If you're looking to jump on the SLI bandwagon, the Gigabyte GA-K8N Ultra-SLI might be exactly what the doctor ordered. Using the same PCB as the higher end GA-K8NXP-SLI, the GA-K8N Ultra-SLI supports all the usual goodies such as Gigabit network interface, an additional Silicon Image Sil3114 Serial ATA/RAID controller, a 7.1-channel audio codec, IEEE 1394b and of course Gigabyte's dual BIOS feature.

Like all Gigabyte motherboards, the GA-K8N Ultra-SLI is very easy to use and novice users shouldn't have a problem installing this motherboard. The layout is extremely user friendly and it seems like the Gigabyte engineers spent a lot of time trying to make everything perfect.

We have two minor complaints about the GA-K8N Ultra-SLI's construction. First we found the DIMM slots a bit close to each other. As they are, memory with larger heatspreaders like Corsair's PRO or Xpert lines might not sit 100% straight although this did not affect operation in our experience. Second, it's well known that the nForce4 chipset generates a lot of heat and the passively cooled NF4-SLI on the GA-K8N Ultra-SLI motherboard gets extremely hot. Better not have any cables in contact with the heatsink, otherwise you might be in a load of trouble!

The performance of the Gigabyte GA-K8N Ultra-SLI was good overall, although the board lagged slightly behind in 3D applications mainly due to slightly lower memory bandwidth. With nVIDIA finally releasing drivers capable of running SLI in all games, the SLI "excitement meter" is definitely on the rise again. With that in mind the Gigabyte GA-K8N Ultra-SLI is a good motherboard with a lot of features that's also easy to use. If you want to jump on the bandwagon but don't want to spend a fortune, check out this board. With a retail price of $210 CDN ($169 US), the GA-K8N Ultra-SLI won't break the bank of users wanting SLI capable AMD Athlon64 hardware on a budget.

Find out about this and many other reviews by joining the Weekly PCstats.com Newsletter today! Catch all of PCstats latest hardware reviews right here.

Related Articles

Here are a few other articles that you might enjoy as well...