Board layout continued

There are 6 SATA 3.0Gb/sec ports.  Four grouped together and two more next to the post code display.

The I/O panel seems pretty bare, but remember all of the audio connectors are on the riser card.  There are 6 USB ports, 2 wired LAN ports, Firewire, a PS2 keyboard connector and mouse port.  The I/O panel has ventilation holes since that massive heatsink is sitting right there.

Marvell gets the nod for the LAN duties.  The 88E8052 and 88E8053 provide Gigabit ready LAN ports that support Teaming.  Teaming lets both LAN ports work together to provide up to twice the bandwidth.

Located on the Audio Riser card is the Realtek ALC888T (the "T" stands for Telecom and supports VOIP) audio chip.  This chip supports 8 Channel High definition audio and the riser card features six analog audio-jacks, a coaxial SPDIF In and Out.  It also has onboard pin-connectors for the optical SPDIF Out and an additional daughter card that allows using standard telephone sets for VoIP.

Under that holographic sticker is the VIA VT6307 firewire controller chip.  It supports the latest high speed IEEE 1394a standards, the VIA VT6307/L/S can detect connected device types and automatically configure data speeds to 100, 200, or 400 Mbps, transmitting both asynchronous and isochronous (real-time) data packets.

The lower part of the motherboard is packed with goodies.  Sapphire has included a power and reset switch.  The other two SATA ports we talked about earlier are located here.  They are controlled by a Silicone Image chip.  Lastly,  the POST code indicators are also located here.

Sapphire is not shy about teaming up with DFI to come up with this board.  The "LanParty" silkscreen is still on the motherboard and the board can also use BIOS files from DFI.