Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-8IEXP Review :: Installation

The board design was completely jumperless. If your BIOS version is new, boot it up. That's it. Installation of the motherboard was not so hard either. But there were ergonomic issues. The IDE and floppy connector locations and other connector locations on the motherboard were designed properly to maintain airflow inside the case and make maintenance easier. Only the power supply connector placement was not quite right(it is located in the blue hightlighted area in the photo below and it should be located in the red highlighted area. Although you can see there is no room on the PCB for this). The AGP Card, when installed, was too close to memory slots. It was preventing memory installation.

The AGP Card locking mechanism was the best kind, you don't have to pull the locking peg to install the card, but the card cannot slide off until you pull the peg.

This is the second time I've ever seen a rounded corners on a motherboard. Gigabyte started a new custom I suppose. I don't know the purpose. Maybe it is rounded to prevent cracking the motherboard, if you hit it somewhere inside the case, when you are installing. Perhaps to prevent cutting your hands, or just for the look of it.

The on-board audio connectors were between the PCI slots, but laid out one by one, which makes it easier to plug and unplug. It would be easier to strap them as one if they were together. And it would be easier to plug/unplug cables from another location.

The backplane of the motherboard is not standard. They did supply a backplane in the package to handle this but it would be better if they designed the USB and LAN ports in the ATX standard locations.

When you buy a system, years will pass by. And most of the times, you will loose your manual and it is not easy to connect to internet at hard times. You open the cover and tadaaa, your board layout is right in front of your eyes. I like that layout sticker idea. I saw that just on Intel motherboards before. It makes installation and maintenance easier.