Intel Motherboards: Something Wicked This Way Comes...

Basic Features: Gigabyte GA-8N SLI Quad Royal

Specification	Gigabyte GA-8N SLI Quad Royal
CPU Interface	LGA775-based Pentium 4, Pentium XE, Celeron D, and Pentium D processors
Chipset	North bridge- NVIDIA nForce 4 SLI Intel Edition (Crush C19) South bridge- NVIDIA nForce 4 SLI Edition (Athlon CK804)
Pentium D Support (Dual-Core)	Full Support
Front Side Bus	1066 / 800 / 533 MHz
Front Side Bus Speeds	400-2000 MHz (in 1 MHz increments)
PCI Express x16 Slot Assignments	1-16-16-1, 0-16-8-8, 8-8-16-0, 8-8-8-8
Memory Speeds	Auto- 400-1200 MHz (in 1 MHz increments)
System Clock Mode	Optimal, Linked, Expert
PCI Express	90 MHz to 99 MHz in 1MHz increments; 100 MHz to 148.4357 MHz in 1.5625 MHz increments
Dynamic Overclocking	C.I.A.2, (5) unique settings, dynamic increase from 5 to 19%
Core Voltage	Normal, .8375V-1.80V in 0.0125V increments
DRAM Voltage	Normal, +.10V to +.55V in 0.05V increments
Other Voltage	North Bridge - Normal, +0.05V to +.035V in .05V steps South Bridge - Normal, +0.05V to +.035V in .05V steps FSB - Normal, +0.025V to +.175V in .025V steps
LDT (Hyper Transport) Ratios	1x, 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x, 3.5x
Memory Command Rate	Auto, 1T, 2T
Memory Slots	Four 240-pin DDR2 Slots Dual-Channel Unbuffered Memory to 4GB
Expansion Slots	(4) x16 PCIe Slots (2) x1 PCIe Slots (1) PCI Slot
SLI	(2) x16 Fully Supported
Onboard SATA	(4)-Drive SATA 2 by nForce 4
Onboard IDE	(2) ATA 133/100/66 ports, (4) drive support by nForce 4
SATA/IDE RAID	(4)-Drive SATA 2 RAID by nForce 4 plus (4)-Drive IDE RAID, (8) drive support Can be combined in RAID 0, 1, 0+1, (8 drives total)
Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394	(10) USB 2.0 ports supported by NVIDIA nForce 4 (3) 1394 FireWire ports supported by TI TSB43AB23
Onboard LAN	Dual Gigabit Ethernet PCIe Gigabit LAN Support Marvell 88E1111, Agere ET1310
Onboard Audio	AC-97 8-channel audio, Realtek ALC850 codec (1) Coaxial S/PDIF output port and (1) S/PDIF input
Power Connectors	ATX 24-pin, 1 or 2 x 4-pin 12V
Other Features	Gigabyte EasyTune 5 software real time detection and adjustment of various hardware settings
BIOS	AWARD D6

The Gigabyte 8N SLI Quad Royal is a member of the Royal product family and, as such, is a fully featured flagship board targeted for the PC gamer, enthusiast, or general office workstation user. The board will ship with an extensive accessory package along with several features such as C.I.A. 2 (CPU Intelligent Accelerator 2), M.I.B. 2 (Memory Intelligent Booster 2), EasyTune 5, and several board enhancements including upgraded components such as capacitors and power transistors.

The BIOS options are extensive on the 8N SLI Quad, with memory voltage to 2.4V, and a full range of chipset, bus, and vCore voltage adjustments. Memory ratios are handled like other nForce4 SLI Intel Edition boards in that the number of memory dividers is so numerous that you can simply enter a target memory clock and the BIOS will select the appropriate memory divider to produce a setting as near as possible to the requested value. The board fully supports manual memory timing adjustments or allows for an Optimal setting that will set the memory to the SPD settings. This Optimal setting will adjust the memory timing settings automatically when the system is overclocked. You have the ability to set the system clock mode to Optimal (sync the fsb and memory to their rated standard), Linked (sync the fsb and memory proportionally as you increase the front side bus), or Expert (allows independent adjustment of the fsb and memory).

The new revision of the nForce4 SLI Intel Edition Chipset fully supports all dual core Pentium D processors. We confirmed that the board worked properly at stock and over clocked settings with an Intel 820 and 840 processor, and there were no problems with the board recognizing the two cores and four logical processors that are created with the Hyperthreading feature on the 840 EE processor.