ASUS Z77 and H77 boards get an addon card for Thunderbolt
Laurence Howe / 13 years ago
ASUS has plans to give several of its Z77 and H77 chipsets-based motherboards support for Thunderbolt I/O by means of an optional add-on card. Several of currently-launched ASUS 7-series chipset motherboards feature a header marked “TB_HEADER”, which lets the motherboard interface with the Thunderbolt I/O add-on card.
This header most likely transmits the motherboard’s DisplayPort link (from the Flexible Display Interface) to the Thunderbolt I/O card.
The card itself is likely based on Intel’s 2-channel “Cactus Ridge” Thunderbolt controller, and connects to the system bus over PCI-Express 2.0 x4. ASUS motherboards supporting the optional Thunderbolt add-on card with the TB_HEADER include Maximus V Gene, P8Z77-V Deluxe, P8Z77-V Pro, P8Z77-V, Sabertooth Z77, P8H77-V, and P8H77-M Pro. The Thunderbolt I/O card should be available starting April 27.
Source: VR-Zone
