14 DAY TRIAL // Gigabyte has brought quite a few LGA 2011 solutions powered by Intel's X79 chipset at this year's IDF gathering, including the second version of the gaming-oriented G1.Assassin motherboard, which features the same advanced specs as its predecessors but now gets support for Sandy Bridge-E CPUs.
Gigabyte's latest creation borrows from its predecessors just the black and green paint scheme and some of its features, but otherwise it is an entirely new design with a much more traditional PCH heatsink.
This change should please quite a few users as many have complained about the tacky gun-inspired theme used for the original G1.Assassin.
Moving to the layout, the board comes with almost everything one might expect from a high-end motherboard, including three PCI Express x16 slots with 3-way CrossFireX and SLI support and a high-power 8-phase VRM with POScaps and Driver MOSFETs.
Outside of the three PCI Express x16 slots, the rest of the expansion options available in the Assassin include two PCIe x1 and a legacy 32-bit PCI slot, four SATA 3Gbps ports, four SATA 6Gbps port as well as four SAS 6Gbps ports.
To these expansion options, Gigabyte has also added an integrated Creative X-Fi PCI Express sound card featuring Nichicon MUSE audio capacitors and a Killer E2100 network card with 1GB of dedicated DDR2 memory.
Moving to the rear I/O bracket, we find all the usual connectors including a pair of USB 3.0 ports and 7.1-channel audio with digital S/PDIF out driven by the X-Fi sound card, but also a special OC button and a CMOS reset switch.
As expected, no information regarding the release date or the price of the G1.Assasin 2 motherboard was provided, but Gigabyte's creation should make its entrance into the market shortly after Sandy Bridge-E is introduced in Q4 of this year. (via AnandTech)