Finally, six months after its first debut, the Intel Pentium 4 has reached 1.7GHz, a speed that delivers very competitive performance against AMD’s Athlon 1.33GHz.  Combined with the recent dramatic price cuts on the Pentium 4, the idea of owning a Pentium 4 system is no longer a strange one. 

A few weeks ago, we looked at the ASUS P4T, the first Pentium 4 motherboard we have reviewed so far.  Nonetheless, it’s also one of the most impressive Pentium 4 boards we have used in the labs throughout these past few months. 

ASUS was actually the second manufacturer to send us a Pentium 4 motherboard in early December 2000.  The first company was Gigabyte, with their GA-8TX, which was available very shortly after the release of the first Pentium 4 CPU’s, showing that Gigabyte was determined to get into the Pentium 4 market early in the game, something that is often more important than actually having a good product. Fortunately, Gigabyte is shooting to accomplish both feats with the GA-8TX. Let’s take a detailed look at the GA-8TX and see what Gigabyte has done to lead the industry, as the first to market with a board for Intel’s latest CPU.

The Blue Giant

So far all Pentium 4 motherboards we have seen use a pretty hefty PCB, mainly because of the larger MCH and the extra space needed for the heatsink retention mechanism.  The same thing happens here as well, as the bluish PSB measures in at 12 by 9.5 inches.

Click here to enlarge.

The CPU socket is located quite close to the right edge of the motherboard, but this is actually required if you want to use the new heatsink retention mechanism with a compatible case.  Keep in mind that the new Pentium 4 motherboards are using the new ATX 2.03 new specification, so your case should have the necessary mounting holes for the retention mechanism.

With the ASUS P4T, ASUS got around the new specification by including an extra baseboard between the motherboard and the case, so you can stay with your old case to save some money. ASUS also moved the CPU socket’s location, so the baseboard is actually required in all cases, even if you have an ATX 2.03 case. The GA-8TX comes with the heat sink stand mounted to the board through a set of four plastic clips.  If you stay with these clips, you could use a non-ATX 2.03 case, but with the Pentium 4 HSF units weighing quite a bit, you do risk the chance of the HSF units falling off while you’re computer is running or during shipping.  Indeed, in the manual Gigabyte does suggest that the user change the four clips to the four screws that are also provided with the board.

The retention stands are mounted to the boards using plastic clips out of the box

The four RIMM slots sit in front of the CPU socket and the 82850 MCH. Fortunatley, Gigabyte has left quite a bit of space between the RIMM slots and the AGP Pro slot, so you should have no problem installing or removing memory after the video card has been installed.

The ATX power supply and the AUX power connectors are both located along the front edge of the motherboard, so make sure your case is deep enough so that they are not blocked by drive bays.  However, note that the new ATX12V connector is placed at the back of the board, next to the ATX I/O panel and CPU socket.

The normal ATX and the AUX power supply connectors along the front edge

The ATX12V connector is located at the back of the board

The IDE and floppy connectors are located between the RIMM slots and the AUX power connector, which means that they do not block the use of full length cards in any of the PCI or AGP slots.

New chipset for a new CPU

The i850 chipset is very similar to the i840 chipset for the Pentium III, except that i850 chipset uses the Pentium 4's new AGTL+ bus, which runs at a quad pumped 100MHz (effectively 400MHz).

The 82850 is also covered by a large heatsink

It’s worthwhile to note that the 82850 MCH only supports 1.5V signaling, including on the AGP bus. Unfortunately, many AGP 1X/2X cards, and even a few AGP 4X cards, do not support 1.5V signaling and thus cannot be used.  Thus, the AGP Pro slot on the GA-8TX is keyed for 1.5V AGP devices only.  .  Although AGP Pro is not commonly used by most commercial video cards, some high-end graphics cards do take advantage of the extra power provided by the Pro specification.

The GA-8TX’s AGP Pro slot

There are a total of four RIMM slots on the GA-8TX, which is the case for all current Pentium 4 motherboards.  You will have to follow the instruction in the manual to install modules in pairs and also in certain orders.  For each slot you can either put in 64MB, 128MB, or 256MB modules, meaning that you could have a maximum of 1GB memory in the whole system.  Also keep in mind that for all the slots with no memory, you will have to install CRIMM modules (which are included with the board).

Like the i815E chipset, the i850 chipset also features the 82801BA I/O Controller Hub 2 (ICH2.  The ICH2 supports two Ultra ATA 100 channels, supporting a total of four devices (two per channel). 

The 82801BA ICH2

The ICH2 also features two USB root hubs for a total of four USB ports.  Two of the four ports are located among the ATX I/O panel at the end of the board, while the connector for the third and fourth ports is located on the left side of the board.  Our engineering sample didn’t include the necessary USB bracket to take advantage of the second USB root hub. It’s not clear what Gigabyte will do with the final retail version in this department, but our experience with other Gigabyte boards indicates that it will probably be included.

The 5/1/1/0 (PCI/AGP/CNR/ISA) is about average for the current motherboard market.  Five PCI slots should be enough for most users, but we have seen boards with six PCI slots, which obviously gives some added flexibility.  Unlike the ASUS P4T, Gigabyte did include a CNR slot, so OEM builders can install relatively cheap host-based communication devices.  Unfortunately, CNR devices still have not made their appearance in the common market, and before that happens it’s hard for end-users to make use of the CNR slot.

For on-board sound, Gigabyte continues to use the host-based Sigmatel STAC9708T AC’97 audio CODEC, which provides basic computer sound.  Like many other recent Gigabyte products, there is also the option of ordering the board with Creative CT5880 audio, which provides true hardware accelerated sound. Unless you want 3D positional audio, the CT5880 will meet all your sound needs.

The AC’97 audio CODEC

The optional Creative CT5880 sound chip

Overclocking: Room for Improvement

Overclocking features on Gigabyte motherboards have never been too impressive, and once again we see room for improvement on the GA-8TX.  For starters, a jumperless design is not available, since you can only change the FSB speed using a set of four dipswitches. 

Further, the list of available FSB speeds is very short as well.  You can only choose from 100MHz, 105MHz, 110MHz, or 113MHz, which is simply not enough since FSB overclocking is the only option with the Pentium 4.  To make it worse, the four settings do not work as expected. The 105MHz setting worked without a problem, but jumping to 110MHz prevented the system from booting at all.  Interestingly enough, setting the switches to 113MHz position causes the system to boot at 110MHz.  This is probably just a misprint on the silk screen of our engineer sample that should be fixed in the retail version.

The dipswitches for controlling the FSB speed

The table of available FSB speeds is printed on the board

Inside the BIOS, Gigabyte did include the option to control RDRAM ratio, either 3x or 4x.  However, with the current list of FSB speeds available, this setting will not matter much for overclockers, since even when running at 113MHz FSB, the memory would be running at 904MHz, which should be marginally stable if you have PC800 RDRAM.  Despite the lack of overclocking options elsewhere, Gigabyte still provides over voltage settings for memory, possibly increase the stability of overclocked memory.

On the other hand, stability was very impressive on the GA-8TX.  Gigabyte put quite a few capacitors around the CPU socket and the RIMM slots to ensure sufficient and clean power for the CPU. The result is that the board did not crash once in 24 hours of our stress test – quite impressive for an engineering sample.

Similar to all other Pentium 4 motherboards, Gigabyte put in a heatsink unit on the 82850 MCH with the new mounting mechanism to make sure the chip is running at an acceptable temperature range.  The size of the heatsink is considerably larger than those used on other chipsets, but inline with what we’ve seen on other i850 boards.. 

Gigabyte uses the Winbond W83627HF-AW chip on the GA-8TX for hardware monitoring and basic I/O (serial, parallel, keyboard and mouse). Inside the AMI Simple BIOS Setup you are able to monitor two temperatures and three fan speeds.  Moreover, you can also read the CPU core voltage in the BIOS.

The Winbond I/O controller and hardware monitor

Another part of the new ATX 2.03 specification is the new ATX12V power supply connector, which make sure there are enough current reaches the CPU.  When we reviewed the ASUS P4T, we found out that the board could still run very reliably when we unplugged the ATX12V and the AUX power connectors, leaving only the normal ATX connector in place.  Unfortunately, that’s not the case with the GA-8TX.  When the ATX12v and the AUX connectors are not plugged in, the system would not boot at all.  Even with the AUX connector added into the mix, the system still did not boot, showing that without some careful engineering, the ATX 12V connector is required on a Pentium 4 motherboard.

Like many other Gigabyte boards, the GA-8TX comes with a Dual BIOS setup. Basically, Gigabyte includes two BIOS chips on the motherboard, and in the case of virus BIOS corruption, the backup BIOS is automatically used to boot the system, allowing you to recover the system without any downtime.

Gigabyte Dual BIOS setup

As  mentioned in recent reviews, Gigabyte has improved on their manuals dramatically.  The manual bundled with the GA-8TX once again contains a lot of information about installing the motherboard, CPU, and memory with appropriate diagrams.  Moreover, Gigabyte also provides detailed information on BIOS and RAID settings, together with explanations on jumpers / switches and software installation.

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.

Gigabyte doesn’t have a great history when it comes to performance, but they are catching up with the GA-8TX.  These scores show Gigabyte leading in SYSMark 2000 and performing up to par in Content Creation Winstone 2001.  They fall behind marginally in the Quake III Arena test. Overall the results are a good sign for Gigabyte.

Final Words

The GA-8TX is a solid board, and it performs very well, something we we usually don’t see on Gigabyte boards.  Unfortunately, the lack of overclocking features we’ve come to expect from Gigabyte comes through again on the GA-8TX and severely limits the potential for this board among hardware enthusiasts. The board does not have many extra FSB speeds for overclocking, which is the only option for overclocking the Pentium 4 chips.  Moreover, the settings are only accessible through a set of dipswitches instead of inside the BIOS.                      

On the other hand, if you’re not an overclocker, the GA-8TX is an excellent choice thanks to its rock solid stability and high-quality construction.  Furthermore, the GA-8TX would also be an excellent choice for the OEM market for the aforementioned reasons and the inclusion of a CNR slot and onboard sound.

How it Rates