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Biostar releases pics of next-gen motherboards

by Pete Mason on 29 September 2010, 16:43

Tags: Biostar

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Intel's upcoming Sandy Bridge CPUs may still be some way off, but that doesn't mean that motherboard manufacturers aren't champing at the bit to show-off their upcoming products.

Biostar sent around a few press shots of two of its upcoming motherboards which are based on the P67 and H67 'Cougar Point' chipsets. This obviously means that they use the LGA 1155 interface, so will only be compatible with the more mainstream Core i3, i5 and i7 Sandy Bridge CPUs.

The TP67XE is an ATX motherboard and Biostar seems to have packed it full of features. As well as three internal SATA 3Gbps connections and a single eSATA port, the board will support a pair of SATA 6Gbps drives to make the most of those nice, fast SSDs. The manufacturer has also included higher-end features like a pair of USB 3.0 ports, an on-board error-code display and power and reset switches.

The remaining PCIe lanes are used up by a PCIe x16 slot, a PCIe x8 slot, two PCIe x1 slots and room for a pair PCI cards.

Interestingly, the board has two eight-pin CPU power-connections - an overclocking feature usually reserved for very high-end hardware.

Biostar also sent over snaps of its upcoming mATX board, the TH67XE. Despite the smaller size, the designers have managed to cram almost all of the same features onto the board. Being an H67-based board, you'll also get the option of using the onboard graphics-core with the choice of VGA, DVI, HDMI or DisplayPort outputs.

Of course, the ability to use the iGPU means that you can't run two PCIe x8 cards at the same time. The smaller board also sacrifices the error-code display, second CPU power-connection, a PCIe x1 slot and a PCI slot - though otherwise appears to be very similar to its big brother.

This is just a first look of the types of boards that will be available once the Sandy Bridge platform launches at the start of next year.  Obviously more details will be available as we get closer to the release date.



HEXUS Forums :: 8 Comments

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Something looks odd about those PCI ports. Aren't they normally significantly closer to the edge? The ones in the top picture are identically recessed compared to the PCI-e ports, and the one in the bottom picture isn't much better :confused:
I have seen many motherboards with PCI slots in that position. If you have room in your case near the bottom, shouldn't be a problem.
I think he means closer to the actual side of the motherboard where the outputs will be. Personally, I think they are in the regular position?
As nice as it is to have more info on this, it's sort of frustrating with the lack of information coming out on the LGA 2011 “Patsburg” sockets for Sandy Bridge B2/Sandy Bridge E, we've had IDF and other major events with lots of interviews from various sites with Intel's PR staff, but not one apparently actually thought to ask about it? As much as I'm interested in the LGA 1155 socket compared to LGA 1156 I'm more interested in how it compares to the later socket coming out and whether that will be worth waiting for.
Yep I mean closer to the side of the mobo. See below:



Compared to:



Clearly it's not an ideal picture, with the angle, but the PCI looks pretty much in line with the PCI-e to me..