Intro

We looked at Gigabyte’s nForce4 SLI solution recently and were generally happy with it. Today, we have their non SLI nForce4 Ultra board- the K8NXP-9. Lets get right to it.

Packaging

We see Gigabyte’s dual packaging continued with the K8NXP-9 coming in two separate boxes attached by a cover. The first box contains the motherboard and all the cables like SATA, IDE and floppy as well as USB and Firewire headers. The second box contains “value-added” stuff like the DPS module and the 802.11g PCI Wireless adapter. Gigabyte also provides a user-manual as well as a quick start guide to get you up and running. The drivers CD contains all the onboard drivers.

Layout

The K8NXP-9 has a fairly decent layout with most components placed where we like them. The CPU socket has reasonable room around it and while most HSF units should fit ok, a couple of capacitors might prevent the larger ones from sitting properly. The top of the board has the DPS slot along with the four pin power connector while to the right of the CPU socket lie the memory slots and the floppy/IDE connectors. The main power connector is also placed here and is the new larger type but works well with the standard power connector.

The board has three standard PCI slots, two PCI-E x1 slots and one PCI-E x16 slot for your video card. The dual BIOS chips are placed below the PCI-E x1 slots while the nVidia nForce4 chip sits below the PCI-E x16 slot and with its HSF module, comes a bit too close to your video card. Gigabyte should’ve moved the nForce4 chip below the PCI-E x1 slots to keep it away from your video card.

The bottom part of the motherboard has all the onboard headers and connectors. The front panel connectors are color coded like most boards while all the USB and Firewire headers are placed here as well. Gigabyte also places the serial-ATA connectors for the Silicon Image controller here while the ones powered by nVidia are towards the right edge.