Feb 1, 2011 20:41 GMT  ·  By

Slated to be released later this year, the first official details about Intel's high-performance LGA 2011 platform have just become available thanks to a leaked slide that describes the company's first Sandy Bridge-E CPUs motherboards as well as their launch date.

LGA 2011 socket will support Intel's upcoming high-end consumer desktop processors, code-named Sandy Bridge-E.

Sadly, details are really scarce at this time, but the VR-Zone website managed to publish an image that reveals the code names of the first LGA 2011 motherboards to be released by Intel.

The models are called "Silver" and "Thorsby" and, according to the slide, are expected to arrive sometime in the second half of this year.

As the new platform will cater to extreme enthusiasts, the two boards are destined to replace the company's current LGA 1366 motherboards.

The specifications of the "Silver" and "Thorsby" boards are not known at this time, but the Sandy Bridge-E CPUs that are destined to be paired with these motherboards integrate almost all the chip logic that was previously found in the northbridge inside their die, similarly to the current Sandy Bridge processors.

This means that the motherboard will only feature a single chipset, called a PCH, just as it was the case with the P55 and P67.

From previous leaks, we know that Sandy Bridge-E processors pack quad-channel memory support as well as 40 PCI Express 3.0 lanes.

According to VR-Zone, these could be split into as much as five different PCIe slots with eight 3.0 lanes worth of bandwidth, but most motherboards won't feature more than two full length PCI Express x16 expansion slots.

LGA 1366 was one of Intel's longest lived platforms as it was introduced in November 2008, together with the Bloomfield CPU line, and, currently, is the only socket to support the company's six-core Gulftown processor series.

First LGA 2011 motherboards from Intel's partners are expected to be showcased during the Computex 2011 fare, which starts on the 31st of May 2011.

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