Verdict: Masses of features, but not the best layout

On paper, the Gigabyte motherboard looks to be really something. With four S-ATA II ports, four S-ATA ports, 8-channel ALC850 audio, twin Gigabit LAN ports, a stonking ten USB 2 ports and all the cables you'll ever need, it seem to have all the bases covered. However, appearances can be deceptive.

Sure enough, despite the good paper specs, we discovered a few problems when we inspected the Gigabyte more closely.

One major issue is the placement of the chipset, which, like the EPoX, is in line with the 16x PCI-E slot, meaning the edge of your graphics card rests on top of it. The chipset is passively cooled but got extremely hot during testing.

There are some good features too, such as DualBIOS, which can really save your bacon if something goes pear-shaped during a BIOS update. There's also a blanking plate with a clamp that screws in between the two graphics cards in SLI mode and holds the SLI bridge firmly in place. This will be very useful if you plan to take your PC to LAN parties, but it's useless if you have two GeForce 6800 Ultras, because of their dual-slot HSFs.

The BIOS is good, although there are a couple of very annoying features. For example, in the 'PC Health' section, instead of reporting the actual voltages, it just says 'OK' if they are within spec. Also, at first glance, it appears that there aren't any options for adjusting the memory frequency or timings, which would limit overclocking headroom. However, pressing Ctrl and F1 in the BIOS opens up an extra menu that contains the missing features. The Gigabyte manual doesn't document these settings, which is simply crazy. Gigabyte really needs to sort this out for future motherboards. With the new memory tweaking options unlocked, it passed the 275MHz barrier and reached 340MHz, which is in line with other nForce4 SLI boards.

At £106.99, the Gigabyte is superbly priced for an SLI motherboard, being cheaper than the non-SLI-capable Abit Fatal1ty AN8 and the unusual MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum. It has lots of features, but its design can't quite match that of the Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe, which is also better suited to running two cards in SLI mode, thanks to its wider-spaced PCI-E slots.

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