Gigabyte K8NXP-SLI (nVidia nForce4 SLI) MoBo Review
Expansion options
Based on nForce4 SLI chipset, Gigabyte K8NXP-SLI offers support for four SerialATA-II channels. Respective connectors are installed near the chipset, colored orange and have plastic limiters.
Four more SerialATA channels are implemented with a Sil3114 chip made by Silicon Image. Therefore, the respective connectors are colored red and are fitted on the board's edge.
So, 12 hard disks can be plugged in to Gigabyte K8NXP-SLI: 8 over the SerialATA (four of which over the SerialATA II), and 4 over the ParallelATA.
Then, there are two Gigabit LAN controllers. The first is the VITESSE 8201 chip:
The second is the 88E8053 chip (connected to the PCI Express x1 bus) made by Marvell.
Thus, we get two RJ45 connectors on the rear panel of the board at a time.
Besides two LAN controllers, K8NXP-SLI uses two controllers to support the Firewire bus.
These are TSB82AA2 and TSB81BA3 chips made by Texas Instruments. Therefore, the board offers support for three IEEE1394b ports. All the ports are additional - i.e. they require plugging in brackets (there is one bracket with two ports in the bundle).
Besides the Firewire, the board supports 10 USB 2.0 ports, four of which are on the rear panel, with 6 more plugged in through headers (shipped in the package bundle).
And the last thing to dwell on is the integrated audio. ALC850 chip is used as the codec, which supports output for 8 channels.
The board's rear panel looks like this:
Instead of one of the COM ports, there is an SP-DIF input and output. The missing COM port is provided only by the board's design and has to be plugged in via a bracket. But the matching connector is not welded.
Traditionally, a jumpers layout diagram:
Gigabyte K8NXP-SLI uses no jumpers. To reset the BIOS settings, you have to close the CLR_CMOS near the orange SATA connectors.
Now on to the BIOS settings.
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