|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
Abit AN8 32X Motherboard Review :: The Board
The nForce4 SLI x16 chipset supports all current AMD Athlon 64 Socket 939 CPUs, including the 4800+, the FX-60, and the single-core CPUs on the market. AMD is set to release a new Socket chipset later this year in the AM2, but for now, all the high-end CPUs are supported.  CPU Socket area  DIMM slots ABIT outfitted the board with 4 DIMM (Dual In-line Memory Module) slots. This brings the memory supported on the memory to 4GB of unbuffered non-ECC DDR memory. AMD will move to DDR2 later in the year with their AM2 Socket, but at the moment, DDR memory is the only memory supported on the AMD platform. 4GB is the normal amount on motherboards today, as 32-bit Windows can only address 4GB.  PCI Express slots  PCI slots  PCI Express lock  Dual PCI Express x16 slots Expansion on the board is dominated by the fact there are 2 PCI Express x16 slots on the board. The nForce4 x16 chipset supports dual x16 lanes on the chipset. Previous SLI chipsets supported dual x8 lanes, due to the 20 lane limitation of the chipset. NVIDIA introduced the x16 chipset to allow full use of 2 x16 slots. Whether it makes any difference in applications is another story.  SATA ports  2 SATA ports  PATA ports  Floppy drive port Drive expansion on the board is excellent. There are 6 SATA ports on the board, 2 above the normal seen on most motherboards. SATA has replaced the IDE port for hard drives and there are even SATA CD-ROM drives on the market today. Some manufacturers build boards with 8 or even 10 SATA ports, but there usually aren't 10 drive bays in a case. ABIT includes two IDE ports and a floppy drive port to round out the drive expansion on the board. Realtek Audio shots       Audio Jacks Realtek ALC850 CODEC Onboard audio is provided by the Realtek ALC850 CODEC. This CODEC supports 7.1 Surround-Sound; which means you would have front left, front right, left surround, right surround, rear left, rear right, and Center and Subwoofer speakers. NVIDIA has introduced HDA (High Definition Audio) into their GeForce 6150 motherboards, but HDA is not available with current nForce4 x16 motherboards.  Rear I/O USB  Vitesse PHY The back panel I/O ports on the board include the standard PS/2 Mouse and Keyboard ports, 6 jacks for the onboard audio, 4 USB 2.0 ports, a RJ45 jack for the LAN, a Firewire port, a S/PDIF In and a S/PDIF Out port. Missing from the package is a Parallel port; however, most printers today use the USB 2.0 interface, so the need for the Parallel Port is diminished anyways in most situations. Contents:Discuss This Article
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
