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Gigabyte GA-7VT600-L
Christopher Emry, July 28th, 2003
..:: Gigabyte GA-7VT600-L Layout ::..
As with most of Gigabyte's motherboards that have been released within the past year or so, you can see that their definitive color scheme is also present on the 7VT600-L. This motherboard is based on the industry standard ATX form factor, although the width of the 7VT600-L is a bit thinner than usual. This is a sure-fire way to keep the motherboard's price at an acceptable level for consumers on a low budget, but this type of design can cause a bit of frustration with some of the integrated components that are near each other on the PCB.
Gigabyte's "Yellow Thunder Socket" is oriented in a north to south direction and is clearly away from the top edge of the motherboard. This should make it a lot easier to remove a heatsink in a tightly cramped case. Gigabyte also places a clear strip of plastic under each side of the socket heatsink clips to protect the 7VT600-L if the screwdriver slips or the heatsink scrapes the motherboard during installation. We can find the cpu fan header in this area as well, which is located to at the top edge of the motherboard near the first memory bank. The four heatsink mounting holes are not to be found around the socket, therefore you will not be able to mount water blocks or larger types of heatsink coolers to the 7VT600-L motherboard.
While we are on the topic of large heatsinks, a problem occurred when I tried to install our Thermaltake Volcano9 on the 7VT600-L. If we zoom in to the bottom left edge of the processor socket, there is a large capacitor located here that almost prevented me from using the Volcano9. It was such a tight fit, the heatsink came in contact with this capacitor and started pushing on it.
This contact happened with the capacitor near the top right area of the socket as well. After wiping the sweat from my forehead, I finally managed to get the heatsink installed properly, but it is resting against both capacitors. Be forewarned that if you are going to install any type of heatsink that is as large as our Thermaltake Volcano9, be extra careful not to damage these capacitors on the 7VT600-L during installation.
To the right of the processor socket are the three purple colored memory banks that house the DDR modules. Right between the memory banks and the right edge of the 7VT600-L are the floppy connector and the main ATX power supply connector. The extra 12V ATX connector is not present on the 7VT600-L, so users should not have to worry about purchasing a new power supply.
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