Layout
Packaging for this 8Σ series board is very well presented. It's the biggest packaging I have seen for a motherboard. It's about the size of 2 boards. It comes as a carry box that opens into 2 compartments held together by a velcro patch. All over the box are details of the features integrated in this motherboard. You can also see in the second compartment a windowed view of the U-Plus D.P.S card.
Box 1 contains the motherboard, cds, manuals, cables, etc. while Box 2 contains the U-Plus D.P.S card, the Wireless LAN card and the detachable northbridge cooler. Note that Box 1 also functions as a "Mini Setup Platform". Meaning it can be used as your temporary case as it was designed to accommodate your HDD, optical drives, floppy drives and your system's IDE and power cables. This is helpful for those enthusiasts who plan to use it as a testing platform.
As for the motherboard itself, it is made on a blue PCB. The motif is quite colorful as it employs quite a range of different colors for each connector and slot. This might not suit the taste of some users but it is definitely not boring.
Hear we see for the first time the new LGA775 pin configuration. This brand new processor means added overall system performance through the increase in clock frequency and a larger cache size. The new package also includes enhanced pin-out for optimizing the layout of the motherboard and Direct Socket Loading (DSL) to prevent package pullout and heat sink loading. Unlike previous P4 socket platform, the pins are now gone from the processor but can now be found on the motherboard. This is indeed a big change that will influence most users in their decision about upgrading. Note that the area around the socket is ideal for even the biggest of heatsink and waterblock.
Directly above the socket area, we will find the slot for the Universal Plus Dual Power System (U-Plus D.P.S.) card. This feature promises to add additional system stability by providing a never heard of 8-phase power circuit. This particular card is equipped with a specially designed copper heat-pipe structure that greatly improves cooling performance. Its aero-dynamic design enhances ventilation thru airflow generated by the CPU cooler fan. It is also equipped with intelligent CPU loading detector LCDs. Who needs 3 or 4 phase power circuits when you can have 8?
The expansion slots consists of the much talked about PCI-Express platform that replaces the AGP slot and soon the PCI slots as well. There is the presence of 1 PCIe X 16 slot for the graphics and another 3 PCIe X 1 slots. Note that this board still has 2 "normal" PCI slots that we can use.
The ATX power header is located in the bottom of the motherboard directly below the DIMM slots. Note that the ATX header is already set to receive the new 24-pin V2.2 PSUs. However, it is still backward compatible to our "old" 20-pin PSUs. PCI-Express graphics card eats a lot of power and there has been some issues with old 20-pin PSUs not standing up to these new breed of cards. In our case though, our old PSU was able to get the job done. There is also the presence of a +12v connector typical of Pentium 4 boards. It is situated just behind the I/O ports above the northbridge.
As this board supports a Duo DDR design, it has DIMM slots allocated for both DDR1 and DDR2 modules. Each slot is color coded for dual channel configuration. There are 4 slots for DDR1 (orange and lavander) and only 2 slots for DDR2 (yellow). On top of each DIMM are their corresponding voltage rating, 2.5v for DDR1 and 1.8v for DDR2. You will also see the DDR assignment of each slot imprinted on the PCB. You will never get confused with this great layout.
There are 4 SATA connectors, 3 IDE connectors and 1 floppy connector. Each located near one another below the motherboard beside the ATX header. Placement of IDE1 and Floppy connector is definitely very bad as it interferes with the PCI-Express card that we are using for this test. If you are using SATA drives and don't have any need for floppy drives, this won't be a problem. However, if you are using IDE drives and don't plan on upgrading your HDD, your IDE cable will need to be bended in such a way to accomodate the PCI-Express graphics card.
This board is Dual Gigabit LAN equipped. It uses the Marvell 8001 and the Broadcom 5751 chip to deliver this feature. With Dual Gigabit LAN, users can now enjoy the freedom of simlutaneous WAN and LAN connection for instant internet access and networking at a blazing 1,000 Mbps. The board is also supplied with Gigabyte's GN-WPKG card that delivers 802.11g wireless connect technology to the user. It offers the benefits of integrated AP and router functionality as well as simplifying connectivity to an existing wireless network, making it the ideal solution for a small office or home network.
The firewire capability is made possible by 2 chips, namely the TSB82AA2 and TSB81BA3. Both this chip are manufactured by Texas Instruments. The TSB82AA2 OHCI-Lynx is a discrete 1394b link-layer device, which has been designed to meet the demanding requirements of today’s 1394 bus designs. The TSB81BA3 provides the digital and analog transceiver functions needed to implement a three-port node in a cable-based IEEE 1394 network. It is designed to interface with a link-layer controller (LLC), such as the TSB82AA2. This new and unique IEEE 1394b controllers double Firewire speeds up to 800Mbps.
Dual BIOS haas been a feature synonymous with Gigabyte boards for long time now and of course this board is also equipped with such. There are 2 Phoenix BIOS chips to make sure that you will never have a dead board due to BIOS flashing errors or viruses.
IDE Raid is handled by the GigaRAID IT8212F chip manufactured by ITE. It can support up to 4 Ultra ATA-133 drives. This would be useful for those still using IDE HDDs wanting to utilise RAID functionality. You don't have to ditch those old IDE drives if having RAID is critical to your system.
By now all new boards has support for USB2.0. This particular board sports up to 8 USB ports. 4 are located in the back I/O panel and the rest are located in 2 PCI brackets together with the Firewire port. These 2 PCI brackets connects to the board's USB headers located conveniently out of the way at the sides.
Azalia Audio is provided by C-Media's CMI9880 codec which supports Intel's High Definition Audio. Delight in a wide range of features such as enhanced multi-channel audio, improved voice and communication input and multi-streaming capability to heighten and expand your multimedia experience. High quality audio formats such as Dolby Digital, DTS and Dolby's new Dolby Pro Logic IIx technology for crsip 7.1 channel equal to that of home stereo systems. Who needs 5.1 Channel now?
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