Gigabyte N650SLI-DS4L
Motherboard Layout
Gigabyte stays true to form by sticking with the usual blue PCB. Both the nForce 650i-SLI MCP and SPP are covered with gold colored heatsinks. There is also a sticker over the expansion slots denoting the company's use of solid capacitors on the motherboard.
In the CPU area, the layout is fine for the most part. The auxillary +12V power connection is in a less than ideal location, but otherwise is fine. While the heatsink on the 650i MCP is large, it gets very hot under stock conditions. If you're overclocking, you may want to have a fan blowing over the heatsink or replace it altogether.
Moving down, we see the expansion slots. Six total slots are available for use, if you make use of SLI. Even if you use a pair of video cards with dual slot cooling, you will still be able to use at least one PCI and PCIe x1 slot. While I don't have a good picture, the second PCIe x16 slot is not just 8x electrically, but also physically. The remaining pins for all 16 lanes are not there.
Speaking of SLI, Gigabyte has done something interesting to enable this feature. Instead of a card that has typically been used for physical SLI switching, they've pulled a trick out of DFI's playbook and used a series of jumpers.
One issue I did see was between the first PCIe x16 slot and the DDR2 slots. If you have a longer card, you'll need to remove it to change your memory out. While the SLI jumper design makes the N650SLI-DS4L fall into the 7 expansion slot territory, the first PCIe x16 slot is the second slot. While this isn't a full ATX board, Gigabyte could've done a little better in this area.
Toward the bottom of the board are the 4 SATA and lone IDE port. Those with larger cases will probably find the location of the IDE port prohibitive if they wish to use the top 5.25" bay. I had to move my DVD-RW drive down one bay so the IDE cable could reach. Both the SATA and IDE ports are turned ninety degrees so the cables run parallel to the motherboard tray and can help in creating a tidy case.
Gigabyte was the first company I ran across to color code the front panel connectors, and they're still continuing to do this today. Beside them are the two USB headers that can add up to 4-more USB ports for the board's maximum of 8.
If you still use a floppy drive, you'll probably not find the location of the floppy connector that thrilling. It's located underneath the second PCI slot at the bottom edge of the board.
On the back panel, the N650SLI-DS4L includes 2x PS/2 ports, 1x Parallel, 1x serial, 1x SPDIF out, 1x Digital out, 4x USB 2.0, 1x 10/100/1000 RJ-45, and 6x audio jacks.
Bookmarks