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Gigabyte 8N SLI Quad Royal: Features

Gigabyte put considerable thought into the layout of the board considering the amount of space consumed by the four physical x16 slots. The board avoids most major clearance issues - a remarkable achievement with four x16 double-spaced PCIe slots - and was easy to install in a mid-size ATX case.

Gigabyte did an excellent job with the color coordination of the various peripheral slots and connectors. The DIMM module slots' color coordination is correct for dual channel setup. The power plug placement favors standard ATX case design and the power cable management is very good. Gigabyte actually places the eight-pin 12V auxiliary power connector below the CPU socket area, which should assist in easier installs for newer case designs that mount the power supply at the bottom of the case. In a standard ATX case design, there is the possibility of cable clutter around the CPU socket area with shorter power cables.

The floppy drive connector is inconveniently located at the bottom of the board and will cause a cabling issue with larger cases or when the bottom PCI Express slot is filled. However, with the general availability of 2x USB floppy drives, one has to wonder about the viability of even including support for the internal floppy drive. The nForce 4 IDE connectors are placed properly, but the connectors could not be used when utilizing the Gigabyte GV-3D1-68GT video card in the first x16 PCI Express slot. However, the slots were available with either the 6600GT or 7800GTX cards installed. The nForce 4 SATA II ports are conveniently located below the IDE connectors and feature the new clamp and latch design. Gigabyte will include the new cable designs in their kit, which greatly enhance the security of the SATA connections.

The nForce 4 USB connectors are located below the battery and the adaptor connectors are a tight fit when utilizing the PCI slot and bottom PCI Express slot. Also located in this area is a port 80 debug solution based on two-digit LED display.

The board comes with (4) physical PCI Express x16 slots, (1) 32bit PCI slot, and (2) PCI Express x1 slots. The layout of this design allows for numerous add-in peripheral cards.

In between the first two x16 PCI Express slots is a mechanical SLI switch that accepts paddle cards. These paddle cards determine normal or SLI operation along with a special paddle card that activates the Gigabyte dual GPU 3D1 series of video cards. The settings can also be enabled in the BIOS and. throughout testing on the board, we found it best to leave the BIOS setting to Auto and correctly install the appropriate paddle card for fail-safe operation.

The CMOS reset is a traditional jumper design located between the first and second PCI slot that proved to be inconvenient at times.

Returning to the CPU socket area, we find a four-phase voltage regulator setup along with ample amount of room for alternative cooling solutions. We utilized the excellent Gigabyte G-Power cooling system for our tests. Unlike most motherboard designs, currently the 8N SLI features four extra fan headers and considering the thermal results of running four video cards, they are a welcome addition.

The Northbridge is passively cooled, but Gigabyte does provide their Cool Plus fan that should be used based on our overclock testing. However, upon installing the fan, it can interfere with a larger style heatsink or a video card in the first PCI Express slot. The Southbridge (CK804 chipset) heatsink is a low profile design with a fan and will not interfere with cards in either x16 PCI Express slot.