Gigabyte to ship mini-DTX motherboard in July

Los Angeles (CA) - Gigabyte today said that it will be offering a motherboard that follows AMD’s recently proposed mini DTX specifications in July of this year.

Gigabyte is the first company to announce a product based on AMD’s mini-DTX specification outlined in February of this year. The new motherboard is currently on display at the WinHEC 2007 conference in Los Angeles and is promised to be shipping in July.

Targeted at Home Media Servers, the board measures 170 mm x 203 mm, which is slightly larger than the footprint of Apple’s Mac mini (165 mm x 165 mm). The Gigabyte board is compatible with AMD’s AM2 socket for Sempron and Athlon X2 processors and comes with a Gigabit Ethernet interface and six SATA ports, including an eSATA jack on the back panel. Also available are four external USB ports, four internal USB ports and a HD audio interface. A trusted platform module to lock down certain content is an option.

A unique feature is extended support for LEDs - more than 10, according to Gigabyte, which provides more flexibility for system builders to integrate status indicators for key functions of a Home Media Server device. According to the manufacturer, the board supports Microsoft Windows Home Server operating system as well as SageTV’s Media Server Software.

Pricing has not been announced.