CES 2011 is less than a week away and although the buzz of the show is sure to be an abundance of Android-based tablets aiming to compete with the Apple iPad, most PC hardware enthusiasts are looking forward to Intel's launch of the 2nd Generation Core Family of processors. Codenamed Sandy Bridge, we already know a great deal about this new processor thanks to multiple early leaks and preview articles. Some retailers are breaking Intel's street release date and have been selling Sandy Bridge CPUs and notebooks based on these new chips ahead of the official launch anticipated next week.

Motherboards supporting the new LGA 1155 Socket are starting to appear online such as the ECS P67H2-A2 we have on hand today. Although we can't share any performance numbers just yet, we can take a detailed look at the P67H2-A2's features and layout, one of four new Black Series boards that ECS will be launching based on the P67 chipset.


The retail P67H2-A2 arrived in the colorful black box seen above featuring a holographic overlay. Features and specifications line the front and the back of the standard ATX size box.


Included in the retail box is the board itself, a SLI cable, eight SATA 6Gb/s cables with locking pins, a dual port USB 3.0 cable with options to mount in a 3.5" bay or an expansion slot at the back of the system, an I/O shield, user manual, quick guide, mounting screws, driver CD and a package of USB caps.

Let's move ahead and take a closer look at the specifications.