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Sandy Bridge-E will launch on the 14th of November, not the 15th
There have been a fair few rumours about when Intel will be launching the Sandy Bridge-E processors and its X79 chipset and admittedly we've been privy to rumours that didn't pan out. However, we can now reveal that the actual launch date will be the 14th of November, not the 15th as suggested earlier.
There have been a fair few rumours about when Intel will be launching the Sandy Bridge-E processors and its X79 chipset and admittedly we've been privy to rumours that didn't pan out. However, we can now reveal that the actual launch date will be the 14th of November, not the 15th as suggested earlier.
According to information that has reached us, the first Sandy Bridge-E processor will be on sale on the 14th of November, oddly enough though, not alongside Intel's own DX79SI and DX79TO motherboards as they won't arrive until December. This is as far as we're aware, the first time Intel hasn't launched motherboard products alongside new processors, especially when it comes to an entirely new platform. We'd expect Intel's motherboard partners to be happy about this move though, even though Intel's own brand motherboards are far from the most popular option out there. It's possible that part of the reason for the delay here is the last minute changes to the X79 chipset, although we know for sure that the DX79SI will have a total of eight internal SATA ports.
As for Intel's CPU coolers from the LGA-2011 platform, well the air cooler should retail for somewhere around US$25-30, whereas the sealed unit watercooler should come in just under US$100, if our sources prove to be correct. The new air cooler is lighter than the one currently shipping with Intel's XE desktop parts which is quite surprising, but as we don't know what Intel has changed yet, we'll just have to wait and see what it ends up looking like, as it's possible it's not the same cooler as what was shown at IDF. As far the watercooling solution, we have a good idea of what it'll look like after Intel's demos of it at IDF.
The real question which we're still waiting to find out is if there will be enough demand for Intel's new platform. We're already hearing murmurings from the motherboard manufacturers that they're considering cutting down their sales estimations and it's widely believed that X79 motherboards will not be as popular as the current X58 boards. Things might change next year when a revised X79 chipset is expected to appear that will bring a working SCU with SAS support, but we're not sure this is enough to make this a popular enthusiast platform. On the other hand, we can see a lot of businesses buying into this over Intel's more costly Xeon option.
