Gigabyte GA-X38-DQ6

Motherboard Layout:

Like the previously reviewed GA-P35-DS3P, as opposed to using DDR3 system memory, Gigabyte had gone with DDR2. The GA-X38-DQ6 supports four DDR2-1066/800/667 DIMMs with a maximum memory capacity of 8GB in dual channel mode.

Towards the bottom of the motherboard are eight Serial ATA 2.0 connectors, one IDE connector, and two USB 2.0 headers. The southbridge used on this motherboard is Intel's ICH9R and is cooled via a copper heatsink with a heatpipe that runs from the southbridge through the northbridge and ends at the rear of the motherboard's I/O panel on top of some additional power circuitry. This heatpipe cooling design is similar to some solutions by Abit and ASUS.

The expansion slots on the GA-X38-DQ6 include two PCI Express x16, three PCI Express x1, and two PCI slots. The two PCI Express x16 slots support PCI Express 2.0 and also ATI's CrossFire technology (though at present this multi-GPU technology isn't supported under Linux). Some of the ASICs found in this area include the ITE IT8718F-S, 2 x Realtek RTL81118, Texas Instruments TSB43AB23 IEEE-1394a Firewire, and the ICS 9LPRS914EKL.