Gigabyte
8PE667 Ultra2 i845PE Based Mainboard
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The board is almost identical to the 8PE667
Ultra and differs from its twin only in the onboard controllers.
Accessories:
- Package of the standard design which is laminated with plastic with
a some holographic effect;
- Documentation: user manual, manual for
IDE RAID, manual for SATA RAID, poster with brief installation steps - in English;
-
Cables: FDD, 3 SATA, 3 ATA66/100/133;
- Bracket with SATA connectors
(2 interface connector plus 1 cable with standard SATA and standard IDE);
-
Bracket with 4 USB ports;
- Bracket with Rear, Center/Sub and S/PDIF-Out
connectors (Coaxial and TosLink);
- Bracket for the rear computer
panel;
- CD containing:
- drivers;
-
DirectX 8.1;
- Adobe Acrobat Reader;
- Norton Internet
Security 2002;
- Gigabyte EasyTune 4;
- Gigabyte IA
Panel;
- Gigabyte Face Wizard;
- Gigabyte Windows Utility
Manager;
- Gigabyte Management Tools;
- Gigabyte BIOS
Writer.
Surely, such a highly integrated board has some shortcomings in the layout:
audio-ins are in front of the PCI, and the IDE RAID are behind them, and when
a video card is installed it's difficult to handle the memory modules. No switches
or jumpers. The 3-channel switching voltage regulator incorporates 10
capacitors of 1500 uF. The following controllers are integrated:
- audio controller based on the chipset's capabilities and Avance Logic
ALC650 AC'97 codec supporting 5.1 audio systems and having connectors for front
audio inputs/outputs and for SPDIF;
- network controller based on
the Intel Intel RC82540EM chip supporting 10BaseT/100BaseTX/1000BaseT (Gigabit
Ethernet);
- IDE RAID controller based on the Promise PDC20276 chip
supporting RAID 0 and 1 on the protocols up to ATA133;
- SATA RAID
controller based on the Silicon Image Sil3112ACT144 chip supporting RAID 0 and
1 on the SATA150 protocol.
Thanks to the ITE IT8712F-A controller
the board supports (and have connectors) a SmartCard Reader. The board supports
the DualBIOS technology (there is a backup Flash EEPROM chip with BIOS copy).
+2.5 V supplied to the memory modules is indicated with the LED. When a 3.3V
card is inserted into the AGP slot you will see the LED going on which means that
the card is incompatible. Non-unsoldered connectors: serial port connector
(it's used on the i845GE based board). The system monitoring is supported
by the ITE IT8712F-A chip. What is controlled: - processor voltage,
1.5, +3.3, +5 and +12 V;
- speed of 3 fans;
- temperatures
of the processor (a built-in sensor).
There are 2 connectors for
adjustable and 2 for unadjustable connection of fans (one of them is connected
to a fan on the heatsink of the chipset's north bridge). Brief characteristics
of the board: memory slots - 3 DDR SDRAM; expansion slots - AGP/ 6 PCI/ CNR;
I/O ports - 2 COM/ LPT/ 2 PS/2/ 6 USB 2.0; dimensions - 305x245 mm.
Adjustment
can be carried out with:
| BIOS based on Award 6.00PG |
Setup of memory timings |
+ |
CAS Latency, Active to Precharge, RAS to CAS Delay, RAS Precharge |
| Setup of memory frequency |
+ |
Auto, Host/DRAM = 2, 2,5 |
| Setup of AGP bus |
- |
|
| Setup of PCI bus |
- |
|
| Changeable scaler of AGP and PCI buses |
+ |
AGP(PCIx2) = 66-100 MHz in 1MHz steps |
| Manual assignment of interrupts |
+ |
|
| Changeable FSB frequency |
+ |
100-355 MHz in 1MHz steps |
| Changeable CPU multiplier |
+ |
x8-x50 |
| Changeable core voltage |
+ |
1.5-1.75 in 0.025 V steps |
| Changeable memory voltage |
+ |
Normal, +0.1, +0.2 V |
| Changeable chipset voltage |
- |
|
| Changeable AGP bus voltage |
+ |
Normal, +0.1, +0.2, +0.3 V |
We used the BIOS F2 as the latest available
version. Gigabit Ethernet and SATA RAID instead of 4 additional USB 2.0
ports and Flash Card Reader support looks like a beneficial replacement. The board
thus looks more attractive than its predecessor 8PE667 Ultra, and it really is
one of the brightest models on this chipset; besides, the speed of both Gigabyte's
solutions is quite high. Test results:
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