The Dual Miracle Tradition Continues
In continuing the 'dual miracle' tradition, Gigabyte has released yet another attractively packaged motherboard based on the SiS 655 which supports dual channel DDR memory. It seems that Gigabyte is striking the right chord with consumers especially with products that's build for the power user. And with the introduction of Gigabyte's new SINXP1394, you can be sure that you'll find more of such products in the future.
The board comes with matching colored connectors and DIMM slots and it looks just like some toy that you might pick up at Toys 'R' Us. But if you look closely at what the board has to offer, there's more to it than just bright colors. Sporting the latest SiS 655 northbridge, the board will offer dual channel DDR400 memory support that blows the Granite Bay away (at least in terms of specifications). Too bad that it doesn't support future Pentium 4 processors that runs at 800MHz FSB, but with Hyper-Threading support, SiS is offering users an early peek at what Intel's upcoming Canterwood is like. Of course, SiS is always much better at pricing and boards with the SiS 655 should cost less than most future Intel-based products.
The Gigabyte SINXP1394.
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Before we start describing the product in detail, let's look at the specifications in the table below :-
Gigabyte 8SQ800 Ultra2 Technical Specifications
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Processor
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- Socket 478 for Intel® Pentium 4 / Celeron processors
- Intel® Pentium 4 Processors 1.4GHz - 3.06GHz or higher
- Intel® Celeron Processors 1.7GHz - 1.8GHz or higher
- Supports processors at 400 / 533MHz front side bus
- Supports processors with Hyper-Threading technology
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Chipset
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- SiS 655 Northbridge
- Supports Intel Pentium 4 processors with front side bus up to
533MHz
- Supports 64-bit high performance DDR333 / DDR266 memory
- Supports AGP 4x/8x interface at 0.8V or 4x at 1.5V with fast write
transaction
- Supports bi-directional 16-bit data bus with 1GHz MuTIOL bandwidth
- SIS 963 MuTIOL Medio I/O Chipset
- 2-channel Ultra ATA 133/100/66 Bus Master IDE controller
- Dual USB 2.0 controllers (expanded capability for 6 ports)
- Supports AC'97 v2.2 audio codec
- Advanced power management and PC2001 compliance
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Cache memory
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- CPU Built-in 256KB (Willamette) or 512KB (Northwood) L2 cache for
Pentium 4
- CPU Built-in 128KB L2 cache for Celeron
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System memory
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- 4 x 184-pin DDR SDRAM DIMM
- Supports 128/256/512MB or 1GB unbuffered DIMM Module
- Supports 2.5V DDR SDRAM
- Supports a maximum of 4GB of memory
- Supports dual channel DDR266 / 333 / 400 memory
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| Storage |
- 2 x Bus Master UDMA-33/66/100/133 IDE ports (up to 4 devices)
- Support for PIO, UDMA-33, UDMA-66, UDMA-100, UDMA-133 IDE
- 2 x IDE connectors (Ultra ATA 100/133) with RAID support
- Support for RAID 0, 1, 0+1, JBOD and normal mode
- 2 x Serial ATA connectors based on Silicon Image Sil3112A controller
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I/O Interface
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- 1x floppy port (360KB - 2.88MB)
- 2x serial ports
- 1x parallel port (SPP/EPP/ECP)
- PS/2 Keyboard
- PS/2 Mouse
- 6x USB ports (2x rear and 4x front)
- 1x IrDA connector for SIR
- 1x RJ-45 Gigabit LAN jack
- Audio ports for on-board sound (Line-Out, Line-In, Mic) - based on
Realtek ALC650
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Expansion slots
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- 5x 32-bit PCI slots, PCI 2.2 compliant
- 1x AGP 3.0 (4x/8x mode) slot
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Power Management
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- Supports ACPI 1.0b (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface)
- Supports Desktop Management Interface (DMI) 2.0
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Form Factor
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- ATX Form Factor : 30.5cm x 24.4cm
- Fits into regular ATX case
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BIOS
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- 2Mbit (256KB) Flash EEPROM
- Award Flash BIOS with PnP, ACPI, DMI, Green and Anti-virus upport
- Multi-boot on ZIP, ATAPI CD-ROM, SCSI, LS120, IDE #1, #2, #3, #4
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