Gigabyte K8N Ultra-SLI Review - PAGE 1

Introduction

The last few months have been witness to an almost complete domination of the Athlon 64 PCI Express market by NVIDIA and their nForce 4 chipset. Granted, VIA (and others) clearly have very attractive solutions, as we saw in our Soltek K890Pro-939 review, but there is nothing that compares to the nForce 4 in terms of sheer features and overclockability. The enthusiast tug of the chipset is unprecedented. Throw NVIDIA's SLI technology into the bag and you have a virtually monopolistic product, leaving the competition in the dust.

It is no surprise that motherboard makers are snatching up the nForce 4 and pumping out motherboards like there's no tomorrow. Some of these manufacturers have three, four, maybe even five motherboards already released or in the works that make use of the nForce 4. One such manufacturer, and the focus of today's review, is Gigabyte Technology, Inc.

While Gigabyte Technology's primary source of income has always been their motherboards, they have recently been expanding their product line-up, and becoming a very diverse company. The computer enthusiast market has steadily been growing in recent years, and Gigabyte is not one to sit on its butt and watch things pass them by - they've dived right into the core of things and are now a definitive enthusiast favourite.

In January, Gigabyte pleasantly surprised us with their K8NXP-SLI motherboard and 3D1 video card combo. This was a two-in-one product aimed at the fresh PCI-Express enthusiast, combining a superb, feature-packed SLI-capable motherboard with an innovative dual-GPU GeForce 6600 GT. The idea was a good one, and both products are still lab favourites around here, but thereupon a question emerged: is there an alternative to Gigabyte's high end Sigma series for those looking for a Gigabyte SLI solution?

Fortunately enough, Gigabyte has addressed this, and has now brought us the K8N Ultra-SLI - a motherboard so identical to the K8NXP-SLI that we have to wonder what the sense in having two such boards around is.

Read on to find out how this motherboard fares against its older cousin as well as some interesting competitors!

Specifications

The raw specifications, as shamelessly ripped from Gigabyte's site, read as follows:

You keen readers out there might notice that these specifications are almost identical to the K8NXP-SLI - that's because they are. The two boards use identical PCBs, and the only features lacking on the K8N Ultra-SLI is the bundled PCI WiFi adapter, as well as Gigabyte's proprietary DPS (Dual-Power System). The contact points for the DPS connector are still present on the PCB.