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When we flip the board around once more we spot 4 DIMM slots. Up-to 32 GB can be configured here. The DIMM slots are nicely color coded, please use one color per dual-channel configuration of 2 DIMM modules. The 24-pin motherboard connector is placed reasonably okay in the lower middle.
Moving slightly to the left, here we see five SATA 6G ports. One SATA port is pointing upwards but does not block a dual-slot graphics card BTW. The 90 degree angle/bend SATA connectors definitely have my preference. All ports are SATA3 thus SATA 6G creating massive bandwidth for SATA3 compatible storage units.
The left side of the motherboard. Underneath that little grey heatsink, the Southbridge chip is located; SB850. Below it we spot the front panel connectors, not color coded, and roughly in the middle we spot several headers for USB ports. In total there are three FAN headers located on this board.
The solid core chokes there are hidden underneath the heatsink. In total there are eight on the PCB, indicating six CPU power phases. The other chokes (not on this photo) are located lower and to the left of this photo and are there for memory and HT controller.
As mentioned, three physical x16 PCIe slots, two x1 PCIe slot and a traditional PCI slot. The orange slot is a x4 PCie slot.
- Using one graphics card it will get assigned a full x16
- Using two graphics cards they will get assigned 8x :8x
- Using three graphics cards it will get assigned 8x :8x :4x
