Following a recent expose of three of Gigabyte's upcoming motherboards based on the Intel H55 Express chipset supporting socket LGA-1156 processors, one of its first models based on the Intel H57 Express chipset surfaced, with the GA-H57M-USB3. This micro-ATX motherboard builds on the slightly expanded feature-set of the H57 PCH, which includes Intel Rapid Storage, Remote PC Assist, and a higher number of USB 2.0 ports and PCI-Express x1 lanes. It uses complete Ultra Durable 3 construction, which includes full solid-state capacitor design, 2 oz copper PCB, low RDS (on) MOSFET, and ferrite-core chokes. The processor is powered by an 8-phase VRM, it is wired to four DDR3 DIMM slots supporting dual-channel memory.

Expansion slots include PCI-Express 2.0 x16, PCI-E x16 (x4), and two PCI slots. Five out of six SATA 3 Gbps ports from the PCH are assigned as internal ports, while an additional Gigabyte GSATA2 controller provides two SATA 3 Gbps ports and an IDE connector. An additional NEC controller provides two USB 3.0 ports. The rear-panel consists of 8-channel audio with optical SPDIF (supporting Dolby Home Theater), gigabit Ethernet, two USB 3.0 ports (color-coded blue), four USB 2.0, FireWire, eSATA, keyboard/mouse combo port, and display connectivity which includes DVI, D-Sub, DisplayPort, and HDMI. The GA-H57M-USB3 is another of those boards slated for Q1 2010, when Intel releases new processors with embedded graphics along with the H55/H57 chipsets.