Sen's (i955X) Gigabyte 8I955X Royal Review

Hardware Installation Notes:
Gigabyte's layout is absolutly superb on this board. It has plenty of clearence around the CPU socket. Enough infact that I can use the DPS daughter board + my XP120! All it takes is for the user to bend the heatpipe away from the CPU socket. If bent far enough you should clear the Heatsink wihtout issue.

However take note that the chipset fan will not clear with the XP120





Only annoying part of the Gigabyte is how far stretched the SATA and IDE ports are from the board. Insead of the far top right or bottom, they have chosen the bottom left and right. While this may not be a factor for all, it will for some with short cables.


Software Installation Notes:
Phew! Installtion was a REAL *****. Gigabyte does not include any SATA disks what so ever. In addition if you want to install IDE you must copy the GigaRAID drivers from the CD as well!

In addition, on default everything is set to raid. In order to even get a single HDD to work you must set the SATA chip to "Base" for SATA. You must in addition change the SATA configuration from "Auto" to "Combinded". If you want to use IDE you must also set the GigaRAID to "ATA" from "RAID"

Other than this....mis-step plus the very poor instruction manual, this board has tons of accessories. I very loaded board to say the least.

Fortunatly my Seagayte was dead and not the other parts, so Ill have overclocking results soon.




First Windows Impression:
Phew! Installtion was a REAL *****. Gigabyte does not include any SATA disks what so ever. In addition if you want to install IDE you must copy the GigaRAID drivers from the CD as well!




Thoughts On Features:
As much of a PITA this raid bull**** was, I have to give Gigabyte alot of credit. There are a total of 6 SATA ports and 3 IDE. All of which can be converted into RAID slots. Very nice for a server!
Fortunatly my Seagayte was dead so Ill have overclocking results soon.

The main selling point of this board is its soundcard. Needless to say unlike Asustek, Gigabyte delivers with flying colors. Frankly this is the best sound I have EVER heard on a PC. Better than my firend's augigy2 !



Overclocking:
Vcore Droop Rating: C+ (.05v on idle and .075v on load)
FSB Clockage Rating: A++ (300 on default volts...amazing!)
Vcore Options: B- (1.6v max, could be higher)
Vdimm Rating: A (Max of 2.35v, very good for a DDR2 platform)



The Grading Scale:
Packaging
Layout: B- (Bad SATA/IDE positioning)
Manual: F- (Im gonna beat the **** outta the moron who made it)
Cooling: A- (Optional chipset fan + SB sink, but they use thermal tape)
Appearence: A+ (Looks great for those seeing a "blue" layout)
Gear: A++ (Lots of thingies/doodads. Bluetooth, DPS, Colored SATA cables)

Hardware Installation:
Physical Installation Difficulty: Medium (Careful bending required of the DPS heatpipe required for larger sinks)
RAM Dimm Access: C+ (Can be tricky with small cases since it is in the far corner and dimm latches are QUITE stiff)

Software/Software Installation:
BIOS: C- (Too confusing, too many options but lacking critical features and defaults to raid automatically)
Features: A++ (Fantastic, works as advertised and there are tons of them)
Windows Setup: F- (Horrible Manual, Took me more than 12 hours to even get windows up and running. UNACCEPTABLE!)



Overall Build Quality:F- (.5 / 5)
While initially I did love this board, there is a serious flaw. The PLL chip on this becomes HIGHLY unstable at any frequency other than the dividers normally used on the FSB. At times it varies as high as +20 and -20 on the FSB in mhz. Quite poor indeed! NOT RECCOMENDED for anyone who plans to overclock

What the heck is that thing in ur hand?

Sweet........more pics

That looks like a voltage cleaner given all the caps on it........

that's the DPS, or dual power something/solution or whatever. Nice looking board, look forward to results

The board seems loaded with accesories. Whats the retail price.
Thanks

I thought DPS was the cooling solution over MOSFETs on the k8nxp sli boards.

elec999 said:

The board seems loaded with accesories. Whats the retail price.
Thanks

Click to expand...

I paid $205.

______________



SUCCESS!! I cannot belive i got this ***** to clear my XP120...MWHAHHAHAHHA!

ha ha
looks nice... *drools*
my 2800 was less than that in canadian...

I still don't understand what that card is for. It reminds me of the separate sound card that comes with my DFI.

You know how on the NF7's we had to sink the mosfets to get less vcore fluctuation? I'm betting that this card takes the vcore and passes it through a load of caps to clean and regulate it for more stability especially if you jump cpu usage a lot and the current/voltage draw jumps. This would provide less droop in the voltages.........this is assuming that the card is a cleaner lol.

Phase One of projeckt overlord completed. System POSTs normally.

Begining Phase two (finishing up front panel + organizing)

Phase 3 is incomplete (re-lapping Intel 660 down to 2000 grit sandpaper)

the card isnt a cleaner
it's a "dual power system"
if the power stuff on the mobo dies, it takes over
its not a cleaner

if the power stuff on the mobo dies, it takes over
its not a cleaner

Click to expand...

...........lol talk about a vote of confidence in their product.

Final build pix coming up....

First my 660 with 2000 grit sandpaper:



Second my final build:

So sick........you going to run SLI on there?

The CPU looks like there was photoshop done to it. Would you like a new digi?

That wierd looking "filter" thingy-ma-jigger is a DPS module. It is an eight phase power circuit designed to provide continuous and no-variable power to the CPU. Nice feature to have for an overclocker.

Zulu-1 said:

the card isnt a cleaner
it's a "dual power system"
if the power stuff on the mobo dies, it takes over
its not a cleaner

Click to expand...

Uhm, actually it is a power cleaner. It provides 8-phase power to the cpu compared to a normal board's 4-phase power. Here's a quote on what DPS does:

One of the neat little extras included on the GA-8GPNXP Duo is an auxiliary copper heatpipe cooled power system. Gigabyte call it the 'Universal-Plus Dual Power System 2' (GC-U-Plus DPS) and it is an eight-phase power circuit designed for various power loads.

Essentially, it maintains a clean supply of power for the CPU, and future CPUs. It is not necessary for the board to run, but provides an added level of redundancy for the future via a small card slot.

Click to expand...

Ah yes.........my day is complete

Initial impressions are a tad lukewarm.

#1 the sata driver isnt on floppy, it must be copied FROM the ****ing driver CD to a floppy disk... oh joy

#2 No mention of "CPU Unlock" not good