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Reviews Around The Web
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Choose Web Reviews from this Maker:
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Tuesday, May 13, 2008
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Gigabyte being a leader in motherboards is making it easy on us to have the best when new chipsets are released. They have being right there, first to market, when Intel believed it was time for change. This used to be a position held by Asus. Gigabyte is the first to bring us the new X48 chipset to our rigs. This honor belongs to the X48-DQ6 and X48T-DQ6, DDR2 and DDR3 versions respectively. The DQ6 being the high end model for Gigabyte, it has all the bells and whistles. From complex cooling systems to high-end capacitors you can't ask for more in a motherboard except for excellent overclocking. Can the X48-DQ6 accomplish what we achieved with EX-38 just a few weeks ago?
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Thursday, May 8, 2008
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On price, we feel the Gigabyte X48T-DQ6 holds its own and but at the same time it's not exceptional - that said, it is worth the asking price for a premium board that's fully featured and works really very well. The performance is very good, it's easy to work with and while we still don't get on too well with the DES software, the hardware looks good and it works efficiently with finesse in the background. While it hits all the right notes for us (oodles of features, a great layout, a decent bundle and very good performance and ease of use), the Gigabyte GA-X48T-DQ6 isn't a definitive choice, but it is certainly a good one if you're wanting to invest in DDR3 with some upgrade potential.
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Tuesday, May 6, 2008
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While NVIDIA's 65nm G92 core is an optimized derivative of NVIDIA's original 90nm G80 core to a certain extent, cards based on the G92 like the 8800GT and 8800GTS 512MB is nothing but a success amongst performance enthusiasts -- and there's a good reason why. Our previous review of the Asus 8800GT TOP back in January showed that, in general, the 8800GT is not only a very capable card in terms of 3D performance and comes at a great price depending on the board manufacturer and retailer you are purchasing from, but are also very power efficient for what it offers. Last month, we got another variation of the 8800GT for our review -- this time, from Gigabyte. The Gigabyte GeForce 8800GT TurboForce 512MB is not just about great performance, however. Utilizing a shorter, unique signature Gigabyte-blue non-reference PCB, along with a Zalman copper cooler, combined with Gigabyte's custom overclocking and overvolting software to squeeze the heck out of this card, how does it step up against the rest? Let's check this card out and run it through our set of benchmarks. And of course -- overclocking.
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Monday, May 5, 2008
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INTEL's X48 chipset is the much anticipated follow up to the X38 chipset....which in turn was the much anticipated follow up to INTEL's hugely successful P35 chipset. It doesn't take a rocket scientist or industry insider to know that many in the enthusiast community are less than thrilled about the "marginal" improvements during the progression of chipsets, especially considering the prices some of these motherboards are going for (in excess of $300). While this isn't to say any of the three chipsets are poor performers, I find it a bit curious that INTEL has run these chipsets out as they have, taking the overall performance of each into consideration.
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The latest 9800 GX2 incarnation to make its way into the labs comes from GIGABYTE and carries with it all the standard goodies that we expect out of the 9800 GX2. The latest 9 series of NVIDIA cards have impressed us, but like we've said all along they haven't offered the revolutionary jump that we thought the 9 series would offer. With the standard clocks and cooler there isn't going to be a whole lot out of the ordinary, but we will check out the bundle and box to see if there is anything that gets our tails wagging.
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Friday, April 25, 2008
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Gigabyte was one of the first two computer hardware companies that I was aware of, along with Kingston memory. More than a decade before I decided to build my own rig, I had seen Gigabyte's name associated with motherboards. They have been around since 1986, the dawn of the era of the PC. Today I will be looking at my first Gigabyte motherboard, the X48T-DQ6. This board is presently Gigabyte's flagship motherboard. It sports a ton of features, natively supports DDR3-1900 memory and 1600FSB, along with CrossfireX, and looks sharp to boot. Will the Gigabyte board end my current love affair with motherboards by a four-letter word? Read on to see.
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Today we look at their GA-EP35-DS3P motherboard which takes a new road towards energy efficient motherboards. Even with all the extra options available, at its very core it is still a strong P35 based board. With a standard LGA775 socket, compatible processors range from the earlier Pentium4s and Celerons using the 90nm process to the latest 45nm quad core Extreme Edition processors. This board can handle pretty much any LGA775 based processor Intel has or has had on the market in the past few years. Whether you're looking for a strong board with plenty of options or saving a few dollars on your electric bill, this board appears to fit into both columns.
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The Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3P Motherboard is an aggressive, extreme, yet efficient platform. It's a shock to see this board do so well and do it even better at more extreme frequencies. It's more affordable than most P35 overclocking motherboards and has plenty of the top end features a power user could want. There is a large void out there for energy conscious users who still want real power. This is absolutely the best choice for those on a budget who didn't think they could afford extreme performance.
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Wednesday, April 16, 2008
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It doesn't take too long nowadays for vendors to start offering custom graphics cards and the GeForce 9600 GT gets the silent treatment from Gigabyte. With a passive cooler and overclocked frequencies, is this the card to get?
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Tuesday, April 15, 2008
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Gigabyte is a solid company. They're at the top of my list, it would seem, so picking a current-generation entry-level motherboard without integrated graphics narrows things down to about half a dozen options, with the GA-P31-DS3L at the front. But is that really enough to base a decision on? Well, if you're reading this, then Jesus, of course not. Here's what to expect: OK performance, dull layout, and Ultra Durability! After a trip to the bench, this board indeed gets a nod for being better than the other P31 motherboards. Here's what that means.
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Gigabyte has done a lot to improve the P45's layout over its previous P35 board - while we loved the DS3R, other products like the EP35-DS4 (pictured right, on the left of the two) had compatibility problems with the SATA ports. The P45-DS5 fixes this by making all the SATA ports at 90 degree angles to the edge of the board so they don't conflict with longer graphics cards. In addition to this there are now ten SATA ports - four of which are from a Silicon Image chipset. While the RAID can't be combined with the new ICH10R southbridge, they all offer NCQ, ACHI and eSATA support.
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Monday, April 14, 2008
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AMDs latest chipset has recently been released, which means that the motherboard manufactures is about ready with their new products. Gigabyte is also ready with their high-end motherboard for enthusiast, based on the new 790FX platform also known as Spider. One of the main new features about this chipset is the 42 PCI-E V2.0 lanes, providing plenty of bandwidth for Crossfire-X and Quad Core AMD Phenom.
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Friday, April 11, 2008
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Today, we'll take a look at Gigabyte's flagship DDR3 board featuring Intel's flagship X48 chipset, the Gigabyte X48T-DQ6. Gigabyte has been gathering tons of attention ranging from hardcore overclockers to the relatively casual everyday enthusiasts lately -- and with their latest flagship board with one of the best chipsets available on the Intel platform, what can Gigabyte's engineering team put together and run it through the factory to our testing platform? The packaging of a high end board, and tons of enthusiast oriented features -- as I gathered together tons of excitement, as well as nothing less than high expectations from the moment I laid my eyes upon this board, we'll see how the Gigabyte X48T-DQ6 steps up against the rest.
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Two of those latest cards has come to us in the form of Gigabyte's ATI Radeon HD 3870 512MB graphics cards, or GV-RX387512H for those currently shopping. NVidia's 8800 series are a very common top end budget gamer card and typically does well in most cases. How does the Gigabyte HD 3870 stack up against the card? And is it a viable solution? Read on for the surprising results.
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Monday, April 7, 2008
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Gigabyte was nice enough to send us two motherboards, one based on the P35 and the other the X38. We wanted to see how much better it really is over the P35 purely based on benchmarks and overclocking. Not to give the whole review away in the introduction, but I was really surprised with the GA-EX38-DS4 as it took our E8400 to a whole new level. Besides the overclocking and Crossfire support the EX38 has been purposefully developed and designed to be incredibly energy efficient. With the current trend towards lower energy usage and lower running temperatures as a result, this kind of innovation helps to push Gigabyte ahead of the pack.
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