ECS X79R-AX Black Series Motherboard Pictured

Here are the first pictures of ECS' top-of-the-line socket LGA2011 motherboard, the X79R-AX Black Series. This standard ATX form-factor motherboard crams in a ton of connectivity and features to tick all the boxes as far as Intel's next-generation HEDT (high-end desktop) platform goes. It's got room for 4-way SLI or CrossfireX, a strong-looking VRM, and connectivity galore.

Here are the first pictures of ECS' top-of-the-line socket LGA2011 motherboard, the X79R-AX Black Series. This standard ATX form-factor motherboard crams in a ton of connectivity and features to tick all the boxes as far as Intel's next-generation HEDT (high-end desktop) platform goes. It's got room for 4-way SLI or CrossfireX, a strong-looking VRM, and connectivity galore.

Styled in ECS' signature black, white, and gray color-sheme, the X79R-AX belongs to the "Black Series" line of premium motherboards by the company, which helped build the its image as a premium board vendor. The LGA2011 socket takes in upcoming Core i7 "Sandy Bridge-E" processors, the socket itself is LOTES-made. The socket is powered by a 14-phase VRM, seven sets of Driver-MOSFETs and chokes on either sides of the PCB. We can imagine this to be a heavily layered PCB to keep signaling proper, when you have high-current electrical components on even the reverse-side of the PCB.

The CPU socket is wired to four DDR3 DIMM slots, two on its either sides. Each slot has its own 64-bit wide data path to the memory controller, since Sandy Bridge-E packs a hefty quad-channel (256-bit) DDR3 integrated memory controller. Up to 32 GB of DDR3-2400 MHz (via OC) memory can be installed. The memory slots are powered by a 4-phase VRM.

Expansion slots include four well spaced-out PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots, which depending on the way they're populated, are electrically configured (top to bottom) as x16/NC/x16/NC, or x8/x8/x8/x8, or x16/NC/x8/x8. Switching is handled by new ASMedia ASM1480 lane switches, that are PCI-Express 3.0 compliant.

Other expansion slots include two PCI-Express 2.0 x1.