The biggest chipset problem of 2005 for Intel was the lack of support for dual graphics cards. Anyone wanting to run a pair of graphics cards had to turn to Nvidia for a chipset &ndash, including Dell. Intel has released its answer to this with Intel 975 chipset, which was released at the same time as its 65nm Pentium Extreme Edition 955 processor.

This motherboard boasts two 16-lane PCI Express slots, with the bottom slot designed specifically for dual-card operation, at which point both operate at x8 speeds. This chipset can, in theory, support ATi’s CrossFire and Nvidia’s SLI, although currently Nvidia limits its SLI technology to its own motherboard chipset. This is expected to change later this year, but for the time being you can either use any single card, or use a pair of ATi cards.

The G1-Turbo is aimed at the more enthusiastic overclocker, which is the only group that is going to be excited by the elaborate cooling mechanism around the processor, power circuitry and north bridge. A combination of plastic venting and four fans control airflow onto the memory chips, with the added airflow enabling the front side bus to be pushed that much more. The downside to this is that the standard ATX backplate is reduced to a pair of USB ports, the audio and P/S2 connectors. Everything else has been shifted to PCI brackets, which limits the expansion possibilities a little, but with such a feature rich motherboard this isn’t as catastrophic as you might think.

There are plenty of other features on offer to entice the less frequency crazy. Onboard audio has improved significantly since Intel brought out its high-definition audio specification, but Gigabyte has taken this a stage further by installing a Creative Sound Blaster Live 24-bit controller. Apart from widespread industry support, a great feature list and 7.1 surround sound, this chip also eases the load placed on the processor and boasts DTS support.

Once Nvidia supports SLI on other chipsets, this motherboard gets a lot more interesting – providing a single solution that supports either graphics card. As it currently stands, this is an expensive way of getting CrossFire, and unless you’re keen on overclocking, is far too expensive for normal mundane use.