14 DAY TRIAL // Gigabyte United has just announced that they will shortly invade the market with their 680i SLI motherboard called GA-N680SLI-DQ6. This new motherboard has full compatibility with Core 2 Duos/Quads and comes with support for FSB 1333 and DDR2-1200. The 1200 DDR is not yet a standard (actually Jedec stopped at DDR2-800 but that didn't stop the manufacturers from releasing 1200MHz modules) but Gigabyte's board supports this speed nonetheless.
Gigabyte United claims that they have not used Nvidia's reference design when they developed the motherboard. However, it comes equipped with three PCI Express x16 slots meaning it's ready for NVIDIA's upcoming SLI PPU setups. But what's really bombastic about this board is that is packs no less than 4 gigabit controllers each having its own RJ-45 port.
And the story that tells about Gigabyte's 4 connectors is far from over because all of them can use NVIDIA's Dual-Net teaming technology to combine their connections into a single 4Gbit one. The motherboard also features a total of ten SATA 3.0Gbps ports, four of them are eSATA capable. A Firewire chip responsible with the 1394a I/O port is also available alongside with high definition audio, the already known Dual Bios and a passive heatpipe cooling solution for the chipset.
The key to the success of a motherboard is ultimately how it performs. It's good that it has a lot of features but it's much better if it overclocks like hell and still retains the features. And every 680i motherboard simply has to perform better than the rest in order to stay ahead of the pack.