Intel BOXDG43GT, Product Manual, Page: 20 / 82

Intel Desktop Board DG43GT Product Guide
20
NOTE
ATA-66 and ATA-100 are faster timings and require a specialized cable to reduce
reflections, noise, and inductive coupling.
The PATA interface also supports ATAPI devices (such as CD-ROM drives) and ATA
devices using the transfer modes.
The BIOS supports Logical Block Addressing (LBA) and Extended Cylinder Head Sector
(ECHS) translation modes. The drive reports the transfer rate and translation mode to
the BIOS.
SATA Interfaces
The ICH10 SATA controller provides four independent SATA ports with a theoretical
maximum transfer rate of 3.0 Gb/s on each port. One device can be installed on each
port for a maximum of four SATA devices. A point-to-point interface is used for host
to device connections, unlike PATA which supports a master/slave configuration and
two devices on each channel.
For compatibility, the underlying SATA functionality is transparent to the operating
system. The SATA controller supports IDE and AHCI configuration and can operate in
both legacy and native modes. In Legacy mode, standard ATA I/O and IRQ resources
are assigned (IRQ 14 and 15). In Native mode, standard PCI Conventional bus
resource steering is used. Native mode is the preferred mode for configurations using
the Windows* XP and Windows Vista* operating systems.
Expandability
For system expansion, the Desktop Board provides the following expansion slots:
• One PCI Express 2.0 x16 connector (compatible with PCI Express 1.1 add-in cards)
• Two PCI Express 1.1 x1 connectors
• One PCI bus connector