Socket 939 Roundup: Battle at the Top
by Wesley Fink on July 30, 2004 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Gigabyte K8NSNXP-939: Features and Layout
| Gigabyte K8NSNXP-939 Motherboard Specifications | |
| CPU Interface | Socket 939 Athlon 64 |
| Chipset | nVidia nForce3 Ultra |
| Bus Speeds | 200MHz to 455MHz (in 1MHz increments) |
| CPU Ratios | 5x to 25x in 0.5x increments |
| PCI/AGP Speeds | Auto, 66MHz to 100MHz (in 1MHz increments) |
| HyperTransport | 1x-5x (200MHz to 1GHz) |
| Core Voltage | 0.8V to 1.70V in 0.025V increments |
| DRAM Voltage | +.1V, +.2V |
| AGP Voltage | +.1V, +.2V, +.3V |
| HyperTransport Voltage | +.1V, +.2V, +.3V |
| Memory Slots | Four 184-pin DDR DIMM Slots Dual-Channel Unbuffered Memory to 4GB |
| Expansion Slots | 1 AGP 8X Slot 5 PCI Slots |
| Onboard SATA/RAID | nVidia 2-Drive SATA(RAID 0, 1) Plus SiI3512 2-Drive SATA (RAID 0, 1) |
| Onboard IDE/RAID | Two Standard nVidia ATA133/100/66 (4 drives). Can be combined with SATA drives for RAID 0, 1, 0+1, JBOD |
| Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394 | 8 USB 2.0 ports supported by nF3-250 2 1394B FireWire ports by TI controller |
| Dual Onboard LAN | 1Gigabit Ethernet by Marvell 8001 10/100 Ethernet by ICS 1883 |
| Onboard Audio | Realtek ALC850 8-Channel with UAJ |
| Tested BIOS | M03 Beta |
More than any other manufacturer, Gigabyte loads their premium boards with every feature that you can think of, and then some. The K8NSNXP-939 certainly follows in that tradition as a member of the 6-Dual Deluxe family. Gigabyte has also developed a reputation of providing some of the widest ranges of adjustments to allow the Computer Enthusiast to squeeze the last bit of performance from their board, CPU, and memory, and the 939 continues that tradition.
The one glaring area that continues to plague recent Gigabyte designs is the extremely limited range of memory voltage adjustments. In this case, memory can be adjusted to +.2V and that's it. After seeing this complaint voiced in review after review, you would think that Gigabyte would seriously consider a wider range of vDIMM adjustments. Offsetting the limited vDIMM is a decent range of CPU voltage adjustments and the excellent addition of HyperTransport voltage options.
The most notable features of the K8NSNXP-939 include high-speed 1394B Firewire for firewire fanciers, Dual LAN, extensive RAID capabilities spanning SATA and IDE drives, and 8-channel audio with UAJ. We were also impressed with the updated design of the DPS 6-phase power module. It now sits lower on the board and our past complaints that the DPS impeded air flow are now history in the new design.
Layout of the Gigabyte 939 is nearly ideal, with the added step that even the SATA connectors are in locations that will not interfere with the largest PCI and AGP cards. The unique AGP EZ-Fix slot is also proving to be very useful, especially when using top-line 2-slot video cards. Anyone who has tried to remove a 6800 Ultra from a common rear-lever AGP slot probably cursed the designer and maybe broke the lever trying to find it under 2 slots of video card in a sea of capacitors. That's not to say EZ-Fix is that easy with a 2-slot card, but at least you have a fighting chance of removing the card. Gigabyte also kept capacitors away from the AGP slot.
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Gigabyte K8NSNXP-939: Overclocking and Stress Testing
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bigtoe33 - Tuesday, July 20, 2004 - link
Asus USA did block sales of the A8V but some US resellers decided to go it alone with imported european boards.While it does p1$$ me off that there were still boards in europe not upto scratch you have to commend Asus USA for blocking sales and trying to at least look after some customers...they are also honouring RMA's also.
So #1 it does show some resarch was needed before you bought your board as i tried to let everyone know that the first boards available were not PCI lock fixed although any of them do work with the lock and work VERY well.
Wesley Fink - Tuesday, July 20, 2004 - link
#1 - Asus never advertised or listed an AGP/PCI lock as a feature on the original release of the A8V Deluxe. That is the only reason we have not yet reviewed this board. While we did have a sample with a working lock, we have stated in every comment about the A8V in memory reviews and articles that Asus had not yet released a production board with this feature, but that they planned to implement this feature in the future.It is also our understanding that the US office even held release of the board to the US market, but many huge on-line vendors direct imported this board or brought it in from European sources. Since we were working with Asus, we know they tried very hard to hold release of this baord until they could work through issues of adding a stable PCI/AGP lock to the A8V.
It is our understanding than Revision 2.0 will implement an AGP/PCI lock, but we have not yet seen the production board, which we expect this week. We will confirm the new feature when the board is received.
We tried to caution readers about the AGP/PCI lock on early VIA boards as loudly as we could. In fact we got a lot of flak from manufacturers and VIA about our articles on the problems with the AGP/PCI lock on early VIA boards.
Asus did not even list the AGP/PCI lock as an option on the AV8 Deluxe. Our suggestion is to contact Asus, but you got the features Asus advertised and listed for this board.
shamgar03 - Tuesday, July 20, 2004 - link
I bought a ASUS A8V like 3 weeks ago, but in the article it says they are re-releasing it or something, does anyone know if they are going to patch that with bios updates, or did I just get the shaft?