Motherboards - Page 30

GIGABYTE has unveiled their X79-based boards on their Facebook page, and boy do they look good. There's four boards on show, the G1.Assassin 2, X79-UD7, X79-UD5 and finally, the X79-UD3. All four boards feature totally different color schemes with the G1.Assassin 2 sporting a green PCI-e slot look, with that sexy as hell looking chipset heatsink in the shape of a pistol.

Next up is the X79-UD7 that features an orange and black scheme, just in time for Halloween in just under a week! The X79-UD5 features a very nice looking blue and black combination and finally, the X79-UD3 features a gun-metal grey and black combo. All of the boards look very hot indeed.

The boards all sport different looks and specs when compared to their first unveiling at IDF 2011, now featuring Digital PWM's. GIGABYTE are calling it 3-Way Digital Power, 1 CPU Digital PWN, and 2 Memory Digital PWMs. The PWNs in the picture seem to be based on (from what I read on Xtreme Systems) IR/Chil's newest PWM technology as the controllers seem to be VRD12 and VRD 12.5 certified. Interesting time ahead for enthusiasts! Not only do these boards look sweet, but they now use International Rectifier Digital PWM's!

It's not surprising we're sighting so many X79 boards with their final trimmings in place so close to the big launch we're all eagerly anticipating. But on all accounts, not just with launches, it's nice when someone does that little something more to help stand out and ECS have certainly pulled that off with some images they've pumped out of their upcoming X79R-AX Black series motherboard.

Okay, all eyes to the left... the LEFT! Ummm, hello? Is anyone reading this? ....Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but the girl doesn't come with the motherboard....

Now that I have your attention again, here's another image without any evil distractions so we can get down to business.

EVGA have slapped the performance/enthusiast world with a shocker: the SR3, dual-socket LGA2011 2P enthusiast desktop/workstation motherboard in the E-ATX form factor. Socket 0 is wired to eight DDR3 DIMM slots (two DIMMs/channel) while socket 1 to four slots (1 DIMM/channel).

In LGA2011 2P systems, the processor residing in socket 0 is wired to the PCH, while the processor sitting in socket 1 is wired to the one on socket 0 using two QPI links, closing the daisy-chain. Socket 0, apart from its 4GB/s DMI link, sports a PCI-Express 2.0 x4 (another 4GB/s) link to supplement the DMI link, this is so the storage controllers don't get bottlenecked with just DMI.

Both processors contribute to the PCI-Express lane budget of the motherboard. The board features seven PCI-Express x16 slots, which four are capable of PCI-Express 3.0 x16, every slot is PCI-Express 3.0 x8 capable. NVIDIA 4-way SLI support is there, and the motherboard is set to support Sandy Bridge-EP Xeon processors.

GIGABYTE has just walked into a room and they've got their latest board on them, as they've walked through the metal detectors, a security guard has asked them "Do you have any metallic items, keys, loose change", and just as they've whipped their trench coat open to not reveal an arsenal of weapons as Neo did in The Matrix, they've shown a gun against their thigh underneath their stocking.

Enter, GIGABYTE's X79 series motherboard, the GIGABYTE G1.Assassin 2. Just look at that heatsink array... it is shaped like a damn pistol! GIGABYTE, why have you done this? It just makes you even more awesome than you were before. The G1.Assassin 2 sports the X79 chipset, which is set to support the upcoming LGA2011 socket CPUs. The board itself features Bigfoot Networks' Killer E2100 platform, as well as an on-board Creative Soundblaster X-Fi digital audio processor.

But its the revised 'Locked and Loaded' heatsink array that will attract people to this motherboard. You can't call the board an Assassin if its not deadly. The previous Assassin board sported an AK47-themed clip, and now this one takes it up a notch to a pistol. 'Locked and Loaded', GIGABYTE surely are ready, taking aim at the competitors motherboards, literally.

EVGA have unveiled their new X79 Classified (E799) motherboard for the socket LGA2011 which is specifically designed for overclockers. EVGA chose to unveil their top-tier board at the GeForce LAN 6 and have unveiled quite the beauty indeed. The X79 Classified uses the traditional LGA2011 motherboard layout, but with wide open spaces to make insulating it (against condensation) much easier. The CPU power seems to sport some high-grade VRM design, where it draws power from two 8-pin EPS connectors apart from the 24-pin ATX (that is nicely right-angled).

The X79 Classified also sports four DDR3 DIMM slots, one per memory channel. A 4-phase memory VRM, a large contiguous heatsink covers most hot components in the central-right region. Expansion slot wise we have four PCI-Express 3.0 x16 (two are x16 capable, all four are x8 capable, depending on the population used), and one PCI-Express x16 (electrical x4). X79 Classified is NVIDIA 4-way SLI capable, too.

The board is built on a the XL-ALTX form-factor, and requires cases that have at least 10 expansion slot bays. Storage connectivity includes two SATA 6Gbit and four SATA 3Gbps, two eSATA ports are powered by a third-party controller. USB3.0 wise we have 10 ports, driven by numerous VLI-made controllers, right on the rear panel, two available by front-header. 8+2 channel HD audio with optical SPDIF output, two GbE controllers, Bluetooth, and EVBot connections.

Closing in on the big X79 / Sandy Bridge-E launch in mid November and today we get a peek of another X79 board with all the final fancy trimmings in place. This is ASRock's entry into the next-gen LGA2011 field with its X79 Extreme7. It inevitably won't be the only X79 from ASRock to turn up at launch, but it's the first we get to take a good look at pre-launch thanks to some chaps over at XFastest.

Sporting a 16-phase VRM with high grade chokes and server grade poscap capacitors, you know this is one serious piece of hardware straight off the bat. There are six DDR3 slots total, split into three on either side of the socket that are powered via a 4-phase VRM and are ready to provide some of that lovely quad-channel DDR3 goodness. The overall heatsink design looks super serious (and rather awesome!) with there even being heatsinks over the memory VRM areas that are connected to the heatsink over the CPU VRM via heat-pipes.

As for expansion slots, there are five x16 slots total with two being able to run full bandwidth PCI-E 3.0 x16, and four at PCI-E 3.0 x8 bandwidth (dependant on the add-on card configuration). You get 11 SATA ports internally, seven of which are SATA 3Gb/s and four being SATA 6Gb/s, while there is also an eSATA 3Gb/s port on the rear I/O.

A couple weeks back we saw MSI make a bold claim that GIGABYTE's "PCI-Express 3.0" implementation on many of its motherboards is, to have put it bluntly, "Fake". MSI even went to the extent of creating a number of detailed slides to express their views on why GB is supposedly misleading its buyers with the "Ready for Native PCIe Gen.3" tag on as many as 40 of its motherboards.

Of course, it wasn't difficult to imagine GIGABYTE would respond at some point in relation to this claim, and sure enough, that occured just the other day.

With that being a somewhat wishy washy response in unsurprising defence, what I felt particularly news worthy was ASRock's comedic approach to the whole situation, with a new advertisement showing up via its Facebook page that puts its own range of PCI-E 3.0-ready boards up on a pedestal, not that they ever really came down off it seeing as they were one of the first to roll in PCI-E 3.0-ready boards anyway.

As we nudge closer to the highly anticipated X79 / Sandy Bridge-E launch, we're seeing more and more sightings of X79 boards in pretty much complete form. The X79R-AX Black Series from ECS is the latest X79 board to hit the lime light with pictures showing up on the web just recently.

This LGA2011 motherboard gives the full array of features you'd come to expect from this platform, including a strong looking 14-phase VRM setup and kaboodles of connectivity. There are four x16 slots on the board, providing the ability to run 4-way SLI or CrossfireX. Electrically, those slots work in a x16/NC/x16/NC configuration when using just a single card or in 2-way, x16/NC/x8/x8 for 3-way and x8/x8/x8/x8 for 4-way action.

There are a total of 12 internal SATA ports on the board, and two eSATA. Four DDR3 DIMM slots are split with two on either side of the LOTES socket. The board uses some cost-effective TI-made USB 3.0 controllers, with four USB 3.0 ports on the rear and two more available via an internal header. As well as dual Gigabit ethernet, 8-channel Realtek audio and all the other usual formalities, the board is said to ship with further connectivity options thanks to a bundled Bluetooth dongle and what looks like a WiFi N USB adapter.

While voice command tech is nothing new in this day and age, you have to admit this particular implementation has quite the cool factor associated with it.

Apparently MSI is aiming to role in a new technology called "Voice Activated Motherboard" for select models of their mobo lineup which instantly raises a number of questions about how it would work.

Imagine being able to simply look at your PC, then say a given word (or words) that would have it power on from a halted state, go into suspend, or power down. This is what MSI is looking at doing.

IDF 2011 - Gigabyte have shown off their high-end X79-based motherboards at IDF, with the following models on show: GA-X79-UD5, GA-X79-UD7 and the G1.Assassin 2. There is a difference between the UD5 and UD7 this time round, though. Usually the UD7 is jut a beefed-up UD5 with added features and better cooling. This time the two boards are totally different from the PCB to the features they offer.

The UD5 model targets the premium user, with eight DDR3 DIMM slots, and suited to 3-way SLI/CrossFire. The UD7 on the other hand is bleeding-edge with just four DDR3 DIMM slots and support for 4-way SLI/CrossFire with a bunch of overclocking features to boot. Finally there's the G1.Assassin 2 which targets the gamer-overclocker market with features such as hardware-accelerated Creative X-Fi audio, a Bigfoot Killer NIC and support for [only] 3-way SLI/CrossFire.

The above pic is of the GA-X79-UD5 which sports 14-phase CPU VRM, eight DDR3 DIMMS with support for up to 64GB of quad-channel memory. Expansion slots include three PCI-e 3.0 x16 (x16/x8/x8 or x16/NC/x16), two PCI-e 3.0 x1, and a legacy PCI. 12 SATA ports are on the board, 8-channel HD audio, one GbE, four USB 3.0 ports and power-eSATA.

With one of the highest anticipated launches of this year closing in after recent word of a supposed October launch, the lads at VR-Zone have managed to get a peek at an almost finalized (engineering sample) version of the mighty Quantum Force X79 LGA2011 motherboard from Foxconn.

Compared to an earlier revision of the board sighted at Computex earlier in the year, primarily speaking, this new one looks to have a different physical expansion slot arrangement, a more finalized looking heatsink onboard and some front panel header adjustments.

The board is given 14-phase VRM power for the CPU using DirectFET MOSFETs, known to give smooth voltage control when backed by a decent I2C-capable VRM controller. For overclocking support there is the inclusion of a redundant firmware (BIOS) feature as well as dedicated OC hard-tuning buttons and a consolidated region of voltage measurement points.

Originating from its own media database to confirm the source, MSI is taking a pretty vicious swipe at GIGABYTE for apparently giving somewhat misleading information to its buyers in the way of native PCI-E Gen 3 support on its motherboards.

Using a batch of freshly produced, detailed slides that are now being distributed about the web, MSI makes an effort to educate people on what a true PCI-E 3.0 board is all about and how to tell if a motherboard carries proper PCI-E 3.0, with its primary intent at this stage of the game to point out that GIGABYTE's boards are lacking in this respect and will not deliver quality PCI-E 3.0 connectivty.

MSI goes on to say in its slides that apart from GIGABYTE's G1.Sniper2, GIGABYTE's 40 odd motherboards with "Ready for Native PCIe Gen. 3" association are anything but and that GB is misleading its buyers to think otherwise.

ASUS has just released a new Micro-ATX sized Fusion motherboard to market of which they look to have put a solid amount of effort into. Based on the Fusion "Zacate" processor platform, the new E45M1-M PRO is in most ways similar to another in their existing Fusion line-up, the E35M1-M PRO, but this one's brains are that of the newer, faster E-450 dual-core APU.

The E-450 runs at a clock speed of 1.65GHz using two Bobcat architecture x86-64 cores with Radeon HD 6320 DX11 graphics (80 stream processors), and DDR3-1333MHz memory controller. The board itself runs measurements of 244 x 183 mm and gives a single PCI-E x16 slot, a PCI-E x1 slot and two legacy PCI slots for expansion possibilities.

ASUS has decked it with a 3-phase VRM and an EPU chip to help improve on energy efficiency. A couple DDR3 DIMM slots reside on the board and give a single channel config. The most eye catching feature is the large passive heatsink setup that manages to cover both the APU and Hudson M1 chipset. If you feel it's necessary, there is also the option of attaching a fan to it to help lower temps further.

ASUS today have announced the launch of their new Mini-ITX motherboard based on the AMD A75 chipset, the F1A75-I DELUXE motherboard. Powered by the Fusion APU, the F1A75-I DELUXE has the power to deliver amazing graphics performance when combined with a discrete GPU for Dual Graphics capabilities. Built on the Mini-ITX format, the board is only 170x170mm and ships with a convenient wireless USB remote control that also has a full keyboard for typing on the backside.

A first, for sure and something like this is a huge bonus for HTPC builders. The F1A75-I DELUXE also fills out with DIGI+ VRM, a first on a Mini-ITX board. As well as ASUS throwing in its unique UEFI BIOS, flexible and user friendly, mouse-controlled graphical user interface and ASUS Exclusive EZ mode design can help tune a HTPC easier.

The F1A75-I DELUXE also includes built-in 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Gigabit Ethernet. PCI-Express 2.0 16x slot is included as well as four SATA 6Gb/s connectors, with one an eSATA port and four USB 3.0 connections.

If you're on the hunt for an aggressively priced A55 chipset motherboard, budget conscious motherboard maker ECS could well be the go with three models introduced today.

These FM1 socket motherboards, suited to the AMD A-Series APUs (Llano) include the full ATX sized A55F-A for the home/budget gamer crowd, microATX sized A55F-M2 which would be a good little base for a HTPC, and also the mATX sized A55F-M3 that looks to be more so aimed toward office desktop machines.

All three have a single PCI-E x16 slot for discrete graphics options if more VGA grunt is needed down the road, but many will find the quite capable integrated GPU core in the A-Series APUs more than decent enough for a budget build while also giving the ability to get a bit of 720p gaming in too.

GIGABYTE has today announced that their entire 6-series of motherboard are set to support the next-generation Intel 22nm CPUs on the LGA1155 socket, as well as providing support for PCI Express Gen 3 technology which delivers the maximum data bandwidth for future discrete graphics cards. GIGABYTE have enabled PCIe 3.0 support across the entire 6-series range, including the recently launched G1.Sniper 2 motherboard.

All that is required is a new BIOS to be installed and users can rest assured that they are ready to power the latest and greatest when it becomes available. If you're packing a 6-series GIGABYTE board, grab the latest BIOS update for your motherboard.

GIGABYTE has extended its enthusiast class G1-Killer series of motherboards today with the launch of the Z68 chipset based G1.Sniper 2.

Like the original G1.Sniper based on the aging X58 chipset, the new model looks similar at first glance with the same black and green color scheme going on. But apart from the improved 'locked and loaded' heatpipe cooling system onboard, the simalarities don't extend much beyond that point.

Designed for "extreme gaming", this motherboard has had pretty much everything thrown into it, including future Ivy Bridge support with its PCI Express Gen 3 setup (the first implementation from GIGABYTE), ready and waiting for upcoming PCI-E 3.0 cards requesting additional bandwidth.

ASUS are readying up a standout AMD A75 powered motherboard for launch very soon which HTPC and SFF builders will primarily be attracted to. The new F1A75-I Deluxe is a Mini-ITX based Socket FM1 board which packs a ton of features given its stature.

Using a 4+1 phase CPU VRM setup, it also has a couple DDR3 slots supporting dual channel DDR3-1866 memory and a dedicated PCI-E x16 slot for discrete add-in GPUs should you not already be satisfied with the kickass built-in GPU on the new A-series APU's.

Looking elsewhere on the board, we've got four SATA 6Gbps ports, one eSATA 6Gbps port, 6-channel HD audio with optical S/PDIF, four USB 3.0 ports (two in the form of headers, the other two on the rear I/O), built in WiFi b/g/n support, Gigabit ethernet, Bluetooth and a range of USB 2.0 ports.

ASRock seem to be pumping out an astonishing number of feature packed motherboards these days, with most of them looking quite respectable indeed and select models even getting some additional support from Mr. Fatal1ty these days. Gone are the days when everyone was so fast to think ASRock was all about budget level 'dodgey' offerings any enthusiast wouldn't go near.

If you're not up to date on the type of quality assurance and attention to detail ASRock has peaked at these days, just check out the large batch of ASRock motherboard reviews here at TweakTown over the past few months. Our picky motherboard reviewing extraordinaire Shane generally finds they're leaps and bounds ahead compared to years past.

Having said that, ASRock has just dished up another very attractive board for those looking to build a compact high performance system or HTPC. Their new Z68M-ITX/HT was revealed to the world today which is a mini-ITX motherboard using the Intel Z68 chipset. As far as we're aware, only two other Z68 based mini-ITX offerings are currently on the market, both of which are from ZOTAC.

Folling an announcement from ASRock a couple weeks back which unveiled the world's first PCI-E 3.0 equipped motherboard in the form of the Fatal1ty Z68 Professional, ASRock has now provided us with some details of their entire new "Gen3" lineup sporting next-gen PCI-E 3.0 architecture.

As you can see, PCI-E 3.0 provides up to double the amount of bandwidth possible from the current 2.0/.1 standard, with a raw bit rate of 8.0GT/s.

As you can see above, ASRock is kicking out five Gen3 Series boards and below is a chart with a detailed rundown of the feature sets on offer between the boards :-