The first (and still only) motherboard product to support the Quad FX platform and the FX-70 processor series is the L1N64-SLI WS from Asus. It doesn't fully exploit the impressive number of interfaces offered by the nForce 680a chipset, but Asus did an amazing job in squeezing so many components - including two processor sockets - onto a standard ATX motherboard. Let's not forget that typical workstation boards offer a fraction of the L1N64's feature set, or feature larger motherboard dimensions.
The blue PCI Express x16 slots are powered by 16 PCIe lanes each; the black ones are the secondary connectors that run x8 PCIe. There is one more x1 PCIe slot and a single 32-bit PCI slot. Asus implemented two out of four possible Gigabit Ethernet ports; having four would have allowed this platform to act as a software-powered switch!
There are 12 SATA/300 ports on this motherboard. Using 750 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 hard drives this would result in a maximum capacity of 9 TB today! Of course, you would have to look for a suitable case first... There is High Definition Audio, one UltraATA/133 channel and a Firewire controller with up to two ports.
AMD's Reference System
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Patrick Schmid was the editor-in-chief for Tom's Hardware from 2005 to 2006. He wrote numerous articles on a wide range of hardware topics, including storage, CPUs, and system builds.
