Thursday, November 3rd 2011
Gigabyte to Pack Wireless-N and Bluetooth 4.0 Addon Card with Some X79 Boards
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.
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.