Gigabyte GA-X38-DQ6: Overclocking Champ, Continued
The Ultra ATA connector faces forward to tuck under long expansion cards, and cable installation into "tight" cases is still possible if the cable is installed before dropping the motherboard into place since ATA cables use 90-degree ends. The only problem we perceive is a possible cable-length issue when trying to reach the upper drive bays of tall cases, but it’s about time builders started using similarly-priced Serial ATA optical drives.
Gigabyte is the last company to ditch rear-panel parallel and serial ports and has instead positioned headers at the bottom edge of the board, which is a convenient location for connecting breakout plates. IEEE-1394 and USB 2.0 connectors located forward of these headers are also forward of the bottom PCI slot for easier cable installation.
Gigabyte’s placement of front panel audio connectors near the middle of a board’s rear edge makes sense for two reasons: First, it’s adjacent to the rear panel audio jacks, which can reduce trace length for decreased noise. Second, this location makes it easy to connect a front-panel audio cable to either top- or bottom-mounted case jacks.
Gigabyte always appreciates any mention of its "Ultra Durable" features, comprising ferrite core chokes in addition to all solid capacitors. However, most other brands have copied these efforts simply to steal a bit of Gigabyte’s thunder.
| Gigabyte GA-X38-DQ6 (Revision 1.0) | |
|---|---|
| Northbridge | Intel X38 Express MCH |
| Southbridge | Intel ICH9R |
| Voltage Regulator | Twelve Phases |
| BIOS | F5i (10/19/2007) |
| 333.3 MHz (FSB1333) | 333.3 MHz (+0.0%) |
| Connectors and Interfaces | |
| Onboard | 2x PCIe x16
3x PCIe x1 2x PCI 2x USB 2.0 (2 ports per connector) 1x IEEE-1394 FireWire 1x Parallel Port header 1x Serial Port header 1x Floppy 1x Ultra ATA (2 drives) 8x Serial ATA 3.0Gb/s 1x Front Panel Audio 1x CD-Audio In 1x S/P-DIF In 1x S/P-DIF Out 2x Fan 4 pins (CPU/System) 3x Fan 3 pins (System/Power) |
| IO panel | 2x PS2 (keyboard + mouse)
2x RJ-45 Network 8x USB 2.0 2x IEEE-1394 FireWire 2x Digital Audio Out (S/P-DIF optical + coaxial) 6x Analogue Audio (7.1 Channel + Mic-In + Line-In) |
| Mass Storage Controllers | |
| Intel ICH9R | 6x SATA 3.0Gb/s (RAID 0,1,5,10) |
| GigaByte SATA2 (by JMicron) | 1x Ultra ATA-100 (2-drives)
2x SATA 3.0Gb/s (RAID 0,1, JBOD) |
| Network | |
| 2x Realtek RTL8111B PCI-E | 2x Gigabit LAN Connection |
| Audio | |
| HDA (Azalia) Controller Interface | Realtek ALC889A 8 + 2 Channel Codec |
| FireWire | |
| Texas Instruments TSB43AB23 | 3x IEEE-1394a (400 Mb/s) |
Gigabyte continues its use of Realtek’s top-quality ALC889A codec, advertising a full-rate lossless signal at a 106db signal-to-noise ratio in addition to multi-streaming independent sound streams to the front panel and rear panel ports.
Because the GA-X38-DQ6 has only the two native PCI-Express x16 and three x1 slots, the three remaining PCI-Express pathways are able to provide two gigabit network controllers and the added-in SATA/Ultra ATA controller with full bi-directional bandwidth.
Ditching the parallel and serial ports gave Gigabyte a lot of room for connectors. The back panel features PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports, optical and coaxial digital audio outputs, two IEEE-1394 ports, two Gigabit Ethernet ports, eight USB 2.0 ports and six analogue audio jacks. Eight rear-panel USB 2.0 ports appear impressive but reduce the number of internal USB connectors to two (supporting four ports). With a large number of cases providing four "front panel" USB 2.0 ports and the popularity of additional USB drive bay devices, we’d have liked to see at least one more internal USB header even though it would have reduced the number of rear panel USB ports to six.
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Given that the only reason why anyone would ever buy a DDR2 X38 board rather than P35 is the potentially superior Crossfire performance, where are the Crossfire gaming numbers?
I like the foxconn combo DDR2/DDR3 board as it allows for future upgrade. But why do they offer 2xDDR3 slots 4XDDR2? It would be better the other way around as most current games are happy with 2 gig of ram but by the time DDR3 becomes a more reasonable option it may be 4 gig of ram will be required so you would have to use 2x2gb DDR3 modules. Trouble with that is that certainly with DDR2 the 2gb modules are of more limited availability and generally restricted to the mid range speeds.
DDR2 2gb are not limted, i had no problems getting them, i hate to have to buy DDR3 2gb sticks, ram companys are rakeing it in
Sorry Leexgx but that is not correct - there is far less choice of 2gb DDR2 modules than there is of 1gb modules and those that are available are in the mid range speed bracket and not the top performers.
I understand what you say about the price of DDR3 but my point was that they will come down in price and become a realistic option at which point it may be that 4gb of ram will be the required amount. It's just a pity that the combo boards in those circumstances would restrict you to buying 2gb modules which may have the same "problems" (for want of a better word) as the DDR2 series.
not very true nicoslab! I will get an x38-ddrII card and that for sure not because of crossfire support. I will use my 2 nvidia cards on it which do require 2 x16 (not as sli but for multiple displays)
No nVidia cards *require* PCIe x16. I have run two 8800s in a 975x board at x8, and in an ASrock 775-Dual-Vista at x4.
Not all 2GB DDR2 modules are slow, I'm running 4*2GB OCZ Reaper HPC modules at DDR2-800 4-4-4-15, not bad timings.