X-bit labs

Gigabyte GA-X38-DQ6 Mainboard Review (page 2)

Category: Mainboards

by Ilya Gavrichenkov

[ 11/29/2007 | 03:26 PM ]

Package, Accessories and Technical Specification

All in all, Gigabyte GA-X38-DQ6 is designed like Intel P35 mainboards: in addition to standard chipset controllers the features of the end product are expanded by a pair of Gigabit network controllers, IEEE1394 controller and an additional IDE RAID controller. As a result, the mainboard and its formal specifications look as follows:

Despite almost the same features with the Intel P35 based solutions, Gigabyte GA-X38-DQ6 is more expensive: it sells for $260. The reason for that is the Intel X38 chipset positioning. It is targeted for high-performance systems and the chipset itself is $20 more expensive than the predecessor.

The mainboard comes in a pretty large colorful box that can be unfolded open to reveal the detailed description of the product advantages.

The package designers did a really good job on making sure that the mainboard will become an eye-stopper: there is also a transparent plastic window that shows a part of the cooling system and an embossed plastic DQ6 logo on the front side of the box.

Inside the external box there is the mainboard itself packed into a transparent plastic casing and a separate smaller box with accessories bundle. Gigabyte GA-X38-DQ6 is not a cheap product that is why it comes with the whole bunch of different things. The standard set includes a traditional user’s manual, additional paper materials, a CD disk with drivers, I/O Shield for the case rear panel, four SATA cables, PATA and FDD cables. Besides, Gigabyte also offers two brackets for the case rear panel that carry the total of four SATA ports and two standard Molex connectors for the power supply. There is also a pair of cables that allows connecting regular SATA hard drives to these ports. In addition to that and as a free bonus there is a Gigabyte logo sticker that goes onto the front of your system case and two small but extremely important screws, which we are going to talk about later in our review.