For a media Q&A session held after the GO OC 2010 finals, Gigabyte continued to promote its products and carefully cultivated relationship with the overclocking community. Regarding any future plans however concerning P67 and LGA 2011, details were comparatively sparse—which is to be expected for any company that has to follow Intel’s PR line.
When asked about the reported limitations of P67 in terms of overclockability, a Gigabyte rep said he saw Sandy Bridge as a “mainstream” platform, at least when compared with the P55 and H55 platforms. One thing he could say with certainty was that all Sandy Bridge products from Gigabyte would have at least two holes to accommodate MOSFET cooling solutions—even entry-level products.
Tim Handley, the Deputy Director of motherboard marketing, gently reminded the assembled media that Gigabyte would always feature a “core” motherboard line designed for enthusiasts (recent examples include the UD7 motherboard used for GO OC 2010, and the recently released UD9). Whether or not any future P67 motherboards would fall under this category would depend on Intel’s final specifications for Sandy Bridge. Gigabyte hopes to be more definite by first week of next January, in time for CES 2011.
For LGA 2011 the only specifics we got from the Gigabyte reps was that the maker had already started designing products around the unreleased Intel CPU socket. Engineers have yet to do any significant fabrication tests, but they already have “sketches” to work with. As many already know, LGA 2011 is set for a Q3 2011 released.
A few other points that were shared during the Q&A session: Gigabyte considered GO OC 2010 a success. The company will definitely hold a competition for 2011. Gigabyte will start coloring some of their PCBs (printed circuit boards) matte black, a change resulting from “extensive” internal discussions and a desire to appeal more to system integrators. Regarding P67 and LGA 2011, Mr. Handley insisted that Gigabyte would “be ready in every way” next year.
