While we know quite a bit about the upcoming Intel Sandy Bridge CPU architecture we have yet to see much about the platform it will run on.  The processor socket might look the same but we are told this LGA1155 (vs the LGA1156 for Lynnfield and Clarkdale) change will not allow the CPUs to swap spots.  Because the Sandy Bridge CPU will have pin outs for video headers and will actually be electrically different, you’ll be buying a new board if you want to upgrade.

Speaking of those upgrades, we did see a handful of motherboards on display calling themselves either “Intel Sandy Bridge” motherboards or “Intel 6-series Chipset” motherboards.

Computex: Intel Sandy Bridge 6-series motherboards make appearance - Motherboards 5

This first board was spotted at the ASRock booth and was called the P67 Extreme3.  Listed as using an Intel 6-series chipset the board supports up to 3-Way configurations for both SLI and CrossFire and features SATA 6G.  I will be curious to see if the new 6-series chipsets have improved the situation for PCI Express lanes or if we are still left with a paltry x4 PCIe that the 5-series has. 

Computex: Intel Sandy Bridge 6-series motherboards make appearance - Motherboards 6

We can’t devise much just by looking at the P67 chipset but there it is!

Computex: Intel Sandy Bridge 6-series motherboards make appearance - Motherboards 7

This is the Jetway IH65 that looks a little lower end with the pair of PCIe x16 slots.

Computex: Intel Sandy Bridge 6-series motherboards make appearance - Motherboards 8

Finally, the ECS P67H2-A motherboard is the most advanced of the three shown here and will come with four SATA 6G ports, 4 USB 3.0 ports (thank you!!), dual Gigabit LAN and support for two full speed x16 PCIe 2.0 slots. 

Other than these details it is hard to get any more information simply based on motherboard pictures and basic spec lists.  It doesn’t look like the 6-series will integrate SATA 6G though but because I don’t see any USB 3.0 chips on the board it’s possible Intel has added USB 3.0 to the next series.  We will likely find out in September at the Intel Developer Forum or at least when we hit the launch period in Q1 2011.