Intel notified its partners in the PC industry that its Thunderbolt 10 Gbps interconnect will enter the PC ecosystem in April, 2012. Around that time, Intel will launch its third-generation Core processor family, and waves of new motherboards are likely to launch. It is likely that Thunderbolt will be the defining feature of many of these motherboards. Along with PC motherboards, the technology is likely to feature on pre-built desktops, and notebooks. The propagation of Thunderbolt is limited for a variety of reasons. First, its host controller costs more than $20, second, there already an established ecosystem of USB 3.0, a slower, yet competitive interconnect that maintains backwards compatibility with its older versions, and third, Intel has restricted the technology to Apple.

The cost of adoption, starting with host controllers, is expected to drop in the second half of 2012, and so the technology should standardize gradually in the future. 10 Gbps might be more than plenty of bandwidth for now, but the demand for faster device interconnects will only rise. Among the companies that have come forward with plans to adopt the technology, Sony is expected to adopt it among many of its product lines; ASUS into its high-end notebooks, and so will Gigabyte. Gigabyte will also embrace the technology for its motherboards in April, in a bid to increase competitiveness against ASUS and ASRock. Thunderbolt will be the next "features USB 3.0 and SATA 6 Gb/s" marketing label for motherboard vendors.

GIGABYTE unveiled its GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 Cores graphics card offering, the GV-N560448-13I. This card is based on Gigabyte's in-house GF110 Ultra Durable VGA PCB, and is cooled by its own Windforce 3X Vapor-Chamber cooler. The card sticks to NVIDIA reference clock speeds of 732/1464/950(3800) MHz core/CUDA cores/memory(effective). It packs 448 CUDA cores, and 1280 MB of memory across a 320-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface.

The Ultra Durable VGA PCB makes use of a 2 oz copper layer to improve cooling and electrical stability, ferrite core chokes, Japanese solid-state capacitors, low RDS (on) MOSFETs, and tier-1 Samsung GDDR5 memory chips. The Windforce 3X Vapor-Chamber cooler makes use of a large vapor-chamber base from which heat is conveyed to aluminum fin stacks. These are ventilated by three outward-inclined 80 mm fans. Like every other GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 Cores, this card will be available in limited quantities, in the US, Canada, UK, Germany, France, Russia, and the Nordics. It will be priced under US $300.

NVIDIA released its newest graphics card model specifically for the winter shopping season, the limited edition GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 cores. Not only is this a limited edition launch, but also targeting only specific markets in North America and Europe. This includes the United States and Canada in North America; and the UK, France, Germany, Russia, and the Nordics in Europe. The new card is based on the 40 nanometer GF110 GPU instead of the GF114 that the regular GTX 560 Ti is based on. This allows NVIDIA to add 64 more CUDA cores (448 vs. 384), 25% more memory (1280 MB vs. 1024), and a 25% wider memory bus (320 bit vs. 256).

The new limited edition GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 cores features clock speeds identical to those on the GeForce GTX 570, at 732 MHz core, 1464 MHz CUDA cores, and 950 MHz (3.80 GHz effective) GDDR5 memory. Since it's based on the GF110 board, this new card is also capable of 3-way SLI, something the regular GTX 560 Ti isn't. The card draws power from two 6-pin PCIe power connectors. Display outputs typically include two DVI and a mini-HDMI. Add-in card vendors are free to design their own graphics cards based on this chip, and so expect most GTX 560 Ti 448 core cards to look similar to non-reference GTX 570 ones. ZOTAC, Inno3D, EVGA, Palit, Gainward, ASUS, Gigabyte, and MSI will have graphics cards based on this chip. Prices should typically start at US $289.

Intel's Ivy Bridge line of processors are not due for release until spring 2012, but it looks like Chinese website Coolaler has scored a sneak peak at the performance level of Intel's 22 nm Ivy Bridge platform by testing an engineering sample of a quad core CPU. The screenshot shows CPU-Z & Task Manager (no HyperThreading) readouts, while the AIDA64 Cache & Memory benchmark has been run. The CPU used is a 2 GHz sample as shown by the photo, which CPU-Z reports as running at its 2.4 GHz turbo boost speed (20% overclock) on a Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD7-B3 motherboard. Rough and ready verdict: about the same speed as the current Sandy Bridge, but with a significantly enhanced northbridge and graphics core. The AIDA64 scores are actually slightly lower than the current SB scores, but this is likely because the CPU is running unsupported and unoptimized due to a mobo BIOS that's not made for it and a benchmark that cannot measure its true performance. Note the memory speeds, which were run fast at 2134 MHz 6-9-6-24 CR2, further indicating lack of optimization, since these timings suggest somewhat better performance than what was measured.

GIGABYTE's brand new chassis, designed with the combination of innovative technology and powerful performance to cater to the needs of global professional gamers and designers. LUXO X10 is a powerful best selling gaming model, bringing along superior experience of approachable luxury, maximum convenience and great flexibility.

At the first glimpse of the case, people cannot help but notice its minimalism modern appearance. The classical combination of black and red emits an air of sophistication and delicate passion. A feeling of freshness is shining through the side panel blazing LED lights. Nevertheless, this new model is more than just good looks.

Kingston Technology Company, Inc., the independent world leader in memory products, today announced a range of HyperX Genesis memory in 8GB, 16GB and 32GB kits to support the new Intel Sandy Bridge-E X79 quad-channel processors and X79 Express-based motherboards. Kingston HyperX Genesis is the perfect solution for enthusiasts who require 4x raw performance increases afforded by quad channel over single channel solutions.

For extreme users who require both the fastest memory and largest capacity, Kingston's 2400MHz and 2133MHz will soon be available in both 8 GB and 16 GB kits of four modules. Other HyperX Genesis memory for X79 systems include 1866 MHz and 1600 MHz frequencies in kits of four and eight, with capacities ranging from 8GB to 32GB. All of Kingston's HyperX kits have achieved Intel XMP certification and are compatible with the latest X79 motherboards from vendors such as ASUS, GIGABYTE, MSI and ASRock.

NVIDIA today announced that system builders worldwide are now shipping the fastest PC gaming platforms ever built, thanks in part to NVIDIA SLI technology and the just-released Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition processors and X79 chipset-based motherboards.

The combination of NVIDIA SLI technology -- which allows for multiple GPUs to run on a single PC -- and new X79-based motherboards allow gamers to customize their PC experience with up to four NVIDIA GeForce GTX GPUs, including the GeForce GTX 580 and GTX 570, the world's fastest DX11 GPUs. Licensed by the world's leading motherboard manufacturers -- including Intel, ASUS, ASRock, EVGA, Foxconn, Gigabyte and MSI, SLI technology is crucial for playing this year's hottest graphics-intensive games, such as the recently released Battlefield 3 and upcoming Batman: Arkham City with detail, resolution and immersion settings cranked up.

GIGABYTE TECHNOLGY Co. Ltd., a leading manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards, today announced the launch of their latest X79 series enthusiast motherboard range. Supporting the latest 2nd Generation Intel Core i7 processor family for high-end desktops, these new X79 Express Chipset motherboards unite unrivalled desktop PC performance with a new level of hardware flexibility and control. GIGABYTE 3D Power and its all new 3-way Digital Power Engine offers ultimate control of your PC's power delivery, while GIGABYTE 3D BIOS provides a wholly more intuitive and graphical UEFI BIOS environment.

"This new GIGABYTE X79 series range of boards are all about giving enthusiasts and professionals unprecedented control over their PC's hardware," commented Tim Handley, Deputy Director of Motherboard Marketing at GIGABYTE. "GIGABYTE 3D Power and 3D BIOS give hardcore gamers, extreme overclockers and cutting-edge content creators absolute mastery over every aspect of their PC."

Last week we got a glimpse of Gigabyte's new 3D BIOS technology, a UEFI setup program with an innovative and functional user interface built into Gigabyte's upcoming X79 motherboards. Today Gigabyte released a new video detailing another such innovation, called 3D Power. This program gives you total and unrestricted control over the three main dimensions of your motherboard's power delivery: voltages, PWM frequency, and phase control. Gigabyte announced that all its upcoming X79 motherboards will feature PWM (pulse width modulation) CPU power design, backed by highly capable PWM controllers that give you a plethora of things you can tweak.

To begin with, the 3D Power application starts up with a cube that has the icons of the three main elements. Clicking on "voltage" gives you control over voltage-related settings in three main pages, turbo voltage response, load line calibration (active V-droop control), and active over-voltage protection. Load line calibration allows you to fine-tune the extant of V-droop correction over a variety of power domains, such as CPU, VTT, IMC, and DRAM.

With the Sandy Bridge LGA1155 platform, announced at the start of this year, the PC motherboard industry saw a wide transition to UEFI, a new board firmware that overcomes many of the limitations of the decades old BIOS, including the archaic user interface. The second biggest motherboard vendor by volumes, Gigabyte, wasn't part of that wave. It continued to use dated Phoenix AwardBIOS with a few riders that made it look like the company was dragging its feet over UEFI adoption.

First, it tried to address the 2.2 TB boot volume size limitation by coming up with an address-space tweak it ended up calling HybridEFI (which has nothing to do with EFI). Next, it addressed the need for a more intuitive (preferably GUI) setup program with a Windows-based CMOS setup program called TouchBIOS, it came with the Fisher Price looking interface that every other manufacturer's UEFI setup program had, topped off with touchscreen support. However, faced with the inevitability of facing lack of support for Ivy Bridge (more here) and Sandy Bridge-E, the company decided to take the plunge. It wants to come up with something that's a lot more functional than most others' UEFI setup programs that feel like the same old interfaces skinned. Enter Gigabyte 3D BIOS.

There sure is going to be fierce competition between motherboard vendors once "Sandy Bridge-E" Core i7 processors come out, a little later this month. Even the tiniest edge over competitors in terms of features can go a long way with market success. Gigabyte is ready with one such feature of its own: the Bluetooth 4.0 + WiFi b/g/n card, which it will bundle with the GA-X79-UD5, GA-X79-UD7(OC), and G1.Assassin 2. Simply put, this is a special addon card that will provide a Wireless b/g/n (wireless n at 150 Mbps), and Bluetooth 4.0 (24 Mbps) connectivity.

Here's how it works: the card sits on one of the board's PCI-Express x1 slots (or any PCIe slot for that matter), the PCIe connection is wired to the wireless network controller on the mini-PCIe card. We expect this to be a common Atheros AR9285-based card. The main card also has a Bluetooth 4.0 controller, which connects to the system using USB 2.0. A cable runs from the card to any of the board's USB 2.0 front-panel headers. The Bluetooth controller only uses one port, so the other is wired out as an internal USB 2.0 port (good for any DRM dongles you may have). The card is then wired to two antennas (included), one for the wireless network controller, the other for the Bluetooth, both have activity LEDs. It's not known if Gigabyte will sell this card separately, so just about anyone can use it.

Gigabyte released its newest premium HTPC motherboard in the mini-ITX form-factor, the A75N-USB3. As the name might suggest, this is a socket FM1 motherboard based on the AMD A75 chipset, and features USB 3.0 connectivity. Despite its compact dimensions, the board crams in everything a HTPC can benefit from. First, the FM1 socket seats AMD A-Series accelerated processing units (APUs), which pack up to four x86-64 cores with up to 4 MB cache, dual-channel DDR3-1866 integrated memory controller, and more importantly, a very powerful integrated graphics processor in the Radeon HD 6500 class. The FM1 socket on this board is powered by a 3+1 phase VRM that makes use of driver-MOSFETs. Power is drawn by a 24-pin ATX and a 4-pin CPU power connector.

The lone expansion slot is a PCI-Express 2.0 x16. The CPU is wired to two full-length DDR3 DIMM slots, which can take in up to 32 GB (that's right, future 16 GB DIMMs are supported) of dual-channel DDR3-1866 MHz memory. The AMD A75 chipset gives out four internal SATA 6 Gb/s ports, and one eSATA 6 Gb/s port on the rear panel. Display outputs include HDMI 1.4a and DVI. Analog outputs are done away with. Audio is handled by a high-quality Realtek ALC889 HD audio codec. Although this codec supports 8+2 output channels, it is wired to a 5.1 channel shared audio jack cluster, apart from the internal HDA_FP header. Those needing 7.1 channel output can still use the TOSLINK connector, that supports 7.1 channel output with 24-bit, 192 kHz resolution and Dolby Home Theater support. If even that's not enough, the HDMI connector gives you 7.1 channel HDMI audio with Dolby Prologic support.

Gigabyte released the new GZ-P5 Plus, an ATX mid-tower case for gamers on a shoestring budget. Measuring 180 x 420 x 380 mm, the GZ-P5 Plus is larger than the original GZ-P5 released about an year ago. It is also lighter, at 3.2 kg (compared to 3.5 kg of the original). The case is made almost entirely of SECC steel, with the front made of glossy ABS plastic. Internally, the case uses the PSU-on-top layout. The motherboard tray supports ATX and micro-ATX cases. Drive bays include four 5.25-inch and five 3.5-inch. There's only one fan bundled with the case, an 80 mm exhaust on the rear panel. There's no word on the pricing.

Here are pictures of the release-grade revision (1.0) of Gigabyte's socket LGA2011 motherboards in its main linuep, the GA-X79-UD3 and GA-X79-UD5. These are the release-grade 1.0 revisions, that are redesigned for X79 chipset with just six SATA ports (doing away with SAS). With the LGA2011 motherboard lineup, Gigabyte is doing away with the "UD7" model, in its segment there is GA-X79-OC. We saw this coming, because UD7 was meant to be an overclocking motherboard identifier. On the company website, for example, the product page of GA-X58A-UD7 (2.0) shows GA-X58A-OC as a "newer model". The GA-X79-UD3 is poised to be the most affordable LGA2011 motherboard from Gigabyte, while the GA-X79-UD5 offers some premium connectivity and memory expansion features.

The GA-X79-UD3 uses a simple 8+1 phase VRM to power the LGA2011 CPU. The memory is powered by a 4-phase VRM. There are just four DDR3 DIMM slots, one per channel. There are four PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots, among which two are x16 capable, and all four are x8 capable. There are two PCIe x1, and surprisingly, a legacy PCI slot (uncommon for LGA2011 platform). All six SATA ports from the X79 chipset are assigned as internal ports: two SATA 6 Gb/s (white), and four SATA 3 Gb/s (black). Three Marvell-made SATA 6 Gb/s controllers provide four additional internal ports (gray), and two eSATA 6 Gb/s. There are just four USB 3.0 ports, two on the rear panel, and two via internal header. 8+2 channel HD audio, a number of USB 2.0 ports, and one gigabit Ethernet connection make for the rest of the GA-X79-UD3.

Gigabyte teased us with pictures of its high-end socket LGA2011 motherboard featured in its G1.Killer series of motherboards designed for the gamer-overclocker market. The G1.Assassin 2, as it's called, is based on the Intel X79 chipset. We don't have landscape pictures of the board, yet, but whatever little bits of pictures we do have, reveal quite a bit. To begin with, this board will retain the black+green "weapon" styling of predecessors in the series. The LGA2011 socket is wired to four DDR3 DIMM slots, in sets of two, on either sides of the socket. Each DIMM slot has its own memory channel.

From the CPU VRM heatsink, a heat pipe is finding its way to a stylized X79 PCH heatsink. This heatsink is designed to look like a handgun. Since it's so small, it isn't looking as realistic as the clip design featured on other G1.Killer motherboards. There are just six internal SATA ports we can find from the picture, two 6 Gb/s, and four 3 Gb/s. In terms of expansion slots, we could spot three PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots, these could be arranged in the x16/x16/NC or x16/x8/x8 lane configuration.

Gigabyte rolled out its latest budget socket LGA1155 motherboard in the micro-ATX form-factor, the GA-H61M-USB3-B3 rev. 2.0. This new board adds to the slim feature-set of Intel H61 with third-party SATA 6 Gb/s and USB 3.0 controllers. The CPU is powered by a 6-phase VRD12 compliant VRM, it is wired to just two DDR3 DIMM slots, supporting dual-channel DDR3-1333 MHz memory. Expansion slots include one PCI-Express 2.0 x16, a legacy PCI, and two PCI-Express 2.0 x1.

All four of the chipset's SATA 3 Gb/s ports are internal (H61 lacks SATA 6 Gb/s). An additional Marvell 88SE9172 controller gives out two SATA 6 Gb/s ports with RAID 0/1/0+1 support. An Etron EJ168 controller gives out two USB 3.0 ports on the rear panel. Gigabyte used a cost-effective Atheros AR8151 to handle gigabit Ethernet, while squeezing in the high-grade Realtek ALC889 HD audio codec to handle 6-channel audio. Display connectivity includes DVI, HDMI, and D-Sub. A number of USB 2.0 ports, and serial COM port (via header) make for the rest of the connectivity. The board is driven by dual AwardBIOS, with HybridEFI technology that lets it boot from >2 TB volumes. Pricing is unknown.

Gigabyte unveiled a new socket AM3+ motherboard targeting a price-point sweetspot, the 990FXA-UD3 1.2. The board is based on the AMD 990FX + SB950 chipset, and supports the upcoming AMD FX processors apart from socket AM3 processors in the Phenom II and Athlon II series. As a new revision, the board supports AMD FX processors out of the box. The AM3+ socket is powered by an 8+2 phase VRM. The board is constructed according to the UltraDurable 3 Classic specifications, with 2 oz copper-layer PCB, 50,000+ hours capacitor durability, and DualBIOS. The socket is wired to four DDR3 DIMM slots supporting dual-channel DDR3-2000 MHz memory with overclocking.

There are four PCI-Express x16 slots on this board, however, only two of them are wired to the AMD 990FX northbridge, both run at full PCI-Express 2.0 x16 bandwidth at all times. The other two are electrical PCI-Express x4, wired to the SB950 southbridge. The board supports both NVIDIA SLI and AMD CrossFireX, though it's likely that it will ship with just the 2-way SLI bridge cable.

A little earlier this month, MSI's PR team dished out a presentation in which they claimed that Gigabyte was misleading buyers into thinking that as many as 40 of its recently-launched motherboards were "Ready for Native PCIe Gen.3". MSI tried to make its argument plausible by explaining what exactly goes into making a Gen 3-ready motherboard. The presentation caused quite some drama in the comments. Gigabyte responded with a presentation of its own, in which it counter-claimed that those making the accusations ignored some key details. Details such as "what if the Ivy Bridge CPU is wired to the first PCIe slot (lane switches won't matter)?"

Gigabyte surprised many last year, when it broke its decade-long tradition of blue-colored PCBs to unveil its first black ones. Pictures of the first black PCB Gigabyte boards were first dismissed as Photoshop jobs, but after some confirmation, news posts carried quite some shock-value. It's such small things that Gigabyte has known to be quite particular about. Not that it's bad, Gigabyte is the second biggest motherboard vendor because many of its rigid design policies paid off, but some of these could work against the company.

One such has been the company's reluctance to use UEFI firmware on its motherboards. With socket LGA1155 and AM3+, we saw motherboard vendors of all shapes and sizes, including much smaller ones such as BIOSTAR adopt UEFI. Besides allowing vendors to deploy mouse-driven graphical user interface for the CMOS Setup program, UEFI addresses many glaring limitations of legacy BIOS, which hasn't changed much over decades. UEFI allows you to boot from volumes bigger than 2.2 TB in size. Eventually, storage volumes several terabytes in size will become mainstream, and that's when the ticking time-bomb that is BIOS, will blow.

At IDF, motherboard vendors got to show off their near-complete socket LGA2011 motherboards based on the X79 chipset. Many of these were half-built and straight out of R&D at this year's Computex event, back in June. Gigabyte showed off its first X79 motherboards, the GA-X79-UD5, GA-X79-UD7, and G1.Assassin 2. Unlike previous generations of high-end Gigabyte motherboards, the UD7 isn't a beefed-up UD5 with added features and better cooling. The two are entirely different right from the PCB, to the features they offer.

The UD5 targets premium users, with eight DDR3 DIMM slots, geared for 3-card SLI/CrossFire, while the UD7 is bleeding-edge with just four DDR3 DIMM slots, but a wealth of overclocking features and support for 4-card SLI/Crossfire. Then there's the G1.Assassin 2, which targets the gamer-overclocker market with neat features such as hardware-accelerated Creative X-Fi audio and Bigfoot Killer NIC, with support for 3-card SLI/Crossfire.

What you're looking at below is one of the first "Thin mini-ITX" motherboards sold in the retail channel. The GA-MSH61DI is designed for extremely compact mini-ITX cases, that are thinner than the rear panel of ATX/ITX form-factors, and all-in-one PCs. The board draws power from an external power brick through a 12V DC input jack, the board then gives out SATA and Molex power via cables. It seats socket LGA1155 "Sandy Bridge" Intel Core i3/i5/i7 processors with a maximum TDP of 95W.

The CPU socket is powered by a 3-phase VRM. The processor is backed by Intel H61 Express chipset. It is wired to two angled DDR3 SO-DIMM slots that can hold up to 8 GB of dual-channel DDR3-1333 MHz memory. There are no perpendicular expansion slots, but there's one mSATA slot that can hold an SSD, an mPCIe that can hold a wireless networking card, and an LVDS (low-voltage differential signaling) slot that can be used for devices such as VGA connections to LCD panels. The H61 chipset gives out two SATA 3 Gb/s ports apart from the mSATA slot.

Gigabyte is one of the oldest motherboard manufacturers that made component choice, PCB construction, and the resulting durability as a selling point, with its Ultra Durable moniker. Each succeeding version of Ultra Durable denotes a higher grade of durability, with the introduction of newer classes of components that add to the durability. Ultra Durable started off as denoting motherboards with all Solid-state capacitors (conductive polymer), that are more durable compared to electrolytic ones. Ultra Durable 2 upped it with Ferrite Core chokes that have lower energy loss to noise and head, and lower resulting RDS(on) MOSFETs. Ultra Durable 3 further upped that with a PCB that has additional copper layers that help improving signalling, grounding, and cooling.

Today, Gigabyte added the fourth version of Ultra Durable, that addresses more elements that threaten the durability of a motherboards. Ultra Durable 4, as it's called, is a set of technologies that are layered on top of Ultra Durable 3, and addresses the problems of humidity, electrostatic discharge, high temperature, and power surge. Humidity is a natural element, moisture eats into components that have pure metals such as aluminum and copper, over time. Electrostatic discharge has a devastating impact on sensitive electronics, while power surges, usually caused after recovery from a power outage, can fry power conditioning electronics of the motherboard. And then we all know what high-temperature can do to tiny capacitors and FETs.

Gigabyte released a new utility that allows you to change the mode of the chipset SATA controller between IDE, AHCI, and RAID (if available), from within Windows. While the switching isn't exactly on-the-fly (because changing SATA mode is effectively changing the SATA controller as Windows sees it, and hence can't happen on-the-fly), it certainly saves the trouble of going into BIOS setup and digging out that option. The utility works by writing the value of the selected mode to the CMOS, and prompting a system reboot for the change to take effect. Gigabyte's Disk Mode Switch utility works on Gigabyte motherboards based on Intel 6-series chipset (H61, H67, P67, and Z68). Now why you'd need a Windows-based utility to change a BIOS setting as infrequently changed as SATA controller mode is something we'll leave it to you to comment on.DOWNLOAD: Gigabyte Disk Mode Switch

Gigabyte launched a new socket LGA1155 motherboard in the mini-ITX form-factor, the GA-H61N-USB3. It is targeted at HTPCs and compact desktops, and is based on the Intel H61 Express (B3) chipset. In its tiny board area of 289 cm², Gigabyte manages to cram in the essentials that the board's consumers will need. The LGA1155 socket is powered by a 6-phase VRM design. The board draws power from a standard 24-pin ATX and 4-pin CPU power connectors. The CPU is wired to two DDR3 DIMM slots for dual-channel DDR3-1333 MHz memory. The lone expansion slot is a PCI-Express 2.0 x16.

In the area of connectivity, we're a little baffled by Gigabyte's choices. There are two SATA 3 Gb/s ports, but that's next to a TPM header, which could have easily made room for two more SATA ports. The board uses high-quality Realtek ALC889 HD audio CODEC, but instead of wiring it to an 8-channel audio jack cluster, it's wired to a 6-channel one, and space is wasted on an optical/coaxial SPDIF out cluster. Instead, Gigabyte could have used the hybrid cluster that has 8-channel analog outputs as well as a TOSLINK output, like this one. Nevertheless, there's plenty of display connectivity, including DVI, D-Sub, and HDMI 1.4a. There are four USB 2.0 ports, and two USB 3.0 ports driven by Fresco FL1009 controller. There is one power-eSATA port wired to the PCH. A gigabit Ethernet connection makes for the only networking option. The Gigabyte GA-H61N-USB3 is priced at around $105.

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co., Ltd, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards and computing hardware solutions today announced their entire range of 6 series motherboards are ready to support the next generation Intel 22nm CPUs (LGA1155 Socket) as well as offer native support for PCI Express Gen. 3 technology, delivering maximum data bandwidth for future discrete graphics cards.

Wanting to provide maximum upgradeability to customers, GIGABYTE has enabled native support for PCI Express Gen. 3 across the entire range of GIGABYTE 6 series motherboards, including the recently launched G1.Sniper 2 motherboard, when paired with Intel's next generation 22nm CPUs. By installing the latest BIOS for their 6 series motherboards today, users can be assured they are ready to take advantage of all the performance enhancements tomorrow's technologies have to offer.