Bitfenix to feature SuperSpeed USB front connectors compatible with GIGABYTE USB 3.0 mobos

Our friends over at Bitfenix have recently released their new website in preparation for their launch. We are hearing about some really interesting new USB 3.0 compliant products from the startup and are already working on compatibility testing with GIGABYTE USB 3.0 motherboards.

PC cases with USB 3.0 support are particularly interesting here at GIGABYTE because they will make up a new product category for our list of USB 3.0 motherboard compatible products from our SuperSpeed USB partners. Stay tuned for more details around Computex time.

USB 3.0 voted most important new motherboard technology

A recent reader survey on TweakTown polled 5021 readers about what they think is the most important new motherboard technology. USB 3.0 won with a convincing 29%. CPU upgradeability and SATA 3.0 (6Gbps) followed in 2nd and 3rd place with 23% and 22% respectively.

Another high scoring item was overclockability with 12%. The full results can be found here.

Midget H55 motherboard showdown: mobo round-up from The Tech Report

The Tech Report has an excellent round-up of small form factor H55 chipset mobos that compares offerings from a number of vendors including GIGABYTE. Here are some good quotes:

“Gigabyte has scaled the motherboard market in recent years and is now on relatively equal footing with long-time industry leader Asus.”

“Why pay that much more for the (other mobo) when the Gigabyte gets you roughly the same feature set and performance for just $110? It's not like the H55M-USB3 is just cheaper—it also serves up a second physical x16 slot, RAID support for two SATA ports, and a DisplayPort connector for integrated graphics. The H55M-USB3 is more power-efficient than the EVO at idle, too, and it's nearly as good an overclocker.”

Read the review conclusion here.

Two Rosewill 3.5 inch enclosures pass GIGABYTE USB 3.0 motherboard compatibility testing

The newest additions to the GIGABYTE USB 3.0 motherboard compatibility list are two LED lit external enclosures from Rosewill. They come in two attractive flavors: black and silver. Here’s a closer look at the black version:

More information is available at www.usb3motherbaord.com or from the Rosewill website.

Swedish overclocking champion "Elmor" breaks 32M SuperPi World Record on GIGABYTE X58A-UD9

GIGABYTE X58A-UD9 motherboard was behind yet another significant global world record today. Elmor, Swedish overclocking champion, broke the record with a Core i7 980X running at 6431MHz. GIGABYTE's bios engineers made some significant changes with help of some top overclockers to improve bios efficiency beyond its competitors. Congratulations Elmor!

Thermaltake USB 3.0 single bay docking station passes GIGABYTE compatibility testing

At CES this year we saw some very interesting USB 3.0 external drive docking stations from Thermaltake. The first is a single bay version that has just passed GIGABYTE USB 3.0 motherboard compatibility testing.

It’s called the BlackX5G and if, like me, you can’t find it on their website keep an eye on this page and it should show up soon. I for one am looking forward to the dual drive docking station because it’s a perfect fit for the 5Gb/s bandwidth that SuperSpeed USB has to offer (2 x 2.5Gb/s SATA 2 drives = 5gB/s). Hopefully we’ll be playing around with one of those big boys soon.

More GIGABYTE USB 3.0 Mini-ITX goodness

SemiAccurate.com has published some pictures of the soon to be released GA-H55N-USB3- the world’s smallest USB 3.0 motherboard. The picture above shows the I/O panel that is jam-packed with high definition video and audio ports.

We’re currently at the SuperSpeed USB developers conference in Taipei where Henry Kao, our Senior VP of worldwide sales and marketing, was asked to speak during the keynote about market acceptance – we shipped our 1 millionth USB 3.0 mobo in March. This baby is also on display here for the first time with it’s retail box alongside it. Have a look at the tiny case it’s in below.

Not surprisingly, the two most common applications that are being mentioned for the Mini Monster are a media center in a similar case to the picture above, and also a portable LAN gaming system with a VGA card in the PCIe x16 slot. Silverstone has some nice chasses for this purpose.

Here’s another picture of the board in my hand where you can see my fingers protruding beyond the top and sides of the board.