Tuesday, March 11th 2014
Gigabyte Announces B85N-Phoenix Mini-ITX Motherboard
Gigabyte announced the B85N-Phoenix, a socket LGA1150 motherboard based on the Intel B85 chipset, and in the mini-ITX form-factor. The board is unusually rich in connectivity, despite its precious little PCB real-estate. It features an equally unusual black+orange color scheme that's more commonly found with the company's OC-series motherboards. It draws power from a combination of 24-pin ATX and 4-pin CPU power connectors, and conditions it using a 4+2 phase VRM. The CPU socket is wired to a pair of DDR3 DIMM slots, supporting up to 32 GB of dual-channel memory; and a PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slot. It's neighbored to the north by an mPCIe 2.0 slot, wired to the B85 PCH.
Storage connectivity on the B85N-Phoenix includes three SATA 6 Gb/s, and a single SATA 3 Gb/s. The board features a total of four USB 3.0 ports, two on the rear panel, two by header. Display outputs include dual-link DVI and HDMI. The board comes prepped for wireless communications, but doesn't include a card. There are holes for two antennae, and an mPCIe slot. The board offers 8-channel HD audio with optical TOSLINK output. Gigabit Ethernet, PS/2, and a number of USB 2.0/1.1 ports make for the rest of it. Gigabyte didn't announce pricing.
Storage connectivity on the B85N-Phoenix includes three SATA 6 Gb/s, and a single SATA 3 Gb/s. The board features a total of four USB 3.0 ports, two on the rear panel, two by header. Display outputs include dual-link DVI and HDMI. The board comes prepped for wireless communications, but doesn't include a card. There are holes for two antennae, and an mPCIe slot. The board offers 8-channel HD audio with optical TOSLINK output. Gigabit Ethernet, PS/2, and a number of USB 2.0/1.1 ports make for the rest of it. Gigabyte didn't announce pricing.