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Gigabyte GA-8N-SLI Royal Motherboard Review :: The Board
The GA-8N-SLI Royal is one of the first motherboards based upon NVIDIA's new nForce for Intel chipset. The nForce4 for Intel supports all current LGA-775 CPUs including the new Dual Core (8xx series) and 64-bit CPUs (6xx series). This chipset is one of the first besides Intel's own 955 and 945 series chipsets to support Dual Core CPUs and the only one to support SLI. Earlier chipsets from Intel and other companies do not support the new Dual Core CPUs.  CPU Socket  DIMM Slots Memory support on the nForce4 for Intel SLI chipset is provided by 4 240-pin DIMM (Dual In-line Memory Modules) slots supporting DDR2 memory up to 667MHz. nForce4 for Intel SLI chipset supports up to 8GB of memory when using a 64-bit Operating System like Windows XP 64-bit or Linux, in conjunction with a 64-bit CPU like an Athlon64 or the Intel 6xx series. Up to 4GB is supported by the DIMMs when using a 32-bit OS and CPU.  PCIe x16  SLI Switch  PCIe x1  Firewire Ports  PCI Slots  12-volt Power As an SLI motherboard, the first thing you notice is two PCI Express x16 slots for the graphics cards on the board. These provide support for SLI when using NVIDIA cards like the 6600, the 6600GT, the 6800, the 6800GT and 6800 Ultra series of cards. Also present are 2 PCI Express x1 slots one above the first PCI Express x16 slot and the other in between the two PCI Express x16 slots. Also present on the board are two regular PCI 2.3 compliant slots. Next to the top PCI Express x1 slot is an EZ Plug connector that provides the extra power necessary to run the system in SLI mode.  SATA  Angled IDE Hard disk and drive support is extensive on the board. Six Serial ATA 2.0 ports are present, providing support for up to 6 SATA devices. There are boards that support up to 10 SATA devices, but I think 6 are sufficient for any user with a normal case. Also present are 3 PATA controllers and a floppy disk controller, allowing for the connection of up 6 IDE devices and 2 floppy disk devices. Gigabyte provided a Promise controller for the extra 2 SATA ports that the nForce4 for Intel SLI chipset doesn't support.       On-board sound is provided by the Realtek ALC850 CODEC. This chip provides up to 7.1 surround sound support and is pretty common on motherboards today. The 850 provides decent onboard audio, however, most motherboards on the Intel side of things now come with High Definition Audio, the replacement for the AC'97 standard that the ALC850 supports. Hopefully, NVIDIA will release a new chipset supporting HDA in the near future, but don't hold your breath as according to Doc Overclock the powers that be at NVIDIA are not concerned with hardware audio as a viable feature.  USB Header Input and output are fairly typical of motherboards today. Present are 6 sound jacks (4 Line-Out, 1 Line-In and 1 MIC) for up to 7.1 surround sound. Present are 4 USB 2.0 ports, the board also comes with 3 USB 2-port brackets, bringing the maximum to 10 USB 2.0 ports, sufficient for every possible user. Also present on the rear panel is the standard PS/2 Mouse and keyboard ports, SPDIF, COM Port 1, and 2 RJ45 jacks for onboard LAN. GIGABYTE provides two PHYs, one a Marvell 88E8111 Gigabit LAN PHY chip and the other an 88E8053 Gigabit Ethernet controller. Contents:Discuss This Article
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