It has been several months now since the launch of Intel's Z77 Express desktop platform, yet, in a big way, not all touted features of the platform are readily available. We've seen many CPU-on-board products emerge over the Spring/Summer timeframe, as well as many new VGAs that support Intel's new PCIe 3.0 support and extra device support. Yet, at the chipset level, one big hole remains and that's Thunderbolt support.

Apple products have long supported Thunderbolt with, under others, many external devices, but the Windows-OS platform has missed this new feature and that's about to change. There are a few different Thunderbolt controllers out there that board makers can use and, over the coming months, I'll be covering many different solutions – the first in my hands is the Gigabyte Z77X-UP5 TH.