One thing we like about Gigabyte is that they usually send out review samples when a mass production model is right around the corner and today we’re taking a look at their K8NXP-SLI motherboard which means that nVidia’s nForce4 chipset based motherboards are coming very soon to a retailer near you. We have the top-of-the-range SLI version with us today that basically allows you to hook up two high-end Video cards in an SLI mode and, theoretically, double the performance of your video subsystem. Lets find out how well theory translates into real life.

Packaging

Lately, Gigabyte has been bundling their high-end boards in a true to their image “dual” version. You basically get two packages stuck together that open up separately. One of the box contains the standard stuff like the motherboard and accessories such as cables, manuals and CDs while the other one hold add-on items.

With the K8NXP-SLI, we get a 802.11g PCI Wi-Fi card as well as Gigabyte’s DPS module. On the cables side, the board comes your standard IDE and floppy cables along with loads of SATA cables and power converters. Gigabyte also bundles a nice quickstart guide along with the traditional manuals while the CD provides all the required drivers and some utilities such as Norton Internet Security 2005.

Layout

Considering the amount of onboard features Gigabyte puts on the K8NXP-SLI, we think that they have done a good with the layout. The CPU socket is generally free of capacitors however, there are some tall capacitors on the top that prevented us from fully locking our thermaltake HSF unit. Above the CPU socket and on the top of the board, you have the DPS slot along with the four pin power connector which is a good place for both.

The main power connector, along with the IDE and floppy connector sits towards the right of the memory modules which is where we usually like them. The board has two larger PCI-E x16 slots for your Video cards along with two PCI-E x1 slots and two traditional PCI slots. We doubt that you’ll need more as the board is very feature rich as we mentioned. Between the two larger PCI-E slots, Gigabyte places the SLI card that is easy to access.

The chipset has active cooling and is placed right below the primary PCI-E x16 slot and although we didn’t run into any problems, our 6800GT came very close to touching the HSF unit. Ideally, the chipset should’ve been present below the secondary PCI-E x16 slot. Next to the chipset, you can find four SATA connectors powered by nVidia while the additional four along with three USB and two Firewire connectors can be found towards the bottom edge of the board.