Gigabyte X48T-DQ6 Motherboard Features

Gigabyte has chosen the high-end X48/ICH9R chipset to power their X48T-DQ6 motherboard, and it is currently the top X48 combination on the Intel chart. This is a standard ATX motherboard, with measurements of 30.5cm x 24.4cm and it has no board overhang from the standard mounts. The X48T-DQ6 motherboard supports only DDR3 memory, with 4 x 1.5V DDR3 DIMM sockets for up to 8GB of system memory. The X48T-DQ6 offers dual channel DDR3 speeds of 800, 1066, 1333, and 1600 MHz, along with XMP support. The Gigabyte board also provides DDR3 speeds up to 2000 MHz, but this involves higher bus speeds and an overclocked CPU.

The Gigabyte X48T-DQ6 includes dual PCI-E 2.0 x16 graphics with support for ATI CrossFire dual-GPU technology, three PCI Express x1 slots, and two PCI slots. Available storage options include 6 x eSATA 3.0 GB/s ports through the Intel ICH9R, 1 x Parallel ATA IDE and 2 x SATA ports from an onboard Gigabyte SATA chip, and a standard floppy drive connector. The Gigabyte X48T-DQ6 features eight USB 2.0 ports on the back panel, with an additional four ports through onboard headers, for a total of twelve. Also included are three IEEE 1394 ports (two on back panel + one using a bracket), Realtek ALC889A 7.1 audio, and Realtek 8111C Gigabit LAN.



The Gigabyte X48T-DQ6 motherboard backplate/back panel features standard PS/2 mouse/keyboard connectors, eight USB 2.0 ports, two IEEE 1394a ports, two RJ-45 LAN ports, one optical digital line-out, one coaxial S/PDIF line-out, and six audio jacks (Center/Subwoofer Speaker Out / Rear Speaker Out / Side Speaker Out / Line In / Line Out / Microphone). The lack of an eSATA 3Gb/s port is bothersome, but Gigabyte has included two brackets that each feature dual eSATA connectors (for a total of four) and a Molex power connector. We also like when USB ports are set at the top of the back panel for the mouse and keyboard, rather than PS/2.