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Supermicro PDSBA G965-based mobo

Intel's latest integrated chipset arrives

Let's take a closer look at the motherboard and what it has one offer. The PDSBA isn't a consumer product - not one of Supermicro's markets - but I would imagine that this board will make its way into a variety of office systems. As I said, there are no IDE connectors whatsoever on this board, and there are only four SATA connectors, as Supermicro has used the standard ICH8 South Bridge chip rather than the six-port RAID version. However, the good old floppy connector is still present.

Supermicro_PDSBA_sysmark2004se

Around the rear is the normal array of connectors, including two PS/2 ports, parallel and serial ports, a VGA port, six USB 2.0 ports, an Ethernet connector - for the on-board Gigabit Ethernet controller - and six 3.5mm audio jacks fed by a 7.1-channel Realtek audio chip. If you want DVI you have install an ADD2 card in the x16 PCI Express slot. The PDSBA also features a physical x8 slot, but it's only connect to four PCI-E lanes. There's a x1 PCI-Express slot too and four PCI slots for further expansion.

A full set of four memory slots, which together accept up to 8GB of system RAM, are available and there are two internal headers for a further four USB ports - these are supplied on a bracket with the motherboard. Rather unusually, all the fan headers - three in all - use the new four-pin design, not just the one for the CPU cooler. Being a business-oriented product, the PDSBA features TPM (Trusted Platform Module) support, although this can easily be disabled via a jumper.

Apart from the USB bracket, the board is also supplied with a full set of four SATA cables and a floppy cable. And that's it as far as accessories go.

Next page: Verdict

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