ASRock is known to mix and match sockets and chipsets to come up with some interesting hybrids that give users access to latest features offered by the chipset. A recent example of this is a socket 939 motherboard based on the AMD 785G chipset (read here), which gives users of socket-939 Athlons access to a fast IGP and PCI-Express 2.0. The company's latest such innovation is the P67 Transformer. This is a socket LGA1156 motherboard, it supports existing Core i5/Core i7 "Lynnfield", and Core i3/Core i5 "Clarkdale" processors, but is based on the Intel P67 Express chipset. The board gives users access to some advanced features of the P67 chipset, but won't support LGA1155 processors.

So what's in it for you? Well, the P67 PCH embeds a PCI-Express 2.0 hub compared to P55/H55, which pack an older PCI-Express 1.1 hub. The older hub is known to heavily bottleneck devices such as USB 3.0 and SATA 6 Gb/s controllers that use only a single PCI-E lane (since PCI-E 1.1 has 250 MB/s per direction bandwidth, compared to 500 MB/s on the PCI-E 2.0). So significant is this bottleneck, that some motherboard designers even used bridge chips that convert the P55's PCI-E 1.1 x4 port to two PCI-E 2.0 x1, for USB 3.0 and SATA 6 Gb/s controllers. The PCI-E x16 slots however, are wired to the processor and are Gen 2. ASRock's board hence gives you two USB 3.0 and two SATA 6 Gb/s with an alleviated bus bottleneck.

Gigabyte surprised us earlier this year, when it broke its tradition of sticking to a blue colored PCB for every motherboard it sells, by unveiling high-end socket LGA1155 motherboards with black PCBs. The next logical step is to build a premium motherboard brand targeting high-end gaming PC builds. Gigabyte does have a formidable high-end lineup, but they're known more for overclocking and tons of connectivity options.

The new brand by Gigabyte is competitive with ASUS' Republic of Gamers (ROG) brand, MSI's XPower. One of the first products is referred to as the "G1-Killer", and all but an outline of an ATX motherboard. The product range is said to start at US $299, some of the first products will be unveiled at the upcoming CES event held in January, 2011.

Noctua today officially introduced its new NH-C14 CPU cooler. Sporting an exquisite, uniquely flexible 140mm dual fan setup of two Noctua NF-P14, the NH-C14 is a highly customisable, premium-class top-flow solution that further boosts the renowned quiet cooling performance of the company's much acclaimed NH-C12 series.

"Our NH-C12 coolers are renowned to rank among the most capable top-flow cooling solutions on the market, so we're truly proud to offer a further substantial improvement in quiet cooling performance with the new NH-C14", says Mag. Roland Mossig, Noctua CEO. "This model really closes the gap to good tower coolers while being much lower in height and ensuring better component cooling."

Zalman announced its latest CPU cooler, the CNPS5X. Its design is a fusion between traditional tower-type and Zalman's own nested fan design heatsink. The CNPS5X is designed for medium-thru-heavy thermal loads, more like highly overclocked dual-core or mildly overclocked quad-core chips. The company excluded support for LGA1366 for this reason, but added support for Intel's upcoming LGA1155 socket. Other sockets supported include LGA1156, LGA775, and AM3/AM2+/AM2.

Its design consists of Y-shaped aluminum fins, to which heat is conveyed evenly by three 8 mm thick copper heat pipes. The heat pipes converge at a copper CPU base. The 92 mm fan is nested inside the aluminum fins. It spins at 1400~2800 rpm, with a rated noise level of 20~32 dBA. Together, the CNPS5X measures 127(L) x 62(W) x 134(H) mm, weighing 320 g. Installation is made easy by push-pins for Intel sockets, and a fixed clip for AMD sockets, requiring no access to the back of the motherboard. Slated for market release in December, the CNPS5X from Zalman is priced at €26.90.

ASRock unveiled its socket LGA1155 motherboard lineup in grand style, showing off eight models, including four value-thru-enthusiast grade motherboards based on the Intel P67 chipset, and four essential-thru-mainstream motherboards based on the Intel H67 chipset. The series is topped by the P67 Extreme6, which packs no less than six SATA 6 Gb/s ports, four external and two internal USB 3.0 ports, three PCI-Express x16 slots, 18-phase CPU VRM making use of high-grade capacitors, and a huge set of connectivity features. Next up is the P67 Extreme4, which is a notch lower than the Extreme6, but it still gives you four SATA 6 Gb/s and four USB 3.0 ports (two external, two internal via header), the same expansion slot layout as the Extreme6, and a slightly slimmer connectivity feature set.

The two Extreme boards are trailed by mid-range ones, starting with the P67 Pro3. The P67 Pro3 has a simple layout and offers not much more than the chipset's feature-set. There are two SATA 6 Gb/s and two USB 3.0 (rear) ports, expansion slots that include just one PCI-Express 2.0 x16, three PCI-E x1, and three PCI. The CPU is powered by an impressive (for this category) 10-phase VRM. Further down the line is the P67 Pro, which is further slimmed down. It does away with USB 3.0 but retains SATA 6 Gb/s. A simpler 4+1 phase CPU VRM is used. Most other features are the same as the Pro3.

MSI seems to be ready with its first wave of motherboards for socket LGA1155 processors, based on the Sandy Bridge architecture. At this point the lineup is quite simply three models - P67A-GD65, the performance segment offering, the P67A-GD55, upper mid-range, and H67MA-ED55, a micro-ATX board ready for integrated graphics. All three motherboards seem to carry high-grade components such as solid chokes (that don't whine), high-C capacitors, and offer a level of overclocking headroom enhanced by OC Genie II.

The P67A-GD65 features two PCI-Express 2.0 x16 (electrical x8/x8 when both are populated), three PCI-E x1, and two PCI slots. Connectivity includes six SATA 3 Gb/s ports from the P67 PCH (of which four are internal, two eSATA), two SATA 6 Gb/s ports provided by a Marvell-made controller, and two additional SATA 3 Gb/s ports by a third-party controller; two USB 3.0 ports, 8-channel HD audio, FireWire, and gigabit Ethernet. There are several overclocker-friendly features such as consolidated voltage measure points with proper sockets to hold multimeter leads, OC Genie controls, and a heat pipe distributing heat evenly between the VRM heatsinks.

ASUS showed off its high-end socket LGA1155 motherboard lineup in London, including from its two top brands, ROG and Sabertooth TUF. The ROG Maximus IV Extreme, TUF Sabertooth P67, P8P67 Deluxe and P8P67 were on display. All four models are based on the Intel P67 Express chipset, designed to support upcoming Sandy Bridge architecture derived LGA1155 processors, or the 2011 Core processor family. Leading the pack is the Maximum IV Extreme. This board is literally bursting with features and is geared for extreme overclocking. There are no less than four PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slots, possibly driven by a PCI-E bridge chip, which allows 3-way and 4-way SLI/CrossFireX; four each of USB 3.0 and SATA 6 Gb/s ports, and ROG-exclusive features such as ROG Connect, and redundant BIOS.

Next in line is the TUF Sabertooth P67. Keeping in tune with the TUF series' main feature of providing very high durability, the Sabertooth P67 uses ceramic heatsinks and high-grade components. For the first time, we're getting to see a protective scaffolding covering most of the board's area on its obverse side (we've seen it on the reverse side on older models). ASUS is calling it "tactical vest". This board only supports two PCI-E x16 devices, 2-way SLI/CrossFireX.

Biostar is ready with its pair of mid-range motherboards for the upcoming LGA1155 Sandy Bridge processor platform, based on the Intel P67/H67 Express chipsets. The two were earlier pictured in their pre-release forms at this year's Computex event. Both models fall into the company's mid-range TSeries family. The TSeries TP67XE is the larger (ATX) model that builds slightly over the chipset's feature set, it is outfitted with USB 3.0 and SATA 6 Gb/s (2 ports each). The rather high-end looking CPU VRM uses a total of 9 phases, power is drawn from two 8-pin ATX EPS connectors (probably connecting both connectors is optional, and only to enhance overclocking). Expansion slots include two each of PCI-Express 2.0 x16 (electrical x8/x8, when both are populated), PCI-Express x1, and PCI. Connectivity includes 8-channel HD audio, gigabit Ethernet, USB 3.0, FireWire, eSATA 3 Gb/s, and a number of USB 2.0 ports.

The second smaller (micro-ATX) board, the TSeries TH67XE, is based on the H67 chipset, and supports FDI that lets you use the integrated graphics processor on some processors. It uses a simpler 6+1 phase VRM, and goes slightly easy on the overclocking-capability department, but does retain USB 3.0 and SATA 6 Gb/s. Expansion slots include one PCI-Express 2.0 x16, one PCI-Express x16 (electrical x4), a PCI-Express x1, and a PCI. One out of six of the SATA 3 Gb/s channels from the PCH are assigned as an eSATA port. Other connectivity features include 8-channel HD audio, FireWire, gigabit Ethernet. Display connectivity includes DVI and D-Sub. Both boards will be out by the year's end, when Intel releases its new processor platform.

ECS is designing an upper-mid range socket LGA1155 motherboard based on the Intel P67 Express chipset, ready with upcoming Sandy Bridge processors, called the P67H2-A. A pre-release version was shown to the press. The highlight here is ECS' use of the LucidLogix Hydra Engine chip that lets the motherboard mix and match graphics cards of different makes and types. The CPU is powered by a 14-phase VRM, it is wired to four DDR3 DIMM slots for dual-channel memory, speeds of up to 2600 MHz are supported by overclocking. Expansion slots include three PCI-Express 2.0 x16 (likely x16, x16, NC / x16, x8, x8, thanks to the Hydra chip), and two each of PCI-E x1 and PCI. Four out of six of the SATA 3 Gb/s ports from the P67 PCH are assigned as internal ports (color-coded orange), two SATA 6 Gb/s controllers give out two ports internal (color-coded red). Connectivity includes 8-channel HD audio, dual gigabit Ethernet, two NEC USB 3.0 controllers that give out two ports on the rear panel and two for the front-panel via header, eSATA 6 Gb/s, and a number of USB 2.0 ports. The final version may look slightly different, of course those jumper wires won't be there.

Here's something you'll need to see to believe: Gigabyte made its first motherboards with black-colored PCBs, breaking away from its blue PCB mold! The company's high-end LGA1155 motherboard lineup includes two models: the GA-P67A-UD5 and the GA-P67A-UD7. Apart from the black-colored PCB, the color scheme also includes graphite-colored heatsinks with a dash of blue (UD5) or with a dash of gold (UD7), black-colored memory and expansion slots, mostly black internal ports and headers. The GA-P67-UD7 uses a 24-phase VRM to power the LGA1155 processor. Its expansion slots include four PCI-E 2.0 x16, there seems to be a PCI-E bridge chip (likely nForce 200 or something from PLX), which lets it run in 2-slot x16, or 4-slot x8 modes. There are two PCI and a PCI-E x1. Connectivity on this includes six SATA 3 Gb/s, two SATA 6 Gb/s internal ports, two gigabit Ethernet, 8-channel HD audio, four USB 3.0 ports, FireWire, and eSATA.

The GA-P67A-UD5 has a 20-phase VRM, a slightly lighter expansion area with three PCI-Express x16 slots (likely x16, NC/x8, x8), the third slot could be electrical x4. Connectivity on this one includes two SATA 6 Gb/s, four SATA 3 Gb/s, two eSATA, 8-channel HD audio, gigabit Ethernet, two USB 3.0 ports, and FireWire. Both motherboards feature Ultra Durable 3 construction. The two could be part of the company's first wave of LGA1155 motherboards.

If you recall, at this year's Computex event held in Taipei, almost every motherboard vendor scuffled to show of their first motherboards based on the Intel P67 and H67 chipsets, that support new socket LGA1155 socket processors based on the next-generation Sandy Bridge architecture. The Intel Developer Forum (IDF) 2010 event is presenting many of them a second chance, and we're beginning to see some new designs that didn't make it to Computex. Intel's own Desktop Board division came up with a new Extreme Series motherboard, the DP67BG "Burrage". As with every other Intel Desktop Board, this one looks clean, and well spaced-out. While there's nothing fancy about the heatsinks, the glowing skull is there, and this time it's positioned properly.

The processor is powered by a 4+2 phase PWM circuit, it's wired to four DDR3 DIMM slots for dual-channel memory support. Among few of its kind, the Burrage makes room of all seven expansion slots in the ATX specification. There are two PCI-Express 2.0 x16 (x8, x8 when both are populated), three PCI-E x1, and two PCI. Apart from six SATA 3 Gb/s ports from the P67 PCH, there's an additional Marvell-made SATA controller that drives an eSATA port. Connectivity includes 8-channel HD audio, gigabit Ethernet, a number of USB 2.0 ports, FireWire, and eSATA. After being neophobic toward USB 3.0, Intel has finally embraced it on its Desktop Board brand, an NEC/Renesas controller gives out two ports on the rear-panel. This feature-set should put rest to rumors of Intel embedding USB 3.0 and SATA 6 Gb/s into its chipset. The DP67BG from Intel should be out when the first-wave of LGA1155 processors make it to the market.

Having turned its most profitable quarter, Intel is banking on its vast lineup of the 2010 Core processors, which will be updated towards the end of the year. By 2011, Intel will have a new series of second generation Core i7, Core i5, and Core i3 processors, based on a brand new architecture, and built for new sockets and chipsets. A roadmap of the same reached sections of the European media, which shows the company to be almost ready with a full-fledged lineup of desktop processors covering most price-points, by 2011.

The new architecture on which these processors are based is referred to by Intel as "Sandy Bridge", key features of which include the inclusion of the new Advanced Vector Extensions (AVX), a more advanced instruction set than SSE, to accelerate complex applications. AVX aside, there's Turbo Boost technology 2.0 that comes with even smarter algorithms to automatically manage clock speeds of individual processor cores to maximize performance within the processor's TDP envelope, AES-NI, which is a more manageable hardware data encryption instruction set, and processors with integrated graphics (IGP) controllers will have even faster ones, because Intel will be relocating the IGP and memory controller to the same die as the processor cores, this IGP is referred to as Intel "GT2" graphics.