Installation
This board is an X58 board so we will be installing it into our X58 test system. Before you get started installing the board you first want to seat your CPU.
WARNING – Use extreme caution when installing LGA 1366 CPUs. The pins in the CPU socket are very fragile and easily damaged. DO NOT TOUCH THE PINS WITH YOUR FINGERS!
You also want to install your memory and CPU cooler. Doing all this before you install the motherboard in your case makes things a lot easier.
So I went to install the G1 Assassin in the BitFenix Colossus case, no go. Then I tried the Thermaltake Level 10 GT, no go either. This motherboard has a weird form factor which is called XL-ATX (345mm x 262mm). It is even larger than an Extended ATX motherboard. There are only so many cases that will fit a motherboard like this. After doing some research the most popular cases that will support this motherboard are the Cooler Master HAF X, Lian Li PC-P80 and Thermaltake Xaser VI. Gigabyte also has a approved case list you can check out here.
So without a case to install the motherboard in we opted to setup the board on a tech station. Obviously this is not recommend, but it is the best we could do.
So our final system is comprised of an Intel i7-965 Extreme processor, Gigabyte G1 Assassin motherboard, Sapphire Radeon HD6950 video card, 6GB Crucial Ballisitx memory, Zalman ZM1000HP Plus power supply and a 750GB SATA hard drive.
