EVGA X58 SLI uses the Intel ICH10R south bridge chip, which supports six SATA-300 ports with RAID 0, 1, 10 and 5. A JMicron JMB363 chip provides two more SATA-300 ports (supporting RAID 0, 1, 0+1 and JBOD) and one ATA-133 port. And a JMicron JMB362 chip provides one more SATA-300 port (near the first PCI Express x16 slot) and one eSATA-300 port. So we have a total of nine SATA-300 ports and one eSATA-300 port. This motherboard does not provide a port for floppy disk drives.

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Figure 4: Six of the nine SATA-300 ports and one ATA-133 port.

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Figure 5: Two of the nine SATA-300 ports.

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Figure 6: One SATA-300 port near the first PCI Express x16 slot.

As you can see in Figure 5, this motherboard comes with a POST display, which is useful to detect what is wrong with your PC in case it is not turning on.

This motherboard has two Gigabit Ethernet ports, which are controlled by two Realtek RTL8111C controllers, which are connected to the system using PCI Express lanes and thus able to achieve their maximum performance.

The audio section from this motherboard provides 7.1 audio, produced by the south bridge chip with the aid of Realtek ALC889 codec. This codec provides outstanding signal-to-noise ratios, with 104 dB for its analog inputs and 108 dB for its analog outputs, with 192 kHz sampling rate for both inputs and outputs. In other words, you can use the on-board audio from this motherboard for working professionally editing analog audio sources, like converting LPs, cassette tapes and VHS tapes to digital format.

This motherboard provides 7.1 independent analog audio outputs, which is great. It also features on-board coaxial and optical SPDIF outputs.

This motherboard has 12 USB 2.0 ports with eight of them soldered on the rear panel and four available through headers on the board, and this board comes with an I/O bracket with four USB ports, allowing you to use all 12 ports. By the way, the ICH10 chip has a feature called “USB Port Disable” that allows you to disable individual USB ports. This is a very interesting feature to have on PCs that are used by several different people to prevent users from installing USB devices (for example, an external hard drive or a USB drive, which can contain viruses and also to prevent people from copying data).

This motherboard also has two FireWire (IEEE1394) ports controlled by a Texas Instruments TSB43AB22A chip, with one soldered on the rear panel and another available through an I/O bracket. This motherboard comes with an I/O bracket containing one FireWire port (standard size).

In Figure 7, you can see the motherboard rear panel with PS/2 keyboard connector, clear CMOS button, eight USB 2.0 ports, coaxial and optical SPDIF outputs, one FireWire port, one eSATA port, two Gigabit Ethernet ports and independent analog 7.1 audio outputs.

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Figure 7: Motherboard rear panel.

This motherboard does not provide support for PS/2 mice, so you need to use a USB mouse. EVGA X58 SLI provides one serial port, available using an I/O bracket that comes with the product. A parallel port is not provided.