Gigabyte equips its GA-8INXP with an actively cooled Northbridge. Unlike the Asus board, the AGP slot is laid out in a standard configuration. Power supply for the AGP Pro50 graphic cards is thus not available. However, many workstation OpenGL graphic cards require this reserve power. In addition to five PCI slots, you can find four DDR SDRAM slots on the GA-8INXP. The Promise IDE RAID controller allows for two additional ATA/ 133 interfaces (shown in green). We see it as a positive development that Gigabyte does not rely on the "lite" version of the Promise controller. This allows CD-ROM drives to be connected to the third and fourth IDE connectors, as well. As is usual with Gigabyte, a dual BIOS is used. In the case of misconfigurations or a corrupt Flash, you can switch to the backup BIOS.

Packaging of the Gigabyte GA-8INXP.

In addition to the three standard audio ports on the motherboard, outputs for the Subcenter bass speakers and the third and fourth speakers (rear L/ R) can be found on the slot bracket (above). An optical SPDIF and an RCA (Cinch) provide excellent Dolby digital sound in six-channel technology. Below: four additional USB 2.0 ports.

ATX slot bracket, floppy adapter, three IDE cables, two serial ATA cables.