--GIGABYTE Releases 6 Series SATA Check Utility to Help Optimize Performance of P67 & H67 Motherboard--

City of Industry, California, February 03, 2011 - GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co., Ltd, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards and other computing hardware solutions, the news of the SATA 2.0 issues with Intel 6 series chipsets has sparked a lot of uncertainty about how this will affect those of us who upgraded to the new Sandy Bridge architecture. Essentially, if you're using 1 or 2 SATA devices then this chipset issue need not affect you at all because you can connect your devices to the 2 white SATA 3.0 ports. However, if you're using 3 or more SATA devices, you may want to prioritize your more important devices on the white SATA 3.0 ports (e.g. hard drive with your operating system on it) and the less important devices on the Intel PCH SATA 2.0 ports (e.g. a DVD-ROM).

To help our customers optimize SATA performance on their 6 series motherboards, GIGABYTE has created an easy to use utility called the GIGABYTE 6 Series SATA Check that tells you if the SATA ports that you are using are in fact the affected Intel PCH SATA 2.0 ports. It also recommends that you change your SATA devices to the white SATA 3.0 ports. The utility is a simple program that will work on any 6 series chipset based motherboard, and has 3 possible scenarios that offer different advice for users to configure their SATA devices. Please copy this utility to P67/H67 system's Windows desktop and unzip, double click the "67sfck.exe" file.
The 1st scenario is where there are no devices connected to the affected Intel PCH SATA 2.0 ports, and the utility will let you know that your "SATA configuration (is) OK".

The 2nd scenario is where your devices are all connected to the affected Intel PCH SATA 2.0 ports, and the utility will advise you to "(Please) move 1 or 2 devices from (the) Intel PCH SATA 2.0 ports to the free SATA 3.0 ports.

The 3rd scenario is where you have devices connected to the affected Intel PCH SATA 2.0 ports and the SATA 3.0 ports are also populated. Here the utility will advice you that "Use of (the) Intel PCH SATA 2.0 ports is not recommended".

The GIGABYTE 6 Series SATA Check utility will soon be available for download on the GIGABYTE website.

About GIGABYTE Upgrade Your Life

GIGABYTE, headquartered in Taipei, Taiwan, is known as a global leading brand in the IT industry, with employees and business channels in almost every country. Founded in 1986, GIGABYTE started as a research and development team and has since taken the lead in the world's motherboard market. On top of motherboards and graphics accelerators, GIGABYTE further expanded its product portfolio to include notebook and desktop PCs, digital home entertainment appliances, networking servers, communications, mobile and handheld devices, servicing every facet of people's lives at home or business. Everyday GIGABYTE aims to "Upgrade Your Life" with the most innovative designs and impeccable quality and services. Visit http://www.gigabyte.us for more information.