Gigabyte Technologies newest top-of-the-line motherboard, launched today, will support four simultaneous PCI-Express X16 slots, plus NVIDIA's nForce 4 SLI chipset. So if you've always wanted to hook up seven of your spare monitors, now there's a way. But when you look hard at one of the two editions of this decked-out dreamboat of a device, you'll find something actually missing: the southbridge.
It sounds like a luxury Ford sedan from the 1970s: the Gigabyte GA-8N-SLI Quad Royal. Based on information gleaned from Gigabyte's press release this morning, it appears the company will be attempting a novel solution on some - not all - Quad Royal models. Normally, NVIDIA's nForce 4 SLI Intel edition chipset is a two-chip contraption, whose northbridge and southbridge are joined using the HyperTransport memory technology that normally distinguishes AMD-supporting motherboards. This conventional configuration will apparently be available, according to Gigabyte. But as an alternative, Gigabyte will also be making available some models using the single-chip chipset normally used for NVIDIA's AMD-supportive option. In this configuration, the southbridge chip is eliminated, and its storage, networking, and USB support are all incorporated into the single chip, which routes them all together using HyperTransport.
