GIGABYTE GA-K8N51PVMT-9 Motherboard Review :: The Board

Gigabyte GA-K8N51PVMT-9 Spec Sheet
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Part Number	GA-K8N51PVMT-9
Manufacturer	Gigabyte
Price Check	Find Best Price
Downloads	BIOS Drivers Manuals
Chipset	Nvidia Geforce 6150 nForce 430
North Bridge	Nvidia 6150
Socket	Socket 939
Processor Types	Athlon 64X2, Athlon 64FX, Athlon 64
Number of CPUs	1
Front Side Bus	1GHz HyperTransport Bus Link
Memory Type	DDR
Memory Channels	Dual
Maximum Memory	4GB
External Graphics	PCI Express x16
IGP	Nvidia Geforce 6150
South Bridge	Nvidia nForce 430
Audio	8-channel
IDE	133/100/66/33
SCSI	None
SATA	3.0 GB/s
RAID	0, 1, 0+1, 5
LAN	10/100/1000
Firewire	None
USB	USB 2.0
Expansion Slots
BIOS	AWARD
Form Factor	microATX

The GA-K8N51PVMT-9 is based upon NVIDIA's new GEFORCE 6150 chipset. This chipset supports all current AMD Socket 939 CPUs including the FX-57 and AMD Athlon 4800+ Dual Core CPUs. Next year we're likely to move to the new 940 pin Socket M2 which will provide new opportunities for upgrading the computer. For now, the Socket 939 CPUs are popular among a wide variety of overclockers and hardware enthusiasts.

CPU Socket Area

DIMM slots

Memory support on the GIGABYTE board consists of 4 DIMM slots for up to 4GB of unbuffered non-ECC DDR memory. AMD will move to DDR2 memory support once M2 arrives but that's not until next year. Dual Channel memory is supported by installing two like memory modules into two like colored DIMM slots. 1+2 3+4 or 1+2+3+4 combinations would provide dual channel.

PCI Express x16 slot

PCI slots

Expansion on the board consists of a single PCI Express x16 slot, a PCI Express x1 slot and two PCI V2.3 compliant slots. Being a mini-ATX format, the GIGABYTE board has typical expansion room. If you are an enthusiast looking for the ultimate in performance and expansion I would suggest a SLI x16 board or an SLI board. For the target market this chipset is aiming at, the expansion is sufficient for most people.

SATA ports

IDE ports

Drive expansion on the board is fairly typical of motherboards today. Four SATA ports are supported by NVIDIA's South Bridge, and that's what is present on the board. NVIDIA's chipset supports SATA 2 functionality with 3 Gb/second and Native Command Queuing fully supported by the chipset. NVRAID supports RAID 0, 1, 0+1, 5 and JBOD. Also present on the board are two IDE ports and a floppy drive port.

Back Panel

The back panel I/O area of the board has two additions due to the inclusion of integrated graphics on the board, the D-Sub and the TV-Out ports. I wish GIGABYTE had included a DVI-I port, but ah well. Also on the rear of the board is the PS/2 Mouse and Keyboard ports, 4 USB 2.0 ports, 6 jacks for the onboard audio and a Firewire port.