Introduction

Ever since the debut of the AMD Athlon, Gigabyte has been among the first with motherboard solutions.  When the Athlon first appeared in 1999, Gigabyte quickly released the GA-7IX, which AMD eventually used in their evaluation systems.

They have not always provided the best AMD solutions, but Gigabyte motherboards are usually above average.  Their AMD 750 solution, the GA-7IX, the KX133 solution, the GA-7VX, the KT133 solution, the GA-7ZX, were all among the first available with the latest chipsets for Socket-A CPU’s. 

The latest Socket-A motherboard from Gigabyte, the GA-7ZXR, was not a particularly impressive one - it did get the job done just fine, but it did not really offer anything to make it stand out either.  It was merely a RAID version of the GA-7ZX.  In terms of overclocking the GA-7ZXR did not feature multiplier control, and in fact, Gigabyte still hasn’t released a Socket-A motherboard that allows manipulation of the CPU’s multiplier.  Together with the lack of FSB speeds and merely average stability, the GA-7ZXR was, frankly, far from the best choice for a Socket-A motherboard.

Just last month VIA released the KM133 chipset, which is a derivative of the KT133 chipset that includes onboard S3 ProSavage video for the budget market. Once again, Gigabyte was the first with a solution utilizing the new chipset, the GA-7ZMM.  Since the GA-7ZMM targets the low-end market, it comes in a micro-ATX form factor.  It will be interesting to see how the GA-7ZMM performs under the AnandTech microscope, especially to see whether Gigabyte has provided something more than just the first KM133 solution to hit the market.

The Layout

The GA-7ZMM comes in a micro-ATX format, utilizing a PCB of just 8.5 by 9.5 inches.  The design of the board is quite compact.  This helps  reduce the cost of the board, and since many OEM builders will probably purchase the KM133 motherboards to be used in their systems, a small reduction in the production of the motherboard can result in a noticeable change on their bottom line.

Click to Enlarge

Gigabyte also took a lot of effort to redesign the board, as the board looks quite different from the reference design.  However, this work was actually done when they made the KT133 based GA-7ZM and is merely carried over to the KM133 based GA-7ZMM since the chipsets are pin compatible.  For starters, the placement of the power supply connector as well as the voltage regulators have moved from behind the CPU socket in front ofthe DIMM slots.  This obviously helps to make sure that the power cables does not need to go around the CPU, which may improve airflow. 

Meeting Expectations

Expectations for a KM133 motherboard, which will generally be targeted at the budget market, should not be the same as those of a KT133(A) board that is meant for the high-end. Of course, we still expect high stability, but a number of features are likely to be cut out to lower costs. Of course, performance is not going to be the same when using the onboard video either.

The new VIA 8365 North Bridge is basically a combination of the good old VIA 8363 North Bridge and the ProSavage on-board video core.  The ProSavage is the result of the VIA/S3 partnership that is a hybrid of the Savage2000’s 2D and the Savage4’s 3D.  The 8365 still supports an external AGP 4X slot should you decide that the on-board video is too slow. 

Just like the 8363 North Bridge, which is the core for the KT133 chipset, the 8365 also supports up to 1.5GB of PC100 or PC133 SDRAM.  The memory controller allows you to run the CPU and memory asynchronously, so even though the processor is running at 100MHz FSB, you can choose to run the memory at 133MHz, boosting memory bandwidth from 800MB/sec to 1.06GB/sec.

However, the GA-7ZMM only features two DIMM slots, as opposed to three on the VIA reference board.  Since each DIMM slot can only take up to 512MB RAM module, effectively limiting the memory size to 1GB of memory. 

The GA-7ZMM uses the VIA 686B South Bridge, which is the successor to the older 686A.  The main new feature of the 686B is its support for Ultra ATA 100 devices.  Currently, no IDE hard drive actually has a sustained transfer rate of higher than 40MB/sec, so Ultra ATA 66 is sufficient right now.  But with the growth of computers today, it will not be too long before we see the first drive to exceed 66MB/sec, making the Ultra ATA 100 channel useful.

Like the 686A, the 686B also features a second USB controller.  The first controller provides two USB ports, placed at the back of the motherboard in the ATX I/O panel.  The second set of USB connectors is placed on the left edge of the motherboard, which can support another two USB ports.  However, Gigabyte does not supply  the necessary USB bracket with the board, so you’ll have to go out and buy it yourself to take advantage of all four ports.                                                                                        

The 3/1/0/1 (PCI/AMR/ISA/AGP) expansion slot configuration is pretty much the best you can get out of a micro-ATX board.  The AGP slot provides some flexibility in case you do not want to use the on-board video, while the 3 PCI slots should be enough for most users to cover basic expansion needs.  Gigabyte includes a locking mechanism for the AGP slot on the GA-7ZMM, because the external AGP cards, especially when OEM builders ship their systems, sometimes tends to loosen up from the slot, and the locking mechanism will make sure the card is locked in place. The AMR slot can be a very important feature for OEM builders, but is relatively useless in the do-it-yourself market.

The GA-7ZMM features the Sigmatel STAC9708T AC’97 CODEC audio.  Like other software-based sound solutions, this on-board audio provides some basic sound, but it is incomparable to hardware-based PCI sound devices out there.  Gigabyte also gives you the option to have hardware-based Creative CT5880 PCI sound right on board, which is the basis for Creative’s SoundBlaster PCI soundcard line.

Gigabyte also includes a utility they call  “@BIOS.”  As Microsoft is phasing out the DOS command prompt, the old method of updating BIOS using DOS will not be viable for too long.  We have seen companies like MSI who implemented BIOS update utilities from within Windows.  Now Gigabyte has also started to implement the same basic idea.

Further, in order to make overclocking easier, Gigabyte also includes a utility called “EasyTune III” with the GA-7ZMM, allowing you to change the FSB speed of the motherboard from within Windows using a GUI tool.  Note, however, that it does not give you any more settings than what is already available from the motherboard and BIOS.

The manual that ships with the motherboard contains decent information on all the jumpers and connectors, so you should have no problem finding out information on the motherboard.  It also goes through the steps for software and driver installation.  Further, the manual also talks about the BIOS settings in details.  However, it does not provide any information on hardware installation, including how to install the motherboard, CPU, and memory that could help novices considerably. 

Something Missing: Overclocking

The AMD Duron is the processor of choice for a KM133 motherboards - afterall,they’re both designed for the value market. 

With price effectiveness in mind, the Duron immediately posts another advantage: cost / overclocking ratio.  As shown in our “Best of 2000” poll, Duron is the people’s choice for Best Hardware.  Part of the reason everyone loves it is because they can generally get the processors for a relatively low price, and they are able to overclock the CPUs quite a bit, stretching their hardware dollars even further.

In our AMD Socket-A CPUs Overclocking Guide, we discussed that the ability to change the multiplier of Socket-A processors is the secret behind their dramatic overclocking ability.  In order to change the multiplier, the motherboard must have certain hardware circuitry.

However, that’s exactly what the GA-7ZMM is missing, which is no surprise since Gigabyte has never released a Socket-A motherboard with multiplier settings.  Our sources tell us that they are currently working on a Socket-A motherboard that has multiplier settings, but we have no idea when that will actually surface. 

Gigabyte also provides just a handful of FSB speed settings on the GA-7ZMM - 95 / 100 / 102 / 103 / 107 / 110 / 113 / 115 / 133 MHz.  Generally FSB speeds higher than 110MHz are not that useful as the chipset cannot maintain much stability at all.  Ideally we’d have FSB speeds in 1MHz increments between 100 and 115MHz.  The FSB speeds are controlled by a set of DIP switches on the motherboard.

Making matters even worse for overclockers, the GA-7ZMM also lacks CPU core voltage controls.  Interestingly enough, this micro-ATX motherboard features a total of three on-board fan connectors.  The GA-7ZMM uses the AMI BIOS Easy Setup 1.24a. You can monitor the speed of two of the three fans as well as two temperatures from within the BIOS.

In terms of stability, the GA-7ZMM is merely average.  Gigabyte put in a total of fifteen 1200uF capacitors around the CPU socket, the VIA 8365 North Bridge, and the DIMM slots.  These Low Equivalent Series Resistance (ESR) capacitors helps to ensure the signals are clean at high frequency, and they also help to ensure that there is enough power supplied to the CPU socket. 

The Test

In recent times, choosing a motherboard cannot be completely determined by a Winstone score. Now, many boards come within one Winstone point of each other and therefore the need to benchmark boards against each other falls. Therefore you should not base your decision entirely on the benchmarks you see here, but also on the technical features and advantages of this particular board, seeing as that will probably make the greatest difference in your overall experience.

Click Here to learn about AnandTech's Motherboard Testing Methodology.

Gigabyte was once again the first to release a new Socket-A solution with the GA-7ZMM.  However, the motherboard does not really live up to most people’s expectation.  Its performance is not particularly attractive.  In some occasions it is better than the reference board, but in some occasions there is quite some gap between it and the reference board.  It obviously means that Gigabyte still has a lot to work on.

Feature wise, the GA-7ZMM definitely loses quite a few points here, especially among overclockers where the inclusion of multiplier ratio controls is a prerequisite. 

From an OEM point of view, the GA-7ZMM can be a good solution however.  Overclocking is never a feature that OEM builders will look into, and the board does have nice features such as optional on-board sound and decent expansion slots implementation, including an AMR slot for cheap modem solution.  Stability of the motherboard is average, but again performance is something Gigabyte still has to work on.

In short, the GA-7ZMM might be a solution for OEM builders, but for general users, who don’t care too much about video performance and want a cheap solution so that they can overclock their Duron processors to the limit, the GA-7ZMM does not seem to be the right choice.  They should sit back a little bit and wait for some other solutions, at least one with multiplier ratio settings.

How it Rates