Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-N650SLI-DS4

[Frank Shute]

On Wed, Feb 20, 2008 at 01:06:30PM +0200, David Naylor wrote:
>
> Hi,
> 
> I am currently replacing my defunct motherboard, I am unable to test
> the hardware before purchase and I am seeking advice on which
> motherboard to get.
> 
> Upon review I have selected a Gigabyte GA-N650SLI-DS4, does FreeBSD
> work with this board.  It does have a nForce 650i (and I am not sure
> FreeBSD works with it?)

I just built a workstation with a Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L (P35/ICH9)
board and am running a core 2 duo on it with AMD 7.0RC1. Everything works
including ACPI which is very important if you want to run more than 1
core. 

> 
> If anyone has an alternative suggestion please let me know.  The
> motherboard will have to support (my budget is about < ZAR2000 ~
> USD275): 

> o) Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 

Mine supports that with up to 1333MHz FSB.

> o) 4x 800Mhz DDR2 Ram

Yep. I've got 4GB, don't know whether it will go to 8, the handbook is no
help.

> o) 2x SATA HDD

Yep. 4 Channels.

> o) 2x IDE CDROM Drive

Yes. Only 1 IDE channel but supports 2 devices

> o) 2x nVidia 7600 GT

I guess that's SLI which I don't know a lot about or whether FreeBSD
(X) can make any use of it. Only 1 PCI-E x 16 on my board so I guess
not for me.

> 
> Thank you all for your help

I don't know anything about your nForce650i chipset but as a rule of
thumb, if the technology is more than 6 months old, it's likely to
work unless there's non-disclosure by the manufacturer (I think Nvidia
are quite good in that respect).

May be somebody else can comment on whether it will work. Or if you
can drop one of the video cards you can use the same motherboard as
me since I've tested it (apart from sound). And it's probably cheaper!
About 65 quid (130 USD).

-- 

 Frank 

	
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