GygaByte's GA-7A8DW puts the Opteron's server power to use for gaming.

In spring, AMD tried to make a big splash in New York with the official launch of its long-awaited, much-talked-about dual 64 bit processor, Opteron architecture for servers. THG was in New York for that one , and wondered then, as we do now, what the Opteron could do for gaming and other fun applications (not to say that, for many, server network apps are not fun as all, even though fewer people think so). Indeed, the AMD64 does not have everything the Opteron offers, which includes an additional 1M cache and two HyperTransport buses.

The problem in April, and until now, is that boardmakers did not look to configure Opteron-based boards - they are designed for servers, right? - with graphics card slots to accommodate high-end cards from the likes of ATI and Nvidia.

So, GygaByte claims its GA-7A8DW, which will not be ready, even for pre-launch review testing, before a few weeks, accommodates an AMD 8151, 8131 or 8111 chipset, an 800 MHz FSB AND an AGP Pro 8x.

So what will that do for Unreal and other gaming applications? We can't wait to see.