Intel unveiled its third socket LGA2011 Desktop Board driven by its X79 Express chipset, the DX79SR. This model is positioned a notch above the DX79SI, and a couple of notches above the DX79TO. It was first unsuspectingly revealed to the world not by Intel, but NVIDIA, in its GeForce GTX 690 press-shots. The DX79SR covers up a few design shortfalls of the DX79SI. It adds two additional SATA 6 Gb/s ports, driven by a Marvell SE9128 2-port controller, and two additional USB 3.0 ports on the rear panel. The total of four USB 3.0 ports on the rear panel are driven by an unknown 4-port USB 3.0 controller.
Apart from the two onboard connectivity additions, Intel will also include a USB add-on module which packs 802.11 b/g/n WLAN and Bluetooth 3.0 interfaces. The package of the board itself will be beefed up a little, with the inclusion of a stylish mouse pad and a thermal probe. To accommodate these features, Intel made a few subtle changes to the board layout, the first and second PCI-Express x16 slots no longer have switches between them, and some capacitors appear changed. With all these, Intel believes it has a shot at capturing the US $299 price-point, which gives it a nice spread from the $249 DX79SI and the $199 DX79TO.
