MSI P4N Diamond & Gigabyte GA-8N-SLI

Gigabyte GA-8N SLI Royal

Gigabyte provide us with their NForce 4 SLI Intel Edition implementation. It is action packed with all the latest Gigabyte technology, including their U-Plus DPS for 8 phase power regulation system - twice as much as the competition - and dual BIOS to take the worry out of flashing BIOS's. Their blue PCB motherboard sports the latest dual gigabit Ethernet along with additional SATA and IDE ports to suit even the most crazy hard drive arrays.

Main Feature Overview:

• Complete support for all Intel LGA755 processors, including 533, 800 or 1066FSB bus speeds;
  
• NForce 4 SLI Intel Edition northbridge and NForce 4 MCP southbridge;
  
• 1066MHz FSB;
  
• 4x 240-pin dual channel DDR2 memory slots supporting up to 16GB with EM64T processors;
  
• 2x PCI-Express x16 slots, 1x PCI-Express x1 slot, 2x PCI expansion slots;
  
• 2x ATA133 ports and 6x SATA 2 ports;
  
• 4 (plus 6)x USB 2.0 ports;
  
• 0 (plus 2)x IEEE1394 Firewire ports - one Firewire 'A' and one Firewire 'B' port;
  
• 8-Channel AC'97 audio chip with S/PDIF RCA and optical based output ports;
  
• Dual Marvell Yukon Gigabit Ethernet Controllers;
  
• Gigabyte Dual BIOS;
  
• Gigabyte U-Plus DPS (Universal Plus Dual Power System).

You get everything you need in the box to use the motherboard to it’s absolute fullest, along with some nice little extras, such as a Gigabyte-branded USB Bluetooth dongle. There's also an SLI bridge support bracket that attaches to the PCI bracket in between the two video cards, securing the bridge in to place.

The optional Cool Plus northbridge fan is an option we’d like to see more of - whether you want to keep your system quiet or whether you want the absolute best performance of your kit, without spending extra cash on third party cooling solutions. You get the option for both on this motherboard.

There's six SATA cables, a single floppy cable and IDE cable, two sets of two USB 2.0 PCI brackets, a third PCI bracket with two USB 2.0 ports and the two IEEE 1394 Firewire ports. Finally, there are three 4-pin molex to SATA power connectors included meaning that you will be able to connect drives to all six SATA ports whether or not your power supply has SATA power connectors or not.

The SATA leads have clips on them too, so they won’t ever come out from their sockets even if you move the case about. I’m sure some users are fully aware that less-than-great SATA cables exist that are always loose and fall out really easily. Thankfully, these will not do that, even if you accidentally give it a tug. The only way to remove them is to clip them out.