ICH7R SouthBridge
Supports Intel LGA775 processors including Core2 Extreme QX6700, X6800, E6700, 955, 840D, 6xx series
1066 and 800MHz FSZB
One PCI Express x16 graphics support (2x8 PCIe graphics card supported on test board)

DDR2-667/533/800 Mhz (unofficial on this board)
8 GB total memory support with ECC capability
Intel Fast Memory Access
Intel Matrix Storage Technology supporting RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 and Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI)
Four Serial ATA ports
Intel High Definition Audio with 7.1 surround-sound providing Dolby PC Entertainment Experience

Intel released the 975XBX chipset late last year to support the 955 CPUs. A few months ago Intel launched their Core2 architecture. Many of the 975X boards on the market to day support Core 2 CPUs, but some do not (notably the AW8D-Max board from abit) due to PWM requirements. Intel launched the 965 chipset with the Core2 CPUs, but what about the high-end of the market. To alleviate this, Intel decided to refresh their motherboard lineup with the 975XBX2.

The 975XBX2 supports all current Intel LGA-775 CPUs up to and including the QX6700 CPU I’m reviewing here. The list of Intel CPU monikers is amazing. The Intel Pentium 4 Prescott, the 5xx series was the first CPUs to be launched on LGA-775. The 6xx series introduced 64-bit instructions to Intel CPUs. The 8xx series was the first dual core CPUs. 9xx CPUs were the first 65 nanometer desktop Intel CPUs.

The 975XBX2 board has 4 DIMM (Dual In-Line Memory Module) slots, with support for up to 8 GB of unbuffered ECC or non-ECC memory. As noted earlier, to address more than 4GB requires a 64-bit operating system. DDR2 667/533 MHz are all supported by the chipset, with DDR2 800 unofficially supported. I installed the Crucial Ballistix DDR2 667MHz memory and also tried out DDR2 800 from Corsair.

The Intel board has four SATA ports controlled by the ICH7R Southbridge chip. RAID 0, 1, 0+1 and JBOD modes are supported by this chip. The first thing that stood out to me when looking at the board is how similar it is to the Intel 975XBX board. Superficially, at least, the board is identical in layout with the one noticeable difference being the Marvell SATA controller instead of the Silicon Image Sil3132 chip found on the earlier board. There are differences in the BIOS and the specification.

The 975X Express chipset was the first Intel chipset to support multi-GPUs in the consumer space, via the support of AMD’s Crossfire implementation. Now that ATI part of AMD, the future of Crossfire support on Intel motherboards is definitely uncertain, as AMD is Intel’s biggest competitor. Crossfire requires a Master card and a Slave card except X1950 Pro Crossfire which uses a bridge to connect the cards. There are three PCI Express full length slots on the 975XBX2 board, meaning the user can

The onboard audio on the 975XBX2 is based upon a Sigmatel High Definition Audio CODEC. HDA replaced the AC’97 standard in 2004 when Intel launched their LGA-775 platform. Today, virtually every motherboard on the market supports HDA. Sonic Focus technology helps the Sigmatel CODEC deliver crystal clear audio. The clarity with Sonic Focus is very clear compared to when Dolby Digital processing is used.

The board supports Intel’s Matrix Storage Technology with RAID 0, 1, 5 10 modes as well as JBOD mode supported. One thing to note is that the Southbridge, the ICH7R supports 4 of the SATA ports in native II mode. The Marvell SATA controller controls the other 4 ports.