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That's right, we here have a look at the upcoming RD580 chipset boards from 3 of the most renowned motherboard manufacturers: ASUS, DFI, and ABIT. For the most part, manufacturers have decided to skip the 939 platform as Socket AM2 is just around the corner. However, these three have decided to come out with 939 models.
ASUS's contender is the A8R32-MVP Deluxe. It is placed on a cool and functional looking black PCB. With this board, they will continue their trend by using passive cooling. This board will feature dual 16x Crossfire. It looks to only feature 4 (I'm assuming) SATA 3.0GB/s ports. This board should be available at the official launch of the chipset of March 1st and should be competitively priced at a range of $120-$150 (after the initial hype of course).
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Now we have the much anticipated DFI model based on the RD580. To start off with, this will be DFI's only dual x16 PCI-E motherboard for the 939 platform. There will be no Nvidia based board with dual x16 SLI. Not that this really matters as the x8 PCI-E bandwidth isn't fully utilized anyway. Now, DFI rectifies a huge mistake from the RD480 based RDX200 by using the ULi M1575 southbridge chipset, allowing SATA 3.0GB/s support and competitive USB performance. There will also be an additional 4 SATA ports from the Silicon Image 3114 chip (thus most likely only SATA 1.5GB/s slots, though I'm not sure.) A problem with this board, and a fairly large one at that to most people, is that DFI has not taken to the new trend and still used active cooling on the northbridge chipset, and it's placed in the same horrible spot. DFI continues their combination of black PCB and yellow slots. Many people will definately consider this a poor choice. This board looks like it will be released a week to 10 days after the chipset launch, so March 7th-10th and be priced relatively the same as the current RD200 at $150 or so.
Pic:
Finally we have ABIT's venture into the 939 platform-based RD580. This board is placed on a strangely orange PCB, with a combination of light blue and black for the other parts. They decided to go with the passive heatpipe cooling solution for their northbridge chipset. As with DFI, they will be using the ULi M1575 southbridge chipset, so this board also has the benefits of SATA 3.0GB/s and solid USB performance. Based on the name, this board should also have dual x16 Crossfire support. This new board will have the latest in ABIT's uGuru overclocking technology and system management features. A final price hasn't really been set yet and this board probably won't appear until several weeks after the chipset launch.
Pic:
As an added teaser, Sapphire will also be making a 939 platform RD580 board. It seems the board will be modeled near completely after the ATI Manta Reference, so performance and overclocking should be near the same. However, features and price are unknown. Another unknown factor is availability. While the RD480 board was widely available in Europe, it took a long time for it to be launched in the US and even then, quantities were limited. Launch date and appearance are unknown.
Link: ATI RD580 boards at AnandTech
ASUS's contender is the A8R32-MVP Deluxe. It is placed on a cool and functional looking black PCB. With this board, they will continue their trend by using passive cooling. This board will feature dual 16x Crossfire. It looks to only feature 4 (I'm assuming) SATA 3.0GB/s ports. This board should be available at the official launch of the chipset of March 1st and should be competitively priced at a range of $120-$150 (after the initial hype of course).
Pic:
Now we have the much anticipated DFI model based on the RD580. To start off with, this will be DFI's only dual x16 PCI-E motherboard for the 939 platform. There will be no Nvidia based board with dual x16 SLI. Not that this really matters as the x8 PCI-E bandwidth isn't fully utilized anyway. Now, DFI rectifies a huge mistake from the RD480 based RDX200 by using the ULi M1575 southbridge chipset, allowing SATA 3.0GB/s support and competitive USB performance. There will also be an additional 4 SATA ports from the Silicon Image 3114 chip (thus most likely only SATA 1.5GB/s slots, though I'm not sure.) A problem with this board, and a fairly large one at that to most people, is that DFI has not taken to the new trend and still used active cooling on the northbridge chipset, and it's placed in the same horrible spot. DFI continues their combination of black PCB and yellow slots. Many people will definately consider this a poor choice. This board looks like it will be released a week to 10 days after the chipset launch, so March 7th-10th and be priced relatively the same as the current RD200 at $150 or so.
Pic:
Finally we have ABIT's venture into the 939 platform-based RD580. This board is placed on a strangely orange PCB, with a combination of light blue and black for the other parts. They decided to go with the passive heatpipe cooling solution for their northbridge chipset. As with DFI, they will be using the ULi M1575 southbridge chipset, so this board also has the benefits of SATA 3.0GB/s and solid USB performance. Based on the name, this board should also have dual x16 Crossfire support. This new board will have the latest in ABIT's uGuru overclocking technology and system management features. A final price hasn't really been set yet and this board probably won't appear until several weeks after the chipset launch.
Pic:
As an added teaser, Sapphire will also be making a 939 platform RD580 board. It seems the board will be modeled near completely after the ATI Manta Reference, so performance and overclocking should be near the same. However, features and price are unknown. Another unknown factor is availability. While the RD480 board was widely available in Europe, it took a long time for it to be launched in the US and even then, quantities were limited. Launch date and appearance are unknown.
Link: ATI RD580 boards at AnandTech
