As we know, Taiwanese chipset designers, namely VIA Technologies and SiS, often launch updated versions of their chipsets in a number of month after the original release. We call such only a bit improved core-logic devices as “pseudo-new” since they contain already known set of features and differ from the predecessors very intangibly. It seems that some mainboard makers now start to go their core-logic providers’ steps: Gigabyte Technology, for example, today unveiled the second “pseudo-new” since mid-November (the first time was when they announced their second VIA KT400 powered mainboard on November the 20th).

The new GA-8PE667 Ultra 2 is nothing more than the “good-old” GA-8PE667 Ultra equipped with Serial ATA-150 controller and Gigabit Ethernet adapter. Although the novelty is not a very interesting solution, the company succeeded in reminding us about itself and even writing a short news-story on the matter.

Here are the technical details about the novelty:

• Supports Socket 478 Pentium 4 / Celeron processors with 400/533MHz FSB with 3.06GHz clock-speed and above;
• Can take advantage of the CPUs with the Hyper-Threading technology enabled;
• i845PE chipset, including i82845PE MCH and i82801DA ICH4;
• 3 DIMM slots for up to 2GB of PC2100 or PC2700 (533MHz FSB) DDR SDRAM memory.
• 6 PCI slots, 1 CNR slot and 1 AGP 4x slot;
• 2-channel ATA-100/66/33 integrated controller;
• Promise IDE RAID (0,1) Parallel ATA-33/66/100/133;
• Serial ATA-150 controller from Silicon Image, supporting two Serial ATA ports;
• 6 USB 2.0 ports;
• 10/100/1000Mbit/s Intel 82540EM Ethernet adapter;
• 6-channel AC’97 audio solution;
• Overclocking functions, including Vcore, Vmem and Vagp adjusting and so on;
• DualBIOS and other proprietary technologies from Gigabyte;
• ATX Form Factor.

Gigabyte Technology claims that with Silicon Image Serial ATA controller, the GA-8PE667 Ultra 2 provides the ability to hot swap storage devices while system is activating, which is a great breakthrough for the traditional storage devices. Well, every Serial ATA controller supports this feature, however, mainboard makers do not announce this so loudly since there are no hot swappable Serial ATA storage devices on the market now.

Information on pricing and availability was not touched upon.

See also:

- Jokes from Gigabyte: 667MHz FSB Support Now
- Intel “Granite Bay” E7205 Based Mainboard from Gigabyte Technology
- Another VIA KT400 Based Mainboard from Gigabyte
- Third Quarter Financial Results of the Taiwanese Mainboard Manufacturers