Gigabyte X48T-DQ6: Linux On Intel's X48 Chipset

Motherboard Layout:

The layout of the Gigabyte X48T-DQ6 is similar to that of the earlier X38-DQ6 motherboard. In the upper right hand corner of the motherboard are the four DDR3 memory slots, which as mentioned earlier support DDR3-1600 or DDR3-1900 memory. Filling the void between the DDR3 DIMM slots and the right edge of the PCB is the 24-pin ATX power connector, FDD connector, and a 3-pin fan header.

Near the Intel ICH9R Southbridge are eight Serial ATA 2.0 ports, one IDE channel, two USB 2.0 headers, one 4-pin fan header, a variety of ASICs, and then the ICH9R itself. The ICH9R is cooled by Gigabyte's Silent-Pipe copper heatsink and heatpipe. Providing the two extra SATA 2.0 ports is a JMicron JMB363 controller, which also supports the single IDE channel. The six SATA 2.0 ports provided by the ICH9R support RAID 0, 1, 0+1, 5, and JBOD. The expansion slots on this Intel X48 motherboard include two PCI Express 2.0 x16, three PCI Express x1, and two PCI slots. The two PCI-E x16 slots are separated by two of the PCI-E x1 slots, which allows for increased air circulation for those using dual graphics cards. The audio codec used on this motherboard is the Realtek ALC889A, the Gigabit ethernet is via the Realtek RTL8111B, and IEEE-1394 Firewire is provided via a Texas Instruments ASIC. One of the special features for this Gigabyte motherboard is support for Quad BIOS. Quad BIOS consists of Gigabyte's DualBIOS technology and then BIOS copies on the hard disk as well as the driver CD.

Covering the X48 Chipset is a much larger Silent-Pipe heatsink than we had found on earlier Gigabyte motherboards. Nevertheless, this heatsink shouldn't get in the way of any large CPU heatsinks or the DDR3 system memory that is positioned nearby. Behind the LGA-775 CPU socket is the end of the Gigabyte Silent-Pipe heatsink/heatpipe, which is on top of the MOSFETs.

At the I/O panel are eight USB 2.0 ports, two PS/2, eight audio, two Firewire, and two 10/100/1000MB ethernet ports. The four eSATA ports are provided using the included expansion slot brackets.