San Jose, CA (September 27, 1999) - Supermicro has announced the release of four new motherboards based on Intel’s 810E chipset. The PIIISEA and PIIISED are Slot 1 ATX boards and the 370SEA and 370SED are 370-pin Celeron PPGA boards. (The 370SEA is an ATX board while the 370SED is a microATX form factor board.) All four boards feature ATA 66, 133/100/66 MHz front side bus speeds, AC’97 onboard sound and Direct AGP with a 4 MB display cache for onboard graphics. This display cache boosts the 2D and 3D performance of Direct AGP and efficiently allocates system memory for graphics. The 133 MHz front side bus speed will support future Pentium processors at speeds beyond 600 MHz, allowing these boards to keep pace with future processor upgrades. All four boards also include an AMR slot for add-on audio or modem cards.

The PIIISEA has 4 PCI and 3 ISA slots, while the PIIISED forfeits ISA to offer 6 PCI slots. The 370SED has 3 PCI slots and also adds a TV-Out interface, which allows display output to a TV screen. This is accomplished by a TV encoder that encodes the digital pixel data. TV-Out can simplify presentations, allow games to be played on larger TV screens and can actually eliminate the need of a separate monitor. The 370SEA features 1 ISA and 6 PCI slots as well as a dedicated direct digital out port to support full digital LCD flat panel displays. Full digital LCD displays represent the next generation of display technology, extending this board’s display support into the future. This direct video out port supports both NTSC and PAL standards.

Other features included on all boards are Wake-on-LAN and Suspend to RAM, which can wake the system up from a deep power saving mode in seconds. Color-coded I/O ports based on the PC 99 standard simplify system setup and hardware BIOS protection and a BIOS Recovery Procedure safeguard the 4 Mb AMIBIOS used on all boards, eliminating the need of redundant sets of BIOS components. In addition, the chipset's Firmware Hub (FWH) also stores the system BIOS and video BIOS.

The high integration of the 810 chipset offers an economical, nearly complete package. It is also flexible enough so that both the onboard sound and graphics can be bypassed by using add-on cards and changing a jumper setting. This brings the total number of Supermicro’s 810 boards to nine, offering a wide choice of configurations for today’s high-integration desktop PCs.

Supermicro is a leading supplier of desktop and high-end motherboards and servers. Since its founding in 1993, Supermicro has led the industry in delivering cutting-edge technology such as the first solution for the I2O architecture. Supermicro strives to build long-term relationships with its customers by providing outstanding engineering innovations, quality and reliability. Supermicro’s server building block solutions decrease systems integrators’ time-to-market by ensuring the interoperability of all components. All Supermicro products are available through OEMs and distributors.