CPU Cooler Fit & Included Accessories

CPU Cooler Fit

To test the amount of space surrounding the CPU socket, we mounted a Noctua NH-D15 cooler to the CPU socket. Both a overly large CPU air coolers, sporting a dual fan construction and two huge vertical cooling towers.

Noctua NH-D15

With the NH-D15 oriented to blow air towards the board's rear panel, the cooler does not come into contact with any of the memory modules or heat sinks surrounding the CPU socket even though it does come close to the VRM heat sink on the right side of the CPU socket. The one caveat was with using a video card in the primary PCIe slot. The video card fits without issue as long as there was not an overly large backplate on it. The card would need to move to the secondary slot if the back side of the PCB contained large protrusions, however.

The side views illustrate that the memory slot layout is designed to be usable with even the largest CPU coolers, as long as the cooler design adheres to the Intel design spec. The fit between the front fan and the front memory modules could be tight, depending on the fan seat height.

Noctua SecuFirm2™ mounting system

Noctua's SecuFirm2™ mounting system is a good method to quickly determine how well the CPU socket laid out to accommodate a larger cooler. The mount easily fits within the constraints of the upper and lower memory modules as well as the heat sinks to the left and right of the CPU socket.

Included Accessories

GIGABYTE includes in everything you need to get the board up and running.

GIGABYTE includes a detailed installation guide and user manual, as well as an install disk containing all drivers necessary to get the board up and running. Also included is an Ultra Durable-branded metallic case badge.

The rear panel shield is a simple matte black colored base with white text and icons for easy reading and identification of the rear panel ports.

GIGABYTE included a total of four 6Gb/s rated SATA cables for use with the integrated port. The cables have integrated port locks with a mix of straight and 90 degree port connectors.

For multi-GPU use, GIGABYTE includes two-way, three-way, extended three-way, and four-way NVIDIA SLI cables for board support of up to a quad-SLI configuration, as well as a single two way CrossFire bridge connector.

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