There are two PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots in the lower part of the PCB. The space between them is made larger than usual, so they can fit two graphics cards even with very large coolers. If you use only one graphics card, like the majority of users out there, you should install it into the first teal slot, so that it could work at full speed. The slots share 16 PCI Express lanes, so two graphics cards will work as x8-x8. Therefore, the second orange connector only has half of the pins in it. Moreover, Gigabyte MA790XT-UD4P has three PCI Express x1 and two PCI slots.

AMD SB750 South Bridge provides support for one PATA connector that supports up to two ATA-133/100/66/33 devices and six Serial ATA connectors. You can also build RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 10 and JBOD arrays with SATA HDDs. Besides, there is an additional Gigabyte SATA2 controller delivering another two SATA ports (purple color) supporting RAID 0, RAID 1 and JBOD.

Gigabyte pays special attention to the documentation that comes with their boards. There is a lot of useful info in the included user’s manual; the multi-lingual booklet with brief assembly and installation instructions provides the necessary basics. The color-coded connectors and explanatory marks on the PCB and inside some connectors also facilitate the assembly process.

There are the following connectors on the back of Gigabyte MA790XT-UD4P mainboard:

• PS/2 connectors for keyboard and mouse;
• Optical and coaxial S/PDIF and six audio-jacks implemented by the high-quality eight-channel Realtek ALC889A HAD codec with Dolby Home Theater support;
• Two IEEE1394 connectors provided by the additional T.I. TSB43AB23 controller; the third one is laid out as a PCB pin-connector;
• Network RJ45 connector by Gigabit Realtek 8111DL controller;
• Eight USB connectors; the remaining four ports are laid out as pin-connectors.

The components layout of Gigabyte MA790XT-UD4P from the manual will show you once again how well thought-through the PCB design is:

After another close look at the layout, we find only a few frustrating issues. Namely, the board has no connectors for the fan on the case rare panel. I wonder what is behind this “popular” issue. For example, the recently tested Asus P6T mainboard also didn’t have a connector for this type of fan. The next drawback is the absence of LEDs. It is really nice that the board doesn’t blink like a Christmas tree with a bunch of bright multi-color LEDs that cannot be turned off; however, I think they could have left at least one indicating if the board received power. Gigabyte MA790XT-UD4P is not the only board like that. We have already seen the same on ASRock X58 SuperComputer mainboard. But why would anyone repeat someone else’s drawbacks?