MBReview.com - Your Source For Motherboard News, Reviews and More Computer Technology

Now, when I talk about the Gigabyte product packages, I first off must warn you that I tend to give a bit of my own opinion mixed in with the facts. It is well known to frequent MBR readers that Gigabyte has always, in my opinion, put out some of the best, and in many cases the best packages for the retail market. The GA-8S655FX Ultra comes along with quite the large package full of extra components for the additional features offered. First off, the GA-8S655FX Ultra comes along with a large orange sticker that displays the motherboard layout, along with the locations of each of the jumpers, and the various headers. We have seen similar stickers included in past Gigabyte product packages, and they are surely a nice inclusion for any user. The GA-8S655FX Ultra also comes with the usual fold out instruction guide that will send you step by step through building your PC to get things up and running, yet another nice feature.

As far as external expansion brackets go, the GA-8S655FX Ultra addresses one issue that we have noticed in all of our previous Gigabyte reviews, that being the fact that with the additional features offered by the motherboards, the end user could end up filling up nearly all of their available PCI slots with expansion brackets. With the GA-8S655FX Ultra, Gigabyte has combined the IEEE1394 ports, and the USB 2.0 ports into one external bracket, instead of the usual two that we have seen utilized in the past. The GA-8S655FX Ultra’s package actually only features two rear expansion brackets, as unlike some of the other boards we saw in the past that did not feature a native SATA solution, Gigabyte no longer needs to add support for additional SATA options to their boards via additional expansion brackets, although the option for supporting external SATA devices in the future would have been a nice inclusion.

Additional items that are featured within the GA-8S655FX Ultra’s packaging are two red SATA cables for use with up to two SATA hard disk drive devices, along with a single power connector which features a single Molex connection, and two SATA power connectors. Since the 964 Southbridge offers support for native SATA RAID 0, both of these inclusions are necessary to give the end user full usage capabilities with their motherboard.

The remainder of the GA-8S655FX Ultra’s package includes items such as all of the various manuals, such as that of the ITE GigaRAID IDE RAID Controller, and that of the GA-8S655FX Ultra itself. We also find the usual custom rear I/O bracket to allow for the positioning of the rear I/O ports, one lengthy Floppy ribbon cable, three ATA133/100/66 ribbon cables, and of course the driver / software CD. Many times in the past we have seen manufactures throw in support for RAID, yet they always seem to skimp out on the cables they provide in the package. Gigabyte has clearly supplied everything you’ll need for the GA-8S655FX Ultra.

..:: GA-8S655FX Ultra Software Suite ::..

The software CD houses the drivers and software for the GA-8S655FX Ultra, so if you’re looking to find a driver, this would be the place to do it. When you first insert the disc into your CD-ROM, the main window will pop up right to the driver install window. Here, you simply click which drivers to install and you’re good to go. The next window that’ll be important is the Utilities window. Here you’ll be able to install all of the third party software, and Gigabyte’s own software onto your system. One of the nicer software inclusions within the package is that of Norton Internet Security 2003. This software package includes the likes of Norton Anti-Virus, Personal Firewall, Parental Controls, etc. Gigabyte has also chosen to include their Windows-based BIOS writer, along with a basic system monitoring utility. Overall the Gigabyte GA-8S655FX Ultra comes along with nothing less than an exceptional software suite.