Socket 754 Roundup: Comparing Generation 2
by Wesley Fink on May 28, 2004 5:57 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Gigabyte K8NSNXP: Features and Layout
| Motherboard Specifications | |
| CPU Interface | Socket 754 Athlon 64 |
| Chipset | nVidia nForce3-250 |
| CPU Ratios | 4 to 25 in 0.5X increments |
| Bus Speeds | 200MHz to 455MHz (in 1MHz increments) |
| PCI/AGP Speeds | Auto, 66MHz to 100MHz (in 1MHz increments) |
| Core Voltage | 0.80V to 1.7V in 0.025V increments |
| DRAM Voltage | Normal, +0.1V, +0.2V |
| VDDQ (Chipset)Voltage | Normal, +0.1V, +0.2V, +0.3V |
| HT (HyperTransport) Voltage | Normal, +0.1V, +0.2V, +0.3V |
| Memory Slots | Three 184-pin DDR DIMM Slots Unbuffered Non-ECC Memory to 2GB Total |
| Expansion Slots | 1 AGP 8X Slot 5 PCI Slots |
| Onboard SATA/RAID | nVidia 2-Drive SATA (RAID 0, 1, JBOD) Plus 2-Drive SiI3512 (RAID 0, 1, JBOD) |
| Onboard IDE/RAID | Two nVidia ATA133/100/66 (4 drives) PLUS 4-drive IT8212 GigaRAID RAID 0, 1, 0+1) |
| Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394 | 8 USB 2.0 ports supported by nF3-250 3 1394B FireWire ports by VIA VT6306 |
| Onboard LAN | 1Gigabit Ethernet by Marvel 8001 PCI 10/100Ethernet by ICS1883 |
| Onboard Audio | Realtek ALC850 8-Channel with SPDIF |
The Gigabyte K8NSNXP offers some of the widest adjustment ranges and the most complete feature set of any board in this roundup. Gigabyte has promoted the Dual capability in almost all their recent high-end boards, and the K8NSNXP continues that tradition. The trademark DPS card boosts power regulation to 6-phase for stability, SATA has both nVidia and Silicon Image controllers, IDE features nVidia regular IDE plus ITE GigaRAID, Audio is 8-channel, and there are even two LAN connectors. However, despite the incredibly long feature list for this top-end board, the system is still based on the nForce3-250 chipset and not the nForce3-250Gb. That means neither LAN is on-chip (they both appear to be tied to the PCI bus), and the nVidia Firewall is not a feature on the Gigabyte.
Gigabyte builds extremely solid motherboards, and this certainly shows in the construction of this clear-blue, full-size ATX motherboard with rounded corners. Attention to detail also shows in the almost ideal placement of components on the K8NSNXP, with IDE, Floppy, ATX 20-pin and 12V connectors all at near ideal locations. The only real complaint about layout is that the DPS card blocks air flow from a down-facing fan on the Power Supply when it is installed.
For those looking for great Firewire support, the Gigabyte comes through again with 3 1394B high-speed Firewire ports. Gigabyte has been supplying 1394B on its top motherboards for some months, and that continues with the K8NSNXP. Gigabyte also provides quiet active cooling for the single chip nForce3-250. On-board headers are also located for easy connection of front ports if that is a feature of your case.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
30 Comments
View All Comments
karlreading - Monday, August 30, 2004 - link
i braught the chaintech vnf3-250 based on the review it recieved at AT and TBPH its a cracking motherboard, plus it easily gets my 2ghz a64-3200+ to 2.4 ghz and lets you run 1ghz HT if u running the cpu stock, something whic supposidly only the nf3 ultra let u do.all in all a very fast, very reliable, very overclockerbul motherboard which i have NMO regrets about buying :)lem79 - Friday, August 6, 2004 - link
I have the Epox 8KDA3+ here with an Athlon64 2800+, runs nice, except for one quirk, which Anandtech failed to mention here (they probably didn't even know)..Cool'n'Quiet only works on this board when _one_ DIMM slot is in use (that is, DIMM1). If there's RAM in DIMM2 and DIMM3 slots, Cool'n'Quiet gets disabled by the BIOS (July revision, earlier BIOS images leave it enabled, but Cool'n'Quiet activation causes system instability and lockups). Epox themselves told me that this was the case.
I think the review needs updating..
operator - Sunday, June 6, 2004 - link
I have the same question as #25. with a small addition.when will the msi k8n or the epox board be available in Canada?
Zebo - Wednesday, June 2, 2004 - link
This is a very good review Wesley, thanks. I really like how you went into detail with memory and boards FSB capabilites for the clockers out here.:) Looks like the Chaintech is the board for me. Cheap and a real performer. It's really to bad nVidia failed to have a decent sound solution though.Sk0t - Tuesday, June 1, 2004 - link
Nice review.... BUT Im unable to understand why the Epox 8KDA3+ was awarded gold, and MSI K8n Neo Platinum only awarded silver ?Epox pros over MSI:
6th pci-slot
Slightly better overclocking
MSI pros over Epox:
Firewire
3 working dimm sockets (at 400mhz)
Slightly better layout (dimm-sockets)
Supports Cool&Quiet*
*Since the review seems to completly ignore cool&quiet (unless i missed it?) I will stick to my current rule of thumb, that only Asus & MSI fully supports this feature
Did I miss some wonderfull feature on the Epox ? or was slightly better overclocking considered more important than features & layout ?
gmenfan - Tuesday, June 1, 2004 - link
Does anyone know when the MSI K8N Neo will be available? Thanks.mbf - Tuesday, June 1, 2004 - link
Nice review! I just have one question; how can there be boards *without* ECC support, when the A64 has the memory controller on-die and it *inherently* supports unbuffered ECC memory? I'm especially thinking of the Epox and MSI boards, since they interest me the most (hardware firewall et al).Actually, I wrote to MSI (US) about this and was told that indeed ECC is supported and the "non-ECC" statement on the product spec page was erroneous. The page was immediately updated (http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p_spec.asp?mode... However, only the US site has been updated, and neither the manual (PDF) nor the BIOS available from the MSI Taiwan site state ECC support. Neither do the manual or BIOS for the Epox board.
As ECC support is pretty important to me having had some bitter experiences with regular memory, I was wondering if some kind person at Anandtech might be persuaded to throw in a stick of unbuffered ECC memory into either the K8N Neo or the Epox 8KDA3 and let me know if the memory is detected as such? I'd really appreciate the effort!
I know the ASUS K8N-E Deluxe (http://www.asus.com.tw/products/mb/socket754/k8n-e... states ECC support, but it's anyone's guess when that board will be out, since they cannot even make their mind up if the board is to be shown on their home page or not (right now it is, tomorrow it may not).
l3ored - Tuesday, June 1, 2004 - link
price is mentioned as a component in electing the epox as the gold winner, so whats the current street price?SilverRyu - Monday, May 31, 2004 - link
Do you think shuttle will make a 250Gb or K8T800Pro XPC?cnq - Monday, May 31, 2004 - link
Wesley,Nice writeup...
A question about overclocking: you tested at 1:1 ratios, meaning you didn't really find the bounds of the FSB/HTT so much as you found the bounds of the PC4400 RAM that you used. If you had dropped the RAM ratio, do you have any indication which boards could have topped 300 MHz? I am of course thinking of your great AK89 Max review from a few weeks back, where you made waves by showing FSB/HTT speeds of 347 MHz. Will you have time to do similar tests on these new boards? (Or, for that matter, can I ask why you didn't do similar tests on these new boards? Is it merely because ClockGen hasn't yet been ported to NF250?)
I'd also like to second the suggestion made by posting #1 (he mentions aceshardware.com. techreport.com has also chimed in with recent articles on the subject. Not surprisingly, their conclusion is to just avoid cheap Realtek products if you want good CPU utilization. And sudhian.com found great ethernet performance with low CPU overhead from the NF250-GB chip's embedded controller.)