Friday, August 10th 2012
Gigabyte Outs First Dual-Thunderbolt Micro-ATX Motherboard
Gigabyte released the first motherboard in the micro-ATX form-factor to feature two Thunderbolt interfaces. The Z77MX-D3H-TH from Gigabyte is built in the standard 240 x 240 mm micro-ATX form-factor, and based on the Intel Z77 Express chipset, supporting socket LGA1155 Core "Sandy Bridge" and "Ivy Bridge" processors. The board uses an Intel DSL3510L dual channel Thunderbolt controller to drive its two ports.
The two ports, electrically-compatible with mini-DisplayPort, double up as display outputs that are routed to the Flexible Display Interface (FDI) taking display from the processor's integrated graphics core. With the included Lucid Virtu MVP software, graphics processed by discrete graphics cards can be output though the FDI, and hence these Thunderbolt ports.The LGA1155 socket on the Gigabyte Z77MX-D3H-TH is powered by a 6-phase VRM. It is wired to four DDR3 DIMM slots, supporting up to 32 GB of dual-channel DDR3-2400 MHz memory; and two PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots (electrical x8/x8 when both are populated). Other expansion slots include a couple of PCI-Express 2.0 x1, wired to the PCH. All six SATA ports from the Z77 PCH (two SATA 6 Gb/s and four SATA 3 Gb/s) are assigned as internal ports.
Display connectivity, apart from the two Thunderbolt ports, includes one each of DVI, D-Sub, and HDMI. Other connectivity includes four USB 3.0 ports (two on the rear panel, two by headers), 8+2 channel HD audio, gigabit Ethernet, a number of USB 2.0 ports, and PS/2 mouse/keyboard combo port. The board is driven by dual-UEFI BIOS. Expect the Gigabyte Z77MX-D3H-TH to cost around US $150-$170.
The two ports, electrically-compatible with mini-DisplayPort, double up as display outputs that are routed to the Flexible Display Interface (FDI) taking display from the processor's integrated graphics core. With the included Lucid Virtu MVP software, graphics processed by discrete graphics cards can be output though the FDI, and hence these Thunderbolt ports.The LGA1155 socket on the Gigabyte Z77MX-D3H-TH is powered by a 6-phase VRM. It is wired to four DDR3 DIMM slots, supporting up to 32 GB of dual-channel DDR3-2400 MHz memory; and two PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots (electrical x8/x8 when both are populated). Other expansion slots include a couple of PCI-Express 2.0 x1, wired to the PCH. All six SATA ports from the Z77 PCH (two SATA 6 Gb/s and four SATA 3 Gb/s) are assigned as internal ports.
Display connectivity, apart from the two Thunderbolt ports, includes one each of DVI, D-Sub, and HDMI. Other connectivity includes four USB 3.0 ports (two on the rear panel, two by headers), 8+2 channel HD audio, gigabit Ethernet, a number of USB 2.0 ports, and PS/2 mouse/keyboard combo port. The board is driven by dual-UEFI BIOS. Expect the Gigabyte Z77MX-D3H-TH to cost around US $150-$170.