution of both NVIDIA’s SLI and also ATI’s crossfire so when you are looking an ATI graphics card and say, XFX are an all NVIDIA maker, why do they have a ATI graphics solution and look at the X58 chipset from XFX, they could really get justified on why they go for both ways.
Performance of the X58i is not by the means far ahead of the competition but just par with it and also some about 5-to-10% up and down performance score, being that the X58 is the high-end board available in the market and support SLI and crossfire configuration and goes well with the new LGA1366 socket is pretty limited for third-part makers. An already enthusiast board cannot be pushed too much so it is up to the end-user to choose to over-clock themselves to acquire better scores. but now the X58 is little over rated but have some product differences but all in all the X58s board out there are just as the same as the one next door.
