Unfortunately there's both good news and bad news when we talk about the GA-6CX's implementation of those manual FSB controls.

First the good news.

When choosing the higher FSB settings, the GA-6CX automatically adjusts the all-important PCI and AGP clock dividers to appropriate levels so as not to corrupt the data sent across the system's bus. Settings of 1/2, 1/3, and 1/4 of the FSB speed are possible on the PCI bus, while the AGP bus sets itself to run at either 2/3 or 1/2 of whatever speed the FSB is set at.

Now the bad news.

While the manual CPU clock multiplier control is located within the GA-6CX's BIOS and is easily manipulated (although we doubt you'll touch it thanks to Intel's CPUs being multiplier locked), the controls for selecting the front side bus speed of the system are relegated to the smallest dip-switches we've ever seen.

How small?

Lets put it this way: Most small screwdrivers are too thick to be able to wedge into position to flip the switches back and forth.

Micro Dip-Switches

This is a glaring error on Gigabyte's part as the rest of the GA-6CX is an ergonomic delight. Even the ATX and floppy drive connector ports are smartly located in our favorite spot south of the RIMM banks on the board, which, as illogical as it may seem, is often overlooked by the larger mainboard designers.

Why Gigabyte decided on equipping their flagship i820 mainboard with such a frustrating method for manipulating the system's speed is beyond us. We hope they opt to place a standard sized dip-switch bank on the GA-6CX when the next revision of this board makes its way to market some time in the future.

In using the dip-switches over and over as we pressed the GA-6CX and a host of Intel Coppermine CPUs to the brink of their overclocked limits, we noticed another unwanted side effect of the small switches.

After changing their position approximately 40 - 60 times, one of the small plastic dip-switches had actually worn down to the point where it was unusable. Upon closer inspection (magnifying glass) we noticed that another of the four switches was also quickly wearing away into oblivion.