Seven USB 3.0/SATA 6.0Gbps P55 Motherboards from Gigabyte

Gigabyte, one of the world's leading vendors of desktop motherboards, has just announced an upcoming line of new solutions that will provide its customers with support for the much-anticipated USB 3.0 interface, as well as the SATA 6.0 Gbps. The news comes just after one of the company's USB 3.0, SATA 6.0Gbps-enabled motherboards was recently leaked on the Internet, pointing to an upcoming official debut. The new lineup includes no less than seven new models, all of which have been designed to take advantage of Intel's new generation of P55 mainstream chipsets.

According to the details of the upcoming Gigabyte motherboard lineup, the Taiwanese company is preparing seven new boards for consumers worldwide, including the GA-P55A-UD6, GA-P55A-UD5, GA-P55A-UD4P, GA-P55A-UD4, GA-P55A-UD3P, GA-P55A-UD3R and GA-P55A-UD3. All of these are designed on the aforementioned P55 and boast the Ultra Durable 3 design. They also feature support for LGA 1156-compatible Core i5 and Core i7 processors, DDR3 memory, two USB 3.0 ports and SATA 6.0 Gbps connectors.

The support for SATA 6.0Gbps and USB 3.0 connectivity has been enabled by the NEC uPD720200 and Marvell 88SE9128 controllers, which have been integrated into the design of the upcoming boards. This will provide consumers with speeds of up to 10 times faster than today's USB 2.0 interface, while the SATA 6.0Gbps connection will deliver double the transfer speeds of current technology.

No word on pricing just yet, but the new lineup is scheduled to start shipping in the upcoming weeks, while DIY users might get a chance to get one sometime before this year's holiday season. The name difference between the updated lineup and the current line of P55 models is that the upcoming boards will have an “A” after P55 in their name.