Gigabyte GA-8N-SLI Quad Royal

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As you can imagine, the four full-sized PCI-e x16 graphics slots require that other components be moved around a bit. As such, the lower corner around the southbridge is much busier than a typical motherboard. This region is fully populated with four SATA-II ports which are controlled by the nearby SouthBridge, as well as the two IDE ports and three USB connectors.

The SouthBridge itself is covered by a very thin active heatsink with a grated top. Of course, there's no way that any larger heatsink or fan combination could have been installed here, as it is possible that two video cards will be running directly over the top. Along with the battery and front panel pins, there's an LED readout for diagnosing system errors. Even when turned off, the numbers '00' are lit up, which can be seen glowing in cases with window panels. Even though this could be used to let the user know that the system is still receiving power, we would rather not have anything lit on our board when not being used.

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