It would not be unfounded to describe motherboards as the unsung heroes of computing, as it - as well the technologies that enable it - receive very little acknowledgement in an industry that is greatly driven by buzz words and must-haves.
So, going against the norm this release looks at mobile technologies and the elements that have greatly influenced its development.
Taiwan-based Gigabyte Technology`s 6-Dual Miracle technology, launched with the introduction of Intel`s E7205 chipset in 2002, represents six innovative motherboard technologies that set it apart from other offerings.
Since its introduction, 6-Dual Miracle has also been extended to run on AMD`s Athlon XP platforms.
Although the 6-Dual Miracle technology is slightly different for the Intel and AMD platforms, it still features six building blocks that enable these high-end motherboards to offer superior processing power and reliability features.
Miracle 1 - Dual Power System (DPS)
Driven by strong design philosophies and innovation, DPS offers a power circuit with a total of six phases - providing three extra phases, therefore, twice the amount recommended by standard motherboard design guidelines.
Essentially, the three extra phases known as DPVRM (Dual Power Voltage Regulation Module) effectively provide a more durable and stable power circuit to sustain a larger electric current of up to 150A.
DPS is specifically designed for future processors that require a higher working frequency and reliable power circuit.
Miracle 2 - Dual Logical Processors
Developed for the Intel Pentium 4 platform and enabled by Intel`s Hyper-Threading Technology, the two logical processors runs at 800MHz FSB. It aims to extend the computing experience as it maximises system performance by as much as 30%.
Dual LAN solution (for AMD Athlon XP platform)
This technology enables a PC to serve as a network gateway for managing traffic between two separate networks - therefore allowing for rapid transfer of data from WAN to LAN without any added arbitration or latency.
Miracle 3 - Dual Channel DDR
The Dual Channel DDR memory architecture delivers double memory bandwidth when compared to a single DDR. It, essentially, provides users RDRAM-like memory.
Miracle 4 - Dual RAID
With Silicon Image Serial ATA and IDE RAID controller chips, the two RAID interfaces deliver data protection as well impressive data storage capacity.
The IDE RAID, for example, is full functioning RAID controller that supports RAID 0 (Striping), RAID 1 (Mirroring), RAID 0+1 as well as JBOD (just a bunch of drives).
Miracle 5 - Dual Cooling System
The Dual Cooling Systems consists of a DPVRM active fan sink as well as an active fan sink located on the North Bridge chipset. Therefore, with two active fan sinks, the heat produced by the North Bridge and MOSFET -located on the DPVRM - is greatly reduced.
In addition, the airflow path is designed to drain heat from the fan sink ditches, thus providing extra ventilation to the surrounding heat dissipating components.
Miracle 6 - DualBIOS
Again, there are physically two BIOS chips - if the main boot-up BIOS fails due to virus infection or a natural/manmade disaster, the back-up BIOS automatically takes over the next system startup.
This in turn, guarantees motherboard stability and reliability.
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