There are four of them, not counting the one with Thunderbolt support

May 1, 2013 12:27 GMT  ·  By

Not too long ago, Intel decided it was time to quit while it was ahead and leave the motherboard market. It even cut orders by 80% in March, and we have even covered the presumably last and best mainboard too.

Given what was discovered in the company's support download portal, however, we might have to revise our expectations. VR-Zone dug everything up.

Chipzilla is not out of the mainboard industry yet. In fact, it has no fewer than four 8-series Lynx Point boards on the way.

The platforms will be released alongside the Haswell CPU line in June, or perhaps a bit earlier.

First off we have the DB85FL (Frost Lake), powered by an Intel B85 Express chipset. It has four SATA 6Gb/s and 2 SATA 3Gb/s, plus a PCI Express 3.0 x16 slot and a pair of PCI Express 2.0 x1 slots.

Then, there are the four USB 3.0 connectors, 8 USB 2.0, 8-channel audio, DVI-I + HDMI display output (dual independent displays) and Smart Connect / Small Business Advantage technology. All in a micro-ATX package.

DH87MC (Meadow Creek) is the second board, an ATX model based on H87 chipset, with the same PCI Express layout as above, plus a PCI Express 2.0 x4 slot, a mini PCI Express slot, six SATA 6 Gbps ports, 10 USB 2.0 + 4 USB 3.0 ports, 10-channel audio and DVI-I + HDMI + DisplayPort (triple independent displays).

Third, we have DH87MC (Round Lake), another micro-ATX. It gets the Intel H87 Express chipset, six SATA 6 Gbps ports (one mSATA), 6 USB 2.0 + 8 USB 3.0 ports, 10-channel audio, triple-display output as above.

Rapid Storage Technology (RAID 0/1/5/10), Smart Response, Rapid Start and Smart Connect technologies are included too.

Finally, the micro-ATX DQ87PG (Spring Cave) uses the Q87 chipset and supports vPro with AMT 9.0, Identity Protection, Anti-theft Technology, Smart Response, and Rapid Storage Technology (RAID 0/1/5/10).

DisplayPort + DVI-D + Analog D-SUB are the video ports, and connectivity is provided by 6 USB 2.0 ports, 8 USB 3.0, Parallel/Serial Port and PS/2. Six SATA 6Gb/s (one via mSATA) and a PCI Express 3.0 x16 slot, plus one PCIe 2.0 x1 and two PCI, complete the specs sheet.

No prices are known, for any of the four products.