This is the first (non-reference) board on this chipset which
we were able to get. Although the board is a pre-production sample, it is equipped
with a good set of accessories and works excellently.
Accessories:
- Package: an old design;
- Cables: 3 ATA66/100/133 and 1 FDD;
- Bracket with 4 USB ports;
- Bracket with two USB ports;
- Bracket for the rear panel;
- CD with software including:
- drivers;
- Adobe Acrobat Reader 5.0;
- Norton Antivirus 2002;
- Norton Personal Firewall 2002;
- several utilities for a smart card reader;
- system monitoring programs;
- Gigabyte EasyTune III;
- Gigabyte Face Wizard;
- Gigabyte Management Tool.
The layout is rather good, except audio-ins which are located
in front of PCI slots, and too close components in the lower right-hand corner.
It's not difficult to reach jumpers even when the board is already installed.
The 3-channel switching voltage regulator incorporates 2 capacitors
of 3300 uF, 2 of 1200 uF and several lower-capacity ones (although modern boards
use a larger number of LowESR capacitors, it was enough for the card to work stable).
The following controllers are integrated: an audio one based
on the Creative CT5880-DEQ, it has a connector for front outputs and inputs; USB
2.0 bus controller based on the VIA's VT6202 chip, it has 4 ports and is back
compatible with USB 1.1 devices. The Winbond I/O controller (W83L518D) provides
for installation of connectors for readers of smart cards and MS and SD cards.
The board incorporates the Gigabyte DualBIOS
technology which allows using the second unsoldered BIOS chip as a reserve one.
Non-unsoldered connectors: jumpers and switches for clearing
of the CMOS, changing a CPU frequency, BIOS protection from recording and connectors
for 2 USB 1.1 ports, a fan, SPDIF, WOL and WOR.
The system monitoring is supported by the ITE IT8705F chip.
Processor voltage (+/-3.3, +/-5 and +/-12 V), speed of 3 fans and temperatures
of the processor (a built-in sensor), the board (a built-in sensor) and an external
sensor can be controlled. There are 2 connectors for adjustable connection of
fans and 1 for non-adjustable.
Brief characteristics of the board: memory slots - 3
DDR SDRAM; expansion slots - AGP/ 5 PCI; I/O ports - 2 COM/ LPT/ 2 PS/2/ 4 USB
1.1/ 4 USB 2.0; dimensions - 305x235 mm.
Adjustment can be carried out with:
| jumpers and switches |
Switches to change a CPU multiplier |
x5-x>12.5 |
| Jumper to change an IDE RAID mode |
ATA133 mode/ RAID mode |
| BIOS based on the v1.24i from AMI |
Setup of memory timings |
+ |
CAS Latency, Command Rate, Fast Command |
| Setup of memory frequency |
+ |
Auto, DDR266, DDR333 |
| Setup of AGP bus |
+ |
 |
| Setup of PCI bus |
+ |
|
| Changeable scaler of AGP and PCI buses |
- |
|
| Manual assignment of interrupts |
+ |
 |
| Changeable FSB frequency |
+ |
in 1 MHz steps, 133-200 MHz |
| Changeable CPU multiplier |
- |
|
| Changeable core voltage |
+ |
+5%, +7.5%, +10% |
| Changeable memory voltage |
- |
|
| Changeable chipset voltage |
- |
|
| Changeable AGP bus voltage |
- |
|
We used the latest available version of the BIOS - F3.
The board features an excellent set of functions and good speed
characteristics, but there are not many settings - it will hardly be a good choice
for overclockers.
Test results:
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