Computex 2006: 300W GPUs, Conroe, HDMI Video Cards and Lots of Motherboards
by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 5, 2006 10:24 PM EST- Posted in
- Trade Shows
Gigabyte's Conroe Motherboard
Using the P965 chipset (Broadwater), Gigabyte showed us its flagship Conroe motherboard. The P965 chipset only supports one PCIe x16 slot and one x4; the blue slot below is the x16 and the orange slot is the x4:
 |
| Click to enlarge |
Six of the SATA ports are courtesy of Intel's ICH8R, the other two are made possible by the relabled JMicron SATA/PATA controller that you see in the picture above. The Gigabyte "SATA2" chip (actually a JMicron chip) provides support for the two SATA ports and the lone PATA port you see in the picture above. Remember, Intel's ICH8R doesn't support any PATA ports natively so you will see all motherboard manufacturers resorting to a similar sort of arrangement.
Gigabyte outfitted its P965 motherboard with a 12-phase power design, designed to support Kentsfield. This board has already been tested to work with Kentsfield, although Gigabyte's competitors insist that a 12-phase power design is not necessary for Kentsfield.
You'll notice that all of the capacitors on the motherboard are similar to those around the CPU in that they are not standard electrolytic capacitors filled with liquid. All of the capacitors used on the Gigabyte board use a solid chemical compound designed to better withstand higher temperatures, thus preventing leaking or other capacitor related failures. The more expensive capactiors raise the price of the motherboard by a healhty $20. Gigabyte still only offers a 3-year warranty on this board, despite the technically more reliable capacitors.
Gigabyte is simply trying out the more expensive caps on this motherboard, if the demand is high enough you may see a similar setup on high end AMD motherboards as well. Gigabyte's competitors insist that the more expensive caps aren't necessary across the motherboard and that this is simply a gimmick.
Gigabyte also ships this motherboard with two external SATA brackets that convert internal SATA ports into ports that can be used outside of your system. Gigabyte's brackets also provide 4-pin power for powering internal hard drives outside of your case.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
61 Comments
View All Comments
mindless1 - Wednesday, June 7, 2006 - link
Nice coverage. These new toys leave me drooling. Now off I go to find a smallish nuclear reactor to power everything. LOL.sri2000 - Friday, June 9, 2006 - link
You just need to get yourself a "Mr. Fusion" and you'll be all set.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Fusion">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Fusion
bespoke - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
Too bad the new DFI boards still have that hideous fan on the NF chipset - that little bugger runs at 4,000 to 5,000 and is terribly loud.I can't wait to upgrade to Conroe, ditch NF4 and get back to a quiet (yet nicely performing) PC.
Griswold - Wednesday, June 7, 2006 - link
Duh.. newsflash, there are also NF4 boards without fans - just not from DFI. What really sucks about the fan on the DFI board is, that it breaks after 3 months and you end up replacing it with a better fan.Stele - Wednesday, June 7, 2006 - link
Although that's not much of a use if you're aiming to get a DFI board - which I think is where he was coming from. :)
For one reason or another DFI does not seem to be interested, or at least eager, to implement more/more effective passive cooling solutions on their products. Besides the lack of noise, passive cooling's greatest advantage is the fact that it doesn't have moving parts that are prone to failure like fans... as you found out.
At least they did take a unique step in implementing a digital integrated VR design on their board... its remarkable compactness and 'clean' layout without large electrolytic capacitors makes it really worth looking at for motherboard power circuits. Can't wait till more details of their implementation and tests thereof surface.
R3MF - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
was the ECS miniITX A64 motherboard with an nForce chipset.i would love to see a AM2 MCP61-S variant with two dimm slots and PCI-E 16x card!
bldckstark - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
Dual redundant power supplies in the Asus 1U server would seem to indicate that there are three or four power supplies housed within, but I believe the actuality is that there are only two right? Redundant means secondary as I understand it. Dual redundant means two secondaries. Therefore dual redundant PS's include a backup power supply and then a backup of the backup power supply. Which is it? Are there 2 or 3 power supplies in that thing?hoppa - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
God I am so sick of hearing about x new card that is "even better than" the already $500 dual x1950.9 XFIRE XLI+ v2.0 ZI miss the days when those cards, the best cards, maxed at $300, the awesome stuff was at $200, and you could do quite well for $150. Now $150 is a joke.
One43637 - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
is it just me or does the GB motherboard offerings remind you of the Asus motherboards (A8N32 & P5N32) that were released last year...Griswold - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
High time the dorks at Nvidia and ATI start working on the power saving front. At least they seemm to have that in mind for the follow-up generations... This only means that R600 and G80 wont make it into my computer until the following cards reduce the power envelope by quite a bit.*shakes fist*