The Intel 865PE chipset is actively cooled

Gigabyte has learned from competitors, Biostar and Asus. The company now offers a wireless LAN module with its standard model GA-8IPE1000 Pro2-W motherboard for wireless data transmission.

The 802.11 module connects to one of the two internal USB 2.0 ports and offers a theoretical data transfer rate of 11 MBit/s. A 128-Bit encryption option is available that, however, gobbles up a lot of bandwidth when activated. The card will also be of interest to notebook users who would like to synchronize their data with their home PC. Users can wirelessly transfer files between notebooks and the PC - provided, that is, that the laptop is WLAN-enabled.

The Socket 478 motherboard is based on Intel's 865PE/Springdale chipset for Pentium 4 processors and is already equipped for the new P4 Prescott. Among the many onboard functions are Serial ATA, USB 2.0, 5.1 audio and IEEE 1394a (FireWire). An Intel 82547 module that supports Gigabit LAN handles the traditional LAN connection. The board contains four DIMM slots that can be expanded to a maximum of 4 GBytes of memory. If you use two or even four identical memory sticks, memory access will work in dual-channel mode and enable much speedier memory access.

The flashy box is an eye-catcher

Everything there: the most important connectors are on board

The wireless LAN module takes up one internal USB connector and one of the five PCI ports.