Conclusion
ConclusionAs always Gigabyte managed to build a very stable board here. Not one during our test sessions it crashed, unless we overclocked it to the max of course. Right now it is running constantly overclocked with a 150 MHz FSB which is not the best overclock in the world but it'll do just fine. Unfortunately two things I really seem to miss on this mainboard, the first is full DDR400 support or at least some sort of Turbo function in the BIOS that allows higher DDR settings. Secondly AGP8X, of course this is not Gigabyte's fault but merely something we can blame Intel for as they did not in cooperate it into the chipset just yet. Every videocard to date, even the Radeon 9700 Pro and GeForce FX 5800 Ultra, have plenty of bandwidth with AGP 4x though, so that's not something you should worry about at all. That ladies and gentlemen are the only two things that come in mind negative.
Unfortunately I was unable to test Serial ATA, I simply can not get such a device just yet. Other integrated devices like RAID, sound, LAN and connectivity it all was excellent and ran without problems. LAN we had to test on 100Mbit as we do not have 1000Mbit in our office yet. 100Mbit ran peachy though and with two fast HD's about 80% of the bandwidth was utilized which makes it a very fast network integrated solution. Reported 1 Gigabit speeds are somewhere at 80MB/sec though which of course in this day and era is totally overkill, it sure is nice to be prepared on what's to come though. We also love the DualBios function. If you screw up then switch the BIOS and you are back in business. No need to RMA the mainboard this way, nice !
Overall the mainboard is excellent despite the tiny minor points I just pointed out to you. It really is high value and the total package is truly great, I mean you get a lot with this board and won't propbably have the need to upgrade for a long time. Two thumbs for Gigabyte up and definitely recommended. Editors choice award is in order here.
This product can be found for about 140-150 USD in the Guru3D.com Price Comparison pages which is right here.
More info: Gigabyte
MSRP: 191 Euro
