Gigabyte GA-8INXP or ASUS P4G8X Dlx

I'm getting a dcddr P4 system pretty soon, and I think I'm down to these two boards. The GB should support next-gen P4s, and I don't know if I can say the same about the ASUS.


Any thoughts?

The Gigabyte GB board does have beefier power circuitry than the Asus but it's not clear if it'll support Prescott. Will the E7205 chipset support PNI (Prescott New Instructions)? Will it support the 1.20v vcore that Prescott will use? Will it support the new revised architecture? Will it be able to cope with running an 800FSB? Will it support the latest hyperthreading technology on the Prescott?

My point is that there's a lot more to Prescott support than having enough juice to run it. I would only give the Granite Bay chipset an outside chance at most of supporting Prescott. Better wait for Springdale if you've got your eyes on Prescott.

Mobos

I am in the market for a new board to and now I have been eyeing up the Gigabyte board. I have heard that it overclocks decently ,but a few glitches with the EZtune feature mainly not being accurate when displaying info. Plus the thing is for me almost anything would be a big step up from a AMD slotA Athlon 550mhz. So currently I am planning on ordering a P4 1.8A, DDR400 PC3200 512mb ram, and the Gigabyte board which comes to about 581 with 2 day air shipping from www.goroyalpc.com

Well from the reviews and features. The Asus board will go to a higher fsb. The Asus also comes with a firewire port.

The Gigabyte board has raid built on the board. It has a better power delivery. Gigabyte has the dual bios. It is limited to 200mhz fsb. It has no fire wire.

I would say with current NW cpu's. Either board will do you well. Unless you have an ES or a OMG chip, there is no real benefit to the Asus's higher fsb. If you do alot of video and need fire wire then the Asus has the advantage. If you run raid, then it goes to Gigabyte.

On many of the reviews that I have read, the Gigabyte has been able to overclock to the test CPU limits. This is a good sign. Also, Gigabyte has experience in 6 layer PCB manufacturing. Myself, I am going with the GA 8INXP. I am basing this off of the reviews. My personal experience with Gigabyte. And well....It looks nice. Bottom line, both boards should be nice. It will boil down to what your personal needs are.

Gigabyte

I am pretty sure I am going that way to. One question though will the Granite Bay boards support Corsair PC3500 DDR433 512mb ram and will the Springdale handle the memory two. Also will the GB boards have support for next gen processors.

IMHO, pc3500 is OVERKILL with GB chipset. To be honest, pc3200 is over kill as well. The memory is running in sync with the fsb. There are not dividers with GB chipsets. My corsair 3200 stick is running rock stable at 3:4 174fsb. That is 232mhz or DDR464 no sweat, this is at cas2-3-3-6. Of course I am interested in seeing what the limits of the ram is at say 2-2-2. This would be the only reason I could see a benefit in faster ram. The trade off of the higher price for the chipsets is supposed to be the ability to use cheaper ram in dual channel.

Buzzdog

Well I see it that then I can just reuse the ram and cpu for the springdale chipset since it will support the faster memory. Also is www.goroyalpc.com a decent company I mean if not then I may go with a P4PE, Corsair PC3500,and a 1.8A cause I would like to have this system put together before my vacation is over which is Jan.6.

that price for the INXP seems kinda.... HIGH! but i dunno... im gona wait till it comes to Canada, or a retailer near me... and see how much it will actuall go for.. i would pay up to 350 for that board(canadian) and if not,... im gettin my self eitehr an Asus P4PE or the abit IT7 max2 board.

but if i were to chose from the two ( INXP or asus P3G8X ) then id go with the gigabyte, just for the fact of all those features ( the 6 dual features) and its reputability in moatherboard products, its rock stable boards, and the fact that it is also a server board. and its blue PCB aint a bad touch either...

Buzzdog said:

IMHO, pc3500 is OVERKILL with GB chipset. To be honest, pc3200 is over kill as well. The memory is running in sync with the fsb. There are not dividers with GB chipsets. My corsair 3200 stick is running rock stable at 3:4 174fsb. That is 232mhz or DDR464 no sweat, this is at cas2-3-3-6. Of course I am interested in seeing what the limits of the ram is at say 2-2-2. This would be the only reason I could see a benefit in faster ram. The trade off of the higher price for the chipsets is supposed to be the ability to use cheaper ram in dual channel.

Buzzdog

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I plan on getting either 3200 or even 2700, so long as it's cas2. If it's going to run at 266 out of the box, I figure PC2700 will handle the minor overclocking I may not even do.

Mobos

Well I became impatient so I opted for the P4PE,Corsair PC3500, 1.8A,active memory cooling,and a blue cold cathode to illumiante the new case I just bought. This should be on my door step monday so I am happy. I figure if I save a few bucks a week I can have some cash set aside for the Springdale or Canterwood chipset. Still if I had a little more patience I would probably have gone with the Gigabyte and if prices drop enough after they have been released for a while I just may get one to play with

I am looking for the Asus

- has RAID (dispite what somebody said above), it's SATA, but I am anyway buying such a disk
- has higher core voltage than the Gigabyte
- has Firewire (a must for me, as I have a SONY digicam)
- shows consistently in most reviews a slightly better performance in productivity scores

Maybe Gigabyte is a close second, they are producing quality stuff, but keep in mind that Gigabyte never was the top choice for overclocking.

- has RAID (dispite what somebody said above), it's SATA, but I am anyway buying such a disk

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Pleas show me a SATA Drive that can be purchased now, or a date when they are going to be available. You will probally see them before us in Tokyo.

- has higher core voltage than the Gigabyte

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The rule of thumb with Northwoods, Never go over 1.75vcore actual. Also it is a simple process of doing a pin mod with defogger paint to open up the other voltage options.

- has Firewire (a must for me, as I have a SONY digicam)

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Point goes to Asus here. But SB audigy cards also have Firewire ports on them. So this can be negated easily.

- shows consistently in most reviews a slightly better performance in productivity scores

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Well, I am sure I can show just as many reviews that favor the GA-8INXP. Any differences that I have seen between boards are nominal and in the real world you will not see or feel the difference. Also keep in mind with all of these early tests and reviews, these are sample boards. The final retail boards may not be identical to those that were tested. Also I am sure that the bios's are far from optimized yet.

I am in no way knocking the Asus board. Just for me, I really like what the Gigabyte board has to offer. I may be grasping at straws but as I stated above, Gigabyte is familiar with 6 layer mother board design, this may end up being a benefit to them.