Expensive and Large – Intel D5400XS Motherboard (Cont’d)

For its on-board sound chip, Intel chose the Sigmatel STAC9274 also found on several other Intel motherboards. This chip is considered one of the best on-board sound solutions. The D5400XS also features an optical digital output.

In addition to the power and reset switches, the motherboard also sports a Port-80 diagnostic display, a system speaker and a blue HDD-LED.

D5400XS Motherboard Feature Table

Component	On Board	I/O-Shield
PCI	2	none
PCIe 16x	4	none
PCIe 4x	none	none
SATA	6	none
eSATA	none	2
LPT	none	none
COM	none	none
Firewire 1394a	1	1
USB 2.0	4	6
Fan (PWM)	3	none
Fan	5	none

Board – No Room for High-End Graphics Cards

Intel’s D5400XS motherboard features four PCI-Expre x16 slots for graphics cards. Thus, buyers can create multi-card configurations using either Nvidia’s SLI or ATI’s Crossfire. Sadly, the spacing between the ports was poorly chosen, accommodating either up to three dual-slot cards or four single-slot cards. This is quite disappointing for a motherboard from the high-end price bracket. While it is true that there neither graphics chip company currently offers support for four-card configurations today, the Skulltrail represents the ideal performance basis for just such a setup – and the same should hold true for the expandability and upgrade options. Sadly, this is not true of the current design.

• 3 – Expensive and Large – Intel D5...
  

  1. 1 – Intel D5400XS with Quad-Channel
  2. 2 – Expensive and Large – Intel D5400XS Motherboard
  3. 3 – Expensive and Large – Intel D5400XS Motherboard (Cont’d)
  4. 4 – Motherboard – The Intel 5400 Northbridge
  5. 5 – Motherboard – Active Cooling Required
  6. 6 – Motherboard – Intel 6321ESB Southbridge
  7. 7 – Motherboard – Nvidia nForce 100 SLI Bridge for 4 Graphics Cards
  8. 8 – 1000 Watt Power Supply
  9. 9 – 4 Graphics Cards – Ready for SLI and Crossfire
  10. 10 – Memory – Quad-Channel with FB-DIMMs
  11. 11 – Memory – Memory Interface and Quad-Channel
  12. 12 – Memory – Not Suited for Desktop and Gaming Systems
  13. 13 – Memory – FB-DIMMs Less Expensive than DDR3
  14. 14 – Other Parts of this Article
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