14 DAY TRIAL // As the upcoming Sandy Bridge launch has yet again underlined, motherboard manufacturers are engaged in an all out war, Gigabyte just upping the ante with a massive motherboard solution that is housed by a behemoth of a case and supports a yet-undisclosed CPU.
Although details are rather vague at this moment, the bit-tech website has posted an image of Tim Handley, Gigabyte's deputy director of motherboard marketing, holding a massive case that is said to house an upcoming motherboard, some rumors state this will get the UD11 designation.
However impressive it may seem, bit-tech suggests this image depicts the actual retail package, a box this large being needed in order to show the entire board through a case window.
As a result, this lead me to believe the motherboard will actually be somewhat similar to EVGA's Classified SR2, featuring a dual CPU socket design.
Furthermore, as bit-tech says they had to blur some of the logos present on the box, these processors could actually be based on the Sandy Bridge E architecture, Intel's next generation enthusiast platform that is supposed to replace Nehalem sometime in 2011.
Compared to regular Sandy Bridge processors, the E version of these chips use the FCLGA2011 socket and will boast improved overclockability and better performance.
As for its features, the word in Gigabyte's office is that the motherboard is equipped with two or more on-board SSDs striped together in a RAID 0 configuration as well as with all solid state capacitors.
Of course, no one can confirm this claims at this point, as Gigabyte hasn't even given this motherboard an official name.
Together with this massive box, Gigabyte also showed bit-tech editors some motherboards that are supposed to be part of the upcoming G1-Killer gaming mobo range, so the company won't be building just one G1 board as previously thought.