It's not just host nations of the Olympics that are decided almost decades in advance, but also Intel's silicon names and the fab process they're going to be built on. Intel has its plan for the greater part of this decade already charted out, well beyond the upcoming Ivy Bridge architecture. Intel follows the "tick-tock" product cycle, where every micro-architecture gets to be built on two succeeding fab processes, and every fab process getting to have two succeeding micro-architectures built on it, in succession. Westmere is an optical shrink of the Nehalem architecture, it was a "tick" for the 32 nm process, Sandy Bridge is its "tock", and a new architecture. Ivy Bridge is essentially an optical shrink of Sandy Bridge, it is the "tick" for 22 nm process.

Ivy Bridge will make its entry through the LGA1155 platform in 2012, it will make up the 2012 Core processor family. Haswell is the next-generation architecture that succeeds Sandy Bridge and IvyBridge, it will be built on the 22 nm process, and is expected to arrive in 2013. Roswell is its optical shrink to 14 nm, slated for 2014. Looking deep into the decade, there's Skylake architecture, that will span across 14 nm and 10 nm processes with Skymont. This model ensures that Intel has to upgrade its fabs every 2 or so years, an entirely new micro-architecture every 2 or so years as well, while providing optical shrinks every alternating year. Optical shrinks introduce new features, increased caches, and allow higher clock speeds. 10 nm for processors by 2018 sounds realistic looking at the advancement of NAND flash technologies that are pushing the boundaries of fab process development. NAND flash is much less complex than processor development, and hence serve as good precursors to a new process.

Panasonic today launched the Toughbook CF-H2, its second generation, fully rugged tablet PC designed specifically for health workers. Setting new standards in ease of use, connectivity and productivity, the CF-H2 is a lightweight, water-resistant, shock and drop-tolerant and easily disinfected tablet device that meets the highest demands for mobility and networking within clinical environments. It allows doctors and nursing staff to benefit from instant access to medical records at the point of care, accurate documentation on patient conditions and medication, and enables greater efficiency of clinical processes.

With the latest Intel Core i5-2557M (1.7GHz) Ultra Low Voltage processor with vPro and the Intel HD 3000 graphics for enhanced multimedia capabilities, the Toughbook CF-H2 performance has been improved more than 400% over its CF-H1 predecessor. The CF-H2 is ideal for power hungry healthcare applications such as Electronic Patient Records (EPR) and Patient Administration Systems (PAS). RAM has also been raised to 2 gigabyte as standard, with up to 6 gigabyte optional, and it comes with a 160 gigabyte hard disk drive as standard with 128 gigabyte SSD as an option.

Intel Corporation today reported its fifth consecutive quarter of record revenue, with double-digit revenue growth across all business segments. On a Non-GAAP basis, revenue was $13.1 billion, operating income was $4.2 billion, net income was $3.2 billion, and EPS was 59 cents. On a GAAP basis, the company reported second-quarter revenue of $13.0 billion, operating income of $3.9 billion, net income of $3.0 billion, and EPS of 54 cents. The company generated approximately $4.0 billion in cash from operations, paid cash dividends of $961 million, and used $2.0 billion to repurchase 93 million shares of common stock.

"We achieved a significant new milestone in the second quarter, surpassing $13.0 billion in revenue for the first time," said Paul Otellini, Intel president and CEO. "Strong corporate demand for our most advanced technology, the surge of mobile devices and Internet traffic fueling data center growth, and the rapid rise of computing in emerging markets drove record results. Intel's 23 percent revenue growth in the first half and our increasing confidence in the second half of 2011 position us to grow annual revenue in the mid-20 percent range."

Intel Corporation today announced it signed a definitive agreement to acquire Fulcrum Microsystems Inc., a privately held fabless semiconductor company that designs Ethernet switch silicon for data center network providers.

"Intel is transforming from a leading server technology company to a comprehensive data center provider that offers computing, storage and networking building blocks," said Kirk Skaugen, Intel vice president and general manager, Data Center Group. "Fulcrum Microsystems' switch silicon, already recognized for high performance and low latency, complements Intel's leading processors and Ethernet controllers, and will deliver our customers new levels of performance and energy efficiency while improving their economics of cloud service delivery."

Here are details of the first three models of Intel's "Sandy Bridge-E" Core i7 processors in the LGA2011 package. Some of these details were made public as early as mid-April. It was then analyzed that Intel was driving two distinct lines of LGA2011 client processors: Enthusiast and Performance, and within Performance, there were BClk multiplier-unlocked six-core, and locked quad-core chips. With the new series, Intel will move to the 3000 series of processor model numbering, indicating that the new processors will be part of Intel's 3rd generation Core processors, even though they're based on the Sandy Bridge architecture.

Before we move to the model numbers, here's a quick run up of the brand extenders. "X" denotes Extreme Edition, "K" denotes "Unlocked" (BClk multipler unlocked). Leading the pack will be Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition. This six-core (6 cores, 12 threads with HTT) chip has a nominal clock speed of 3.30 GHz, Turbo Boost speed of up to 3.90 GHz, and features the full 15 MB of L3 cache present on the Sandy Bridge-E silicon. Expect this chip to have a four figure price-tag.

Sandy Bridge-E is Intel's next-generation high-end desktop and enterprise platform that is an upscale of the Sandy Bridge platform the company launched early this year. At this year's major trade-shows such as Computex, motherboard partners displayed their socket LGA2011 motherboards with the complete feature-set of the platform. Apart from the large socket, and memory slots at odd places, the most distinct feature of those motherboards was the plethora of SATA ports they came with. Even the most [relatively] low-end LGA2011 motherboards had around 10 SATA ports, most of which were 6 Gb/s. Platform schematics also made it to the public domain around that time, revealing a key feature that makes driving 8 SATA 6 Gb/s ports possible: a supplementary PCI-Express 3.0 x4 link between the X79 PCH and the LGA2011 processor, that adds 16 GB/s (8 GB/s per direction) of bandwidth between the processor and the chipset, without which the storage controller would be severely bottlenecked with the DMI Gen2 (physical PCI-Express 2.0 x4), with its puny 8 GB/s (4 GB/s per direction) bandwidth.

Originally slated for Q4 2011, Intel's Sandy Bridge-E platform was reported to have been delayed to Q1 2012. It is now emerging that Patsburg-D, the variant of Patsburg X79 chipset, which features 8 SATA/SAS 6 Gb/s ports, which requires that supplementary PCI-E 3.0 x4 link, may be causing a development hold up at Intel. So, the company is planning on launching the platform this year itself, but with Patsburg-B, a variant of the chipset that has only four SATA/SAS 6 Gb/s ports, and relies entirely on DMI as the chipset interconnect. The slide below lists out differences between the many variants of Patsburg PCH. DMI would give the platform the same amount of chipset interconnect bandwidth as today's LGA1155-Cougar Point platform. It is, however possible that the higher Patsburg-D/X variants will be launched when Intel irons out whatever issues exist with them.

Intel's 320 Series SSD is the silicon giant's big push of SSD technology into homes and offices. The SATA 3 Gb/s compatible 2.5" SSDs offer generally good price per gigabyte by SSD standards, and is even backed by a 5 year warranty after some customers were skeptical about the low NAND flash rewrite cycle capacity of the new 25 nm MLC NAND flash chips. Off late, several customers have been noting a bug in its firmware that drops capacity down to 8 MB, making data occupied on the rest of the capacity inaccessible. This bug came to be popularly known as the "8 MB bug".

Intel's Support Community boards have been piling up with complaints about this bug by users of 320 series. Then earlier this week, Intel's Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) Solutions Group acknowledged this bug. It asked customers to contactIntel representatives or Intel customer support, and said that it will provide an update when it has more information. In all likelihood, this is yet another case of buggy firmware by Intel, which haunted it through the 34 nm X25-M and some older SSDs.

Panasonic today launches the Toughbook CF-H2, its second generation, fully rugged tablet PC designed specifically for field workers. Setting new standards in ease of use, connectivity and productivity, the CF-H2 is the ultimate tool for mobile and field workers helping them to stay productive, even in harsh environments, by delivering constant access to their applications and business data. The lightweight, yet fully rugged tablet is ideal for field workers in utilities, logistics, automotive workshops, rail and aviation as well as sales personnel, retail point of sales and market research.

With the latest Intel Core i5-2557M (1.70 GHz) Ultra Low Voltage processor with vPro and the Intel HD 3000 graphics for enhanced multimedia capabilities, the Toughbook CF-H2 performance has been improved more than 400% over its CF-H1 predecessor. The CF-H2 is ideal for power hungry field applications such as GIS, mobile CAD and powerful diagnostic tools. RAM has also been raised to 2 gigabyte as standard, with up to 8 gigabyte optional, and it comes with a 160 GB hard disk drive as standard with 128 GB SSD as an option.

Thermal Solutions specialist GELID Solutions adds a 66mm high multi compatible CPU Cooler with PWM fan to its popular SILENT product portfolio. The Siberian with its super competitive pricing contains a premium aluminum heat sink and a silent 80mm fan with GELID intelligent PWM control. The cooler offers multi compatibility for AMD & Intel latest sockets. It features a compact size and is especially suitable for HTPC and small chassis. The silent fan achieves high airflow rate and the GELID intelligent PWM Control accelerates the fan speed only when it's necessary.

The cooler is RoHS and WEEE conform and carries a warranty of 5 year. "The perfect choice of CPU cooler for system builders looking to replace the stock cooler with a single cooler that fits all platforms", said Gebhard Scherrer Sales Director of GELID Solutions Ltd.

Taiwanese PC enthusiast Coolaler has a new Ivy Bridge LGA1155 dual-core engineering sample to play with, and wasted no time in putting it through some tests. The sample has two cores, four threads with HyperThreading enabled, clock speed of 1.80 GHz, 256 KB L2 cache per core, and 4 MB shared L3 cache. It is running on an Intel P67 chipset-based motherboard with 8 GB of dual-channel DDR3-1600 MHz memory. At 1.80 GHz, it may not be game for absolute performance figures since it's unlikely that Intel will release a chip with that clock speed unless it has unreal performance:clockspeed gains over Sandy Bridge; but it's good enough for clock-to-clock performance comparisons between Ivy Bridge and Sandy Bridge. A Core i5-2400 was clocked at 1.80 GHz with 18x BClk multiplier, and put through a single-threaded benchmark, and a multithreaded one.

The cache and memory benchmark that measures bandwidth and latency of caches and memory was unable to measure bandwidth, but measured some latencies. The L1 cache at 2.2 nanoseconds (ns), and L2 at 2.9 ns. Next, the Ivy Bridge DC, and the Core i5-2400 (@ 1.80 GHz) testbeds were put through CPUMark 99, where Ivy Bridge DC scored 278 points, and Core i5-2400 clocked at 1.80 GHz scored closely followed at 276 points. Moving on to multithreaded performance, the two were put through Cinebench 11.5 64-bit. The Ivy Bridge DC chip scored 1.81 points; while the Core i5-2400 clocked at 1.80 GHz, scored 2.61 points. Coolaler promises more benches.

Intel updated its product offer to OEMs with a new low-cost ultra-low voltage (ULV) processor, the Intel Celeron M 857. The chip is designed for use in ultra-portable notebooks. Built on the 32 nm processor node, this dual-core chip is clocked at 1.20 GHz, lacks HyperThreading, has 2 MB of shared L3 cache, dual-channel DDR3 IMC, and embedded graphics. The chip has a TDP of just 17W. Celeron M 857 has the same channel price as Celeron M 847, $134, which it displaces.

Originally slated for Q4 2011, the launch of Intel's Sandy Bridge-E desktop/workstation platform has been pushed back to Q1 2012, sources told VR-Zone. The high-end platform was expected by industry observers to be a December launch, targeting the shopping season, but it seems like January 2012 is found to be more fitting. Perhaps the International CES, where the latest and greatest from the tech industry is unveiled, serves as the ideal launch-pad for Sandy Bridge-E.

Sandy Bridge-E is an upscale of the architecture that makes up Intel's 2011 Core processor family. Consisting of 4 or 6 cores, Sandy Bridge makes up two distinct product lines for the client desktop market. The chips pack massive quad-channel DDR3 integrated memory controllers and PCI-Express 3.0 hubs that can drive up to four graphics cards. The processor is made of a new 2011-pin LGA package, with the new Intel X79 chipset handling the rest of the platform.

ASRock gave its premium LGA1155 motherboard lineup a boost with the new Z68 Fatal1ty. Apart from being a Z68 chipset based motherboard modeled along the lines of its predecessor, the ASRock P67 Fatal1ty, the new motherboard features PCI-Express 3.0 graphics slots, that work on Sandy Bridge and future Ivy Bridge processors. The new third generation PCI-E interconnect can drive 1 GB/s of data per link, per direction. You'll need PCI-E 3.0 compliant add-on cards to make use of that bandwidth, current graphics cards will run at Gen. 2 speeds. One advantage here could be that AMD Radeon HD 5000 and HD 6000 series single-GPU graphics cards will run on Gen 2.1 mode, which has slightly higher bandwidth at its disposal thanks to its lower-overhead data coding scheme.

The ASRock Z68 Fatal1ty is designed for both gamers and overclockers, using high-grade components. The LGA1155 socket is powered by a 18-phase VRM, wired to four DDR3 DIMM slots supporting dual-channel DDR3-2133 MHz (Ivy Bridge IMC's optimal memory speed). Featuring Intel Flexible Display Interface (FDI), the board allows you to use the integrated graphics. With the Lucid Virtu technology, you can switch between the integrated graphics, and discrete graphics cards. Expansion slots include two PCI-Express 3.0 x16 (electrical x8/x8 when both are populated), one PCI-Express 2.0 x16 (electrical x4, wired to Z68 PCH), and two each of PCI-E 2.0 x1 and legacy PCI.

MSI has finally rolled out the GT780-the dream machine long awaited by gamers worldwide. It packs the Intel Core i7-2630QM quad-core processor with core speeds of 2.00GHz and NVIDIA's new generation GeForce GTX 560M discrete graphics card. It boasts 1.5GB GDDR5 of high-end, large-capacity display memory for superior performance that greatly enhances game realism for the ultimate gaming experience.

Eric Kuo, associate vice president for global sales, MSI Notebook, explains that the GT780 gaming notebook comes equipped with a gaming keyboard crafted by SteelSeries. It is not only much more rugged, the Windows Start key was relocated to the right side of the keyboard and the Ctrl and Alt keys enlarged to make it harder to strike the wrong keys in the heat of battle. The GT780's keyboard features the latest LED backlighting technology. Simply depress the Gaming Mode hotkey above the keyboard to light up just the left side of the keyboard. The rest of the keyboard remains dark, allowing you to find the gaming keys quickly when the bullets are flying.

Panasonic today unveiled a series of upgrades to the mk2 version of the Toughbook CF-C1, the business rugged and lightweight notebook that can be used in clamshell or tablet form. The device, which is ideal for mobile workers such as field healthcare workers, sales forces and market researchers, has been upgraded with more processing power, memory and a faster wireless module.

The Toughbook CF-C1mk2 uses the latest generation Intel Core i5-2520M (2.5GHz) for increased performance and the Intel HD 3000 graphics for enhanced multimedia capabilities. RAM memory has also been raised to 4 gigabyte with a 320 gigabyte hard disk drive as standard configuration.

At the International Supercomputing Conference (ISC), Kirk Skaugen, Intel Corporation vice president and general manager of the Data Center Group, outlined the company's vision to achieve ExaFLOP/s performance by the end of this decade. An ExaFLOP/s is quintillion computer operations per second, hundreds times more than today's fastest supercomputers.

Reaching exascale levels of performance in the future will not only require the combined efforts of industry and governments, but also approaches being pioneered by the Intel Many Integrated Core (Intel MIC) Architecture, according to Skaugen. Managing the explosive growth in the amount of data shared across the Internet, finding solutions to climate change, managing the growing costs of accessing resources such as oil and gas, and a multitude of other challenges require increased amounts of computing resources that only increasingly high-performing supercomputers can address.

First making their existance known in April, Intel's new enterprise-grade 710 Series and 720 Series solid-state drives (SSDs) are inching closer to launch, with more specifications being known. The two series are very distinct from each other, the 710 series codenamed "Lyndonville" comes in the 2.5-inch SATA form-factor, with SATA 3 Gb/s interface; while the 720 series codenamed "Ramsdale" comes in the PCI-Express add-on card form-factor, probably using the PCI-Express x8 interface.

Intel 710 series SSDs make use of new 25 nm MLC NAND flash, cached by 64 MB of DRAM. It comes in capacities of 100, 200, and 300 GB; offer transfer-rates of 270 MB/s read, 210 MB/s write; with 36,000 IOPS and 2,400 4K IOPS performance; and offers endurance of 500 TB for the 100 GB model, and 1 PB (petabyte, equals 1024 TB) for the 200 GB model on full capacity. The Intel 720 series SSDs use PCI-Express interface, 34 nm SLC NAND flash, comes in capaities of 200 GB and 400 GB; transfer rates of 2,200 MB/s read, 1,800 MB/s write; 180,000 IOPS with 56,000 IOPS 4K random write performance; and massive endurance figures of 36 PB for 200 GB (8K random writes).

Lenovo today announced two new additions to the ThinkServer family - the TS130 and the TS430 - that give small-to-medium businesses and corporate branch offices a performance boost and powerful manageability tools. A perfect fit for businesses with few or no IT staff, they feature the latest Intel Xeon processor technology, are loaded with remote management tools and offer easy setup.

Lenovo also announced the ThinkCentre M71e, an entry-level desktop to give mainstream corporate offices the technologies they need to conduct business productively, securely and reliably every day. The desktop features 2nd generation Intel Core i processors, rapid boot up and security authentication features.

Acer America today elevates its highly-touted Acer Aspire TimelineX series notebooks with a new sleek and stylish, thin and light design complemented by long battery life and the latest technology and new entertainment features, including Dolby Home Theater v4 Audio. Models are available now in the United States.

The Acer Aspire TimelineX Series is a best-in-breed notebook line that combines performance and portability in an incredibly beautiful and refined form factor. The notebook's upscale look and feel centers around its uncluttered, elegant design. The notebooks have a clean layout with a large touchpad and chiclet keyboard to promote both enjoyment and productivity. Available in three sizes -- the 13.3-inch 3830T, 14-inch 4830T and 15.6-inch 5830T -- the designs measure about an inch thin and are very lightweight.

Apple announced that Mac OS X Lion, the eighth major release of the world's most advanced operating system with more than 250 new features and 3,000 new developer APIs, will be available to customers in July as a download from the Mac App Store for $29.99. Some of the amazing features in Lion include: new Multi-Touch gestures; system-wide support for full screen apps; Mission Control, an innovative view of everything running on your Mac; the Mac App Store, the best place to find and explore great software, built right into the OS; Launchpad, a new home for all your apps; and a completely redesigned Mail app.

"The Mac has outpaced the PC industry every quarter for five years running and with OS X Lion we plan to keep extending our lead," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. "The best version of OS X yet, Lion is packed with innovative features such as new Multi-Touch gestures, system-wide support for full screen apps, and Mission Control for instantly accessing everything running on your Mac."

Kingston Technology Company, Inc., the independent world leader in memory products, today announced it has teamed up with SandForce Inc., a leader in high-performance SSD (Solid-State Drive) processors, to launch its first SATA Rev 3.0 (6Gb/s) based SSD targeted at enthusiasts, gamers, and performance users. The Kingston HyperX SSD feature the latest and most reliable SandForce controller to date, and is also available as a bundle with the HyperX Upgrade Kit for easy installation.

Shipping in 120GB and 240GB capacities, the HyperX SSD is based on SandForce SF-2281 controllers featuring SATA Rev 3.0 (6Gb/s). It allows for incredible sequential read/write throughputs of 525/480MB/s, IOPS of 40,000/60,000 (240GB), and SandForce DuraClass Technology to provide best in class endurance.

Spire Corp officially introduced its new Swirl CPU cooler today. Utilizing three (3) sintered powder all copper 8mm thick heat pipes and a vertical cylinder design the Swirl is ready to push your CPU to maximum performance. The Swirl is constructed with a combination of an all copper base and all-direction aluminum fins to provide sufficient heat-transfer and good cooling for the hot 130W ~ 150W micro-processors. The Swirl heat-sink and heat-pipes are both soldered and protected with a thin layer of dark-nickel coating to protect from oxidation and to preserve awesome looks. The vertical mounted fan is equipped with 4 bright red LEDs that give a cool glow inside your enclosure. Universal support for both Intel and AMD based systems makes this a versatile solution for any PC system. The Swirl is one of the most appealing coolers on the market and a great solution for those enthusiasts, gamers and professionals alike.

Intel's Smart Response technology is doing wonders to the low-cost SSD market. The technology lets low-capacity, usually low-cost SSDs to be used as caches for hard drives, improving the system's overall responsiveness. The technology makes these low-cost SSDs more of a component than a product (such as 2.5-inch SATA SSDs), and hence it makes sense to offer them in the mSATA form-factor. Intel made its headstart by launching the Intel 311 "Larson Creek" series 20 GB SSD that comes in both 2.5-inch SATA 3 Gb/s and mSATA form factors. While mSATA makes it easy to deploy the technology into notebooks, desktop motherboard vendors such as Gigabyte thought it would be nice to give their motherboards an mSATA slot.

Capitalizing on this very market is A-Data, with a couple of new low-cost mSATA SSDs in the ISFM series. First is the ISFM-XM13, an mSATA SSD driven by a SandForce SF-1200 series controller. Even with some of the controller's channels unoccupied (due to obvious lack of space to put NAND flash chips), this card doles out decent transfer rates of up to 250 MB/s read and 170 MB/s write. This card comes in capacities of 30 GB (32 GB with 2 GB overprovisioned) and 60 GB (64 GB with 4 GB overprovisioned). This card uses MLC NAND flash. Next up, is the ISFM-IXM01, that looks to be using a JMicron-made controller. The bigger difference here is the use of SLC NAND flash on one of its two variants, which traditionally offers higher rewrite cycles. The other variant uses MLC NAND flash. The SLC variant offers transfer rates of 90 MB/s read and 90 MB/s write, and comes in capacities of 2, 4, 8, and 16 GB. The MLC variant gives you 150 MB/s read, 120 MB/s write; and comes in capacities of 32, 64, and 128 GB.

Rarely do motherboard vendors dish out mini-ITX form-factor motherboards targeting the overclocking community. There's little space to squeeze in the bare essentials, but nothing is impossible, if there are competent designers at work, a case in point is the new Z68-ITX WiFi from ZOTAC. Based on the Intel Z68 Express chipset, this board supports LGA1155 Core i3/i5/i7 Sandy Bridge, and future Ivy Bridge processors, supports their integrated GPU giving you access to Intel QuickSync technology, as well as a suite of overclocking options.

To begin with the LGA1155 socket is powered by an 8-phase digital-PWM power design that uses high-grade PWM chokes made by Pulse, and in all probability, a Volterra PWM IC giving you precise voltage control as well as vDroop protection (high-precision load-line calibration). It also uses server-grade high-C capacitors. The PWM circuit takes input from an 8-pin EPS connector. The PWM chips are cooled by a large heatsink that sends some of its heat to the heatsink cooling the Z68 PCH, over a heat pipe.

While Sandy Bridge-E LGA2011 processors will come with integrated PCI-Express 3.0 hubs, they're still a couple of quarter financial years away. Meanwhile, MSI jumped the gun on its latest socket LGA1155 Intel Z68-based motherboard with not only support for Intel's upcoming 22 nm Ivy Bridge LGA1155 processors, but also the PCI-Express 3.0 hubs that the new processors come with. While Ivy Bridge has PCI-E 3.0 hub, not just any LGA1155 motherboard can give you PCI-E 3.0 support. It requires slots that are compliant with the new specification, and needs PCI-E 3.0 compliant external switching chips. MSI has both, on its new Z68A-GD80 motherboard, and with it, the bragging rights of being the world's first PCI-E 3.0 compliant motherboard.

PCI-Express 3.0 gives you twice the interface bandwidth as PCI-Express 2.0, which means that PCI-Express 3.0 x8 has the same bandwidth as PCI-Express 2.0 x16. But before you celebrate, let's remind ourselves that you also need a PCI-E 3.0 compliant GPU to make the slots operate at Gen 3.0 speeds. Installing PCI-Express 2.0 GPUs on Gen 3.0 won't run the slots at Gen 3.0 speeds. That aside, the Z68A-GD80 is a sufficiently-equipped enthusiast motherboard featuring 14-phase VRM for the CPU, dual-channel DDR3-2133 support, two PCI-E 3.0 x16 slots (x8/x8 with populated), a third PCI-E x16 wired to the Z68 PCH, running at PCI-E 2.0 x4 speeds, and a couple of PCI-E 2.0 x1 and legacy PCI. There are three internal SATA 6 Gb/s ports; eSATA, USB 3.0, make for the rest of the connectivity. There is full-fledged display connectivity, with Lucid Virtu support. Expect this board to be out any time soon.