GIGABYTE GA-K8N51PVMT-9 Motherboard Review :: Layout and Bundle

The GIGABYTE board has a fairly typical layout for mini-ATX motherboards today. The 4-pin power connector is situated above the CPU socket, on top of the board making for easy routing from the power supply. The 20-pin power connector is on the right hand above the IDE connector. The CPU socket area is surrounded by MOSFETs but is clear of obstructions allowing for easy installation of after-market cooling solutions.

CPU Fan connector

MOSFETs

North Bridge

4-pin Power Connector

The K8N51PVMT-9 uses a GEFORCE 6150 chipset for the North Bridge. This chip controls the integrated graphics on the motherboard, the HD playback of MPEG-2 files, and 2 PCI Express x1 lanes in addition to the PCI Express x16 slot. It is also cooled by a passive heatsink. The South Bridge is a nForce 430 chip. This controls the SATA channels, the ActiveArmor Firewall, and RAID 5.

The Bundle

• GIGABYTE GA-K8N51PVMT-9 Motherboard
• Video Dongle
• IDE cable
• Floppy drive cable
• SATA cable
• Driver CD
• SATA cable
• I/O panel back plate
• Manual

The board comes with a very minimal bundle, enough to get started but nothing else. I have an issue with motherboard manufacturers that don't include the same number of SATA cables as the board supports but GIGABYTE decided that the target market of the board should be the mainstream and the bundle reflects this.

Hardware Bundle

Back Plate

S-Video Out block

Software Bundle

The software bundle is pretty good. The driver install can be automated or step by step if you want. I chose the automated way and it installed without issue. GIGABYTE also includes an OEM version of Norton's Internet Security 2005. This includes Norton's AntiVirus and Norton's Firewall.