Introduction and Specifications

Gigabyte is here with the second SLI capable motherboard to the PCP labs. How does it compare to the A8N-SLI?

Introduction

When NVIDIA was first telling me about the upcoming nForce4 SLI chipset motherboards and their pending release, there were three motherboard companies that were listed as having the first available chipsets and thus the first available boards.  The Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe reached my door first, followed recently by the Gigabyte K8NXP-SLI motherboard that we are reviewing here today. 

Gigabyte is one of the “Tier 1” motherboard manufacturers, meaning that they produce and sell a large portion of the motherboards sold in the world market.  This can be in both OEM and end users sales, so the companies that you might expect to see on the top tier based on the enthusiast market may be a surprise to you.  Gigabyte has been in the mainboard business for as long as I can remember, and their products have always been among the better of the crowd.  Their boards tended to be more system builder oriented than gamer and PC enthusiast oriented, but a shift has slowly occurred at the company that resulted in what we are reviewing here today: a board based on the top gaming enthusiast chipset on the market. 

In this review, we’ll look at how the Gigabyte K8NXP-SLI motherboard stacks up on its own, without the merits of SLI performance, so that users such as your self can get a clear view of what Gigabyte has to offer.  We will go over the SLI implementation that Gigabyte has chosen, but if you are looking for SLI-based graphics performance numbers, you’ll want to check out our SLI performance article after reading this review.

Specifications (from Gigabyte website)

GA-K8NXP-SLI
nForce4 SLI chipset
 
Processor

  1. Socket 939 supports AMD Athlon64/ 64 FX
Chipset

  1. NVIDIA nForce4 SLI MCPs (media and communication processors)
  2. Super I/O: ITE IT8712 chip
  3. Integrated peripherials

    1. Silicon Image sil 3114 controller
    2. T.I. IEEE1394b controller
    3. Marvell 8053 Gigabit Ethernet controller
    4. CICADA8201 Gigabit LAN PHY chip
    5. Realtek ALC850 Audio AC’97 Codec

Memory

  1. Type: Dual channel DDR400/ 333/ 266 -184pin
  2. Max capacity: Up to 4GB by 4 DIMM slots
Internal I/O Connectors

  1. 8 x Serial ATA connector (4 X Serial ATA 3.0Gb/s)
  2. 2 x UDMA ATA 133/100/66 Bus Master IDE connectors
  3. 1 x FDD connector
  4. 3 x USB 2.0/1.1 connectors (supports 6 ports)
  5. 2 x IEEE 1394b connectors (supports 3 ports)
  6. 3 x cooling fan pin headers
  7. CD/AUX in
  8. 1 x Game/Midi connector
Expansion Slots

  1. 2 x PCI-Express X 16 slot, supports two PCI-Express interface Graphics cards with SLI mode
  2. 2 x PCI-Express X 1 slots
  3. 2 x PCI slots (PCI 2.3 compliant)
Rear Panel I/O

  1. 4 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports
  2. 2 x RJ45 ports
  3. Audio (4 x Line-out/ 1 x Line-in/ 1 x MIC) connector
  4. Coaxial S/PDIF input/ output function
  5. PS/2 Keyboard/ Mouse
  6. 1 x COM port
  7. 1 x LPT
CPU/AGP/DIMM setting

  1. CPU HT / Multiplier / Vcore Voltage adjustable via BIOS
  2. PCI-ExpessX16 Voltage / Clock adjustable via BIOS
  3. DIMM Voltage / Clock adjustable via BIOS
Power

  1. ATX power connector and ATX 12V connector
  2. Power-off by Windows 98/ Me/ 2000/ XP shut down and switch
Form Factor

  1. ATX form factor
  2. 30.5 x 24.4 cm
H/W Monitoring

  1. System health status auto-detect and report by BIOS
  2. Hardware detecting and reporting for case open, CPU voltage, and fan speed
BIOS

  1. 2 X 4M bit flash ROM, Award BIOS
Other Features

  1. NVIDIA SLI multi-GPU support
  2. Dual Power System (DPS)
  3. 802.11g compatible Wireless adapter
  4. Support NVIDIA Firewall
  5. Norton Internet Security
  6. Download Center
  7. XpressTM Installation
  8. XpressTM Recovery
  9. Q-FlashTM
  10. @BIOSTM

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