I just managed to get my hands on a top hat flash.
it is an empty plcc32 socket to flip over an soldered in flash chip. attached to the socket is a secondary flash mem and some circuitry to handle the "chip enable" signal, i.e. pull down the primary one and daisy chain the data/addr bus.
now I wonder, whether it is risky to use it on a non Elitegroup mainboard and it might brick a mobo with no matching circuitry. Ideally, I hope it works on a Gigabyte M57. should I give it a go ? --Q