A couple of weeks ago we mentioned that Gigabyte was working on a follow up to their highly successful GA-H55N-USB3 mini-ITX motherboard. The details of the new LGA1155 board are just starting to trickle out, including this photo posted on a Swedish website, and it appears that the new Sandy Bridge mini-ITX board from Gigabyte will be known as the GA-H67N-USB3.
Gigabyte’s new GA-H67N-USB3 looks very similar to its LGA1156 predecessor. The main feature added to the new H67N-USB3 is support for the SATA 3.0 standard, courtesy of the new Intel H67 chipset, allowing speeds up to 6Gbps. To make sure your drive connection requirements are covered, Gigabyte has included two SATA 3Gbps ports and two 6Gbps ports on the motherboard.
Speaking of motherboard connections, it also looks like Gigabyte has added headers for USB 3.0, alongside the standard USB 2.0, allowing us to finally take advantages of cases like the Lian Li PC-Q08 that offer front USB 3.0 ports.
On the previous H55N motherboard, Gigabyte chose to go with full size DIMM slots, rather than space saving SO-DIMM slots. They’ve carried that feature over to the new H67N-USB3 board with two DDR3 slots. The H55N proved to have impressive overclocking abilities for a mini-ITX motherboard. Due to the wider availability of higher speed DIMMs, the new H67N-USB3 should also overclock well.
No details have surfaced on the connectivity options for the rear panel but considering the similarities between the GA-H67N-USB and its predecessor, we are expecting to find a selection of USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports, eSATA and optical audio. WiFi does not appear to be included and there is no mention of Bluetooth connectivity so far.
We’ll keep you updated with any new details that emerge.