Features (cont’d)/Layout

Gigabyte endows the X38-DQ6 with eight SATA ports, two more than the X38 chipset provides natively. You can also see the addition of an IDE connector. Again, the chipset doesn’t natively support this feature, but many motherboard manufacturers are including IDE connectors on their boards as the optical drive industry has been slow to really embrace SATA.

Audio duties are handled by a Realtek ALC889A high definition audio controller. This is the same CODEC Gigabyte used on their older P35 motherboards. The board also supports Firewire thanks to a controller from Texas Instruments, as well as dual Gigabit Ethernet.

Board layout

As you can imagine with a board this loaded with features, there are a couple of quirks with the motherboard’s layout. For starters, the DIMM sockets for the DDR2 memory are located too close to the primary PCIe graphics slot. As a result, you have to install the system RAM before installing the video card in order for everything to fit. We also don’t like the graphics card retention tabs Gigabyte has employed on the X38-DQ6. They’re located in a terrible spot, right beneath the PEG slot. As a result, when removing a dual-slot card like the Radeon HD 2900 XT, you have to reach your finger up and underneath the card and try and guess where the retention mechanism is. Then once your finger finds it, you have to pull it out. This can be a difficult endeavor if you have large fingers. Even people with medium-sized hands may have problems. We’d prefer it if the retention mechanism was placed on the top edge of the PEG slot similar to what NVIDIA has done on their nForce 680i SLI reference design.


Another gripe we have with the board’s layout is the amount of space between the PEG slots. While there’s enough room to run dual 2900 XTs in CrossFire, there’s barely any space separating the two cards and as such the uppermost card in the primary graphics slot doesn’t get very good airflow. This can lead to higher board and GPU temperatures for the primary graphics card.

We wish Gigabyte would have placed one of the two PCI slots between the two PEG slots to create some additional spacing between the two graphics cards. Right now they’re both located beneath the secondary PEG slot.



The rest of the board’s layout is pretty good. None of the SATA ports interfere with the graphics card, so you can run dual 2900 XTs and populate all 8 SATA ports smoothly. And thanks to the revised SilentPipe cooler there’s plenty of space around the CPU socket for large coolers. We were able to install our Scythe Ninja quite easily.


It’s also really nice to see Gigabyte include 8 USB ports on the back plate of the X38-DQ6. We applaud this move. You can also see two FireWire connectors on the back plate.

We just wish Gigabyte had included a USB header in the packaging of the X38-DQ6. If they had you’d be able to hook up to 10 USB devices to the X38-DQ6 out-of-the-box! Oh well, a quick trip to Fry’s can solve that problem. For eSATA fans, Gigabyte does include two eSATA headers inside the packaging of the X38-DQ6, so you can potentially run up to four eSATA devices.