Gigabyte GA-8TRS350MT Motherboard

Supplied by Gigabyte

 

 

Integrated graphics do have a place on the desktop. The question is where? Motherboards equipped with integrated graphics solutions have been shunned due to poor 3D performance. That changed. Gigabyte was a top tier motherboard manufacturer that was quick to capitalize on this with the GA-8TRS300M and now hopes to continue with the GA-8TRS350MT featuring ATI’s PRO version of the 9100IGP.

At the beginning of 2004 ATI introduced their RS300 core as part of the 9100 IGP (Integrated Graphics Processor) for the desktop and left Intel’s IGP (Extreme Graphics) in the dust. INTEL bounced back with the 865 IGP solution and now ATI responds with their RS350 update for the 9100 PRO IGP.

The reason to purchase an Integrated Graphics Processor equipped motherboard lies in two main areas; cost and application.

The buying equation

Is the Gigabyte GA-8TRS350MT of good value? It’s difficult to get an apples to apples comparison but a search of the site Newegg.com for products with as close to the same performance or features gave a starting point for comparison.

Consider, at the time of this article, the Gigabyte 8TRS350MT can be purchased for as low as $80 USD.

A separate video card and motherboard with equivalent options and performance requires the purchase of an ATI 9200 SE video card which is approximately $47 USD and P4 motherboard for another $46 USD.

The INTEL 865G integrated graphics processor equipped motherboard, which is the RS350’s nearest competitor, with equivalent features to the Gigabyte 8TRS350MT retails for approximately $85 USD.

So it’s apparent that ATI have given motherboard manufacturers the opportunity to aggressively price the 9100IGP product. It just doesn’t make financial sense to purchase a motherboard and video card separately that has the same performance. The Gigabyte 8TRS350MT is $4-5 less than INTEL’s offering and approximately $13 less than a video card and motherboard purchased separately.

Intel’s 865G series trails with a 266 MHz core speed versus the 300 MHz core of the 9100IGP. The RS350 also boasts support for DirectX 8.1, DirectX 9.0 compatible drivers, pixel shaders, higher order surfaces, up to 4x FSAA and 16x AA and multi-display management. A few things that Intel’s 865G lack entirely. On paper the RS300 and RS350 chipsets are superior to the 865G series.

Remember that this is based on the same features and very similar performance. There are options that are less expensive but some of the features are dropped in those models such as fewer USB ports or 2 DIMM slots opposed to 4.

Where to use it?

The GA-8TRS350MT is a no-brainer for business use. It is a cost effective motherboard that only requires RAM, processor, case with PSU, monitor, keyboard, mouse and a hard drive to get a user up on line (assuming software is installed). It is a micro ATX motherboard therefore smaller mATX cases can be used so gone are the bulky towers and desktop cases. It provides more than sufficient GPU performance for 2D office tasks and the ability to provide sufficient 3D performance for the casual gamer…who shouldn’t be playing at work anyway.

This can also be a cost-effective second desktop for home use especially as a secondary PC. Again the emphasis is on 2D applications such as email, Internet and office with above average 3D performance compared to gaming PCs costing hundreds of dollars more.

 

Specifications

Processor

Socket 478 for Intel ® Pentium ® 4 processor with Hyper-Threading technology

Chipset

North bridge: ATi R9100 Pro IGP with Radeon 9200 graphics core South bridge: ATi SB300 Realtek RTL8100C LAN chip Realtek ALC655 CODEC

Front Side Bus

800 / 533 / 400 MHz FSB

Memory

Type: Dual Channel DDR 400 / 333 / 266 Max. capacity: 4GB (Please read FAQ for further information) DIMM slots:4

Internal I/O Connectors

2 x UDMA ATA 100/66 Bus Master IDE connectors 1 x FDD connector 2 x USB 2.0/1.1 connectors (supports 4 ports by cable) S/P DIF in/out connector CD in connector 1 x Com port pin header 20-pin ATX Power connector 4-pin ATX 12V Power connector

Expansion Slots

1 x AGP slot 8X/4x slot 3x PCI slots (PCI 2.3 compliant)

Rear Panel I/O

1 x VGA port 1 x RJ45 port 1 x TV-Out port 4 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports 1 x RJ45 LAN port 1 x LPT port Audio (1 x Line-in / 1 x Line-out / 1 x Mic) connector 2 x PS/2 ports (Keyboard/Mouse)

Power

ATX power connector and ATX 12V connector Power-off by Windows 98/ Me/ 2000/ XP shut down and switch

Form Factor

uATX 24.5 x 24.4 cm

H/W Monitoring

Auto-detect and report of system health status through BIOS Hardware detection and report of power-in voltage, CPU voltage, and fan speed

BIOS

2M bit flash ROM

Other Features

Xpress3 EasyTune TM 4 @BIOS Q-Flash TM

Bundle Software

Norton Internet Security Norton Anti-Virus™ Norton™ Personal Firewall Norton™ Privacy Control Norton™ Parental Control Norton™ Spam Alert GIGABYTE Windows Utility Manager Adobe Acrobat Reader

 

RS300 vs. RS350

So what’s the difference beyond the word “PRO” attached to the RS350 (9100IGP PRO). Both come from the same stock. ATI has basically tweaked the RS300 core. Two more USB ports have been added increasing the total from 6 to 8. SATA 0/1 on two headers has also been added. There isn’t much beyond that as indicated in the following comparison chart (additions in BOLD)

 

9100IGP (RS300)	9100IGP PRO (RS350)
CPU Interface Up to 800 MHz CPU FSB for Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor Supports Intel® Hyper-Threading™ processors In-Order Queue (IOQ) depth of 12 Supports Dynamic Bus Inversion (DBI) Supports system bus interrupt delivery	CPU Interface Up to 800 MHz CPU FSB for Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor Supports Intel® Hyper-Threading™ processors In-Order Queue (IOQ) depth of 12 Supports Dynamic Bus Inversion (DBI) Supports system bus interrupt delivery
System Logic Features Integrated master clock generator with spread spectrum support AGP 3.0 compliant AGP 8X interface with Fast Write support 266MB/second point-to-point interface to ATI IXP in A-Link mode Unified Memory Architecture (UMA) Dual channel 128-bit DDR SDRAM memory interface DDR400 SDRAM support provides up to 6.4 GB/second bandwidth Up to 4 GB DRAM support with two unbuffered DIMMs 16 MB to 128 MB of main memory configurable as display memory Up to 6 USB2.0 ports Two independent IDE channels with support of mode 0 to 4, and ATA 100 Supports LPC based Super I/O Integrated 3-COM™ Ethernet controller	System Logic Features Integrated master clock generator with spread spectrum support AGP 3.0 compliant AGP 8X interface with Fast Write support 266MB/second point-to-point interface to ATI IXP in A-Link mode Unified Memory Architecture (UMA) Dual channel 128-bit DDR SDRAM memory interface DDR400 SDRAM support provides up to 6.4 GB/second bandwidth Up to 4 GB DRAM support with two unbuffered DIMMs 16 MB to 128 MB of main memory configurable as display memory Up to 8 USB2.0 ports Up to 2 SATA ports Two independent IDE channels with support of mode 0 to 4, and ATA 100 Supports LPC based Super I/O Integrated 3-COM™ Ethernet controller
3D Graphics Features HyperZ™ memory optimization technology Hardware with Pixel Shader 1.4 support Supports up to 2048×1536 @ 32bpp. Supports 3D textures and Microsoft® DirectX® texture compression Anisotropic texture filtering and Full Screen Anti-Aliasing (FSAA)	3D Graphics Features HyperZ™ memory optimization technology Hardware with Pixel Shader 1.4 support Supports up to 2048×1536 @ 32bpp. Supports 3D textures and Microsoft® DirectX® texture compression Anisotropic texture filtering and Full Screen Anti-Aliasing (FSAA)
Video Features Video scaling and filtering with advanced 4-tap horizontal and vertical filter Integrated hardware motion compensation and iDCT Enhanced MPEG-2 hardware decode Hardware DVD sub-picture decode	Video Features Video scaling and filtering with advanced 4-tap horizontal and vertical filter Integrated hardware motion compensation and iDCT Enhanced MPEG-2 hardware decode Hardware DVD sub-picture decode Video deblocking with FULLSTREAM™
2D Graphics Features Highly optimized 128-bit 2D Engine Hardware cursor up to 64x64x32 BPP Supports a maximum resolution of 2048×1536 @ 32bpp. Support for Microsoft® Windows® XP alpha cursor	2D Graphics Features Highly optimized 128-bit 2D Engine Hardware cursor up to 64x64x32 BPP Supports a maximum resolution of 2048×1536 @ 32bpp. Support for Microsoft® Windows® XP alpha cursor
Display Controller Dual CRT controllers provide independent dual display support Display rotation support Comprehensive DDC and hot plugging support Integrated high precision 300MHz triple 10-bit DAC supports resolutions up to 2048 x 1536	Display Controller Dual CRT controllers provide independent dual display support Display rotation support Comprehensive DDC and hot plugging support Integrated high precision 300MHz triple 10-bit DAC supports resolutions up to 2048 x 1536
Flat Panel Monitor Support 12-bit digital output to support DVI, DFP and VESA P&D via external TMDS Supports up to 1600×1200 screen resolution for LCD panels Support for VESA defined reduced blanking modes	Flat Panel Monitor Support 12-bit digital output to support DVI, DFP and VESA P&D via external TMDS Supports up to 1600×1200 screen resolution for LCD panels Support for VESA defined reduced blanking modes
TV-Out Support Integrated TV encoder with composite, S-Video, and RGB interfaces Supports PAL/NTSC TV formats 10-bit DAC with 8-tap filter and ATI-exclusive enhancements Macrovision 7.1 copy protection standard Supports up to 1024×768 32bpp mode	TV-Out Support Integrated TV encoder with composite, S-Video, and RGB interfaces Supports PAL/NTSC TV formats 10-bit DAC with 8-tap filter and ATI-exclusive enhancements Macrovision 7.02 copy protection standard Supports up to 1024×768 32bpp mode
Optimized Software Support Microsoft DirectX 8.1 and OpenGL® drivers Unified driver support for all RADEON discrete and integrated graphics products Support for Microsoft Windows® XP, Windows® 2000, and Windows® Me	Optimized Software Support Microsoft® DirectX® 8.1 and OpenGL® drivers Unified driver support for all RADEON® discrete and integrated graphics products Support for Microsoft Windows® XP, Windows® 2000 and Linux

What’s in the box?

Inside the box is the manual, installation CD, 1 x EIDE cable, 1 x floppy cable, backplane guard and an SVIDEO/RCA adapter cable. This is a package that meets basic system requirements and basic it is.

 

The installation CD has an autorun EXPRESS INSTALL feature which makes it easier for the new user to install all the necessary drivers. The CD did not, however, did not install the ATI control panel on the test system and it was necessary to wade into the files and folders of the CD which can be extremely confusing for the novice PC user.

 

 

Touring the board

Socket 478 Hyperthreading support is standard on the GA-8TRS350MT but not the close proximity of the capacitors to the heatsink guide. Stock Intel heatsinks do not present any problems but be cautious with any “exotic” cooling solutions.

The CPU fan header is northeast of the CPU socket area.

Four DIMM slots for 2 or 4 stick dual channel support. The ATX connector is conveniently at the top of the board. Two EIDE headers and a floppy header are just south.

The IXP300 chipset most notably brings SATA support and two extra USB ports versus the IXP200 chipset that was found on the RS300 version.

 

Next to the IXP300 are the two SATA headers with RAID 0/1 support. The GA-TRS350MT appears as if 1394 support could have been easily added. A price point target most likely kept that option off the board.

Gigabyte uses a spring-loaded locking pin for the optional AGP video card but note the close proximity of the RAM lifters. Two of them, if not three, will be blocked by larger video cards such as the ATI 9700 PRO and newer.

The RS350 chipset is passively cooled but a fan or even a custom heatsink could be installed. The other power connection sits just west of the RS350 chipset.

Gigabyte continue to use the color coded front panel connector assembly.

The color coding is designed to make it easer to know where to connect the front panel options for IDE HDD LED, reset switch and so on. In reality nothing beats reading the manual.

Between the IXP300 chipset and the 3 PCI slots lay the CMOS battery, single BIOS chip and four of the eight USB connections (Two per header).

The two pins to bridge in order to clear the CMOS are at the bottom of the board below the PCI slots between the USB and COM A headers. Don’t look for a jumper cap as one isn’t included.

Three PCI slots, an 8x AGP slot are visible and the CD-IN connection sits tucked away in the southwest corner.

The Realtek ALC655 chip provides for 16-bit, AC’97 rev 2.3 compatible 6-channel sound. It’s adequate sound and many features sit dormant including S/P DIF in and out capabilities.

The Realtek RTL8100C chip mainly handles the ethernet connection.

The ITE IT8712F-A chip is quite unassuming but does quite a lot of work including being capable to provide hardware monitoring, fan speed control, smartguardian control, game port, floppy and keyboard control and smart card reader support. There are a few options left dormant on this chip when it was incorporated into the GA-8TRS350MT.

The backplane has PS/2 mouse and keyboard, parallel port, SVideo out, sVGA out, four USB ports, LAN and audio. Any devices requiring COM A or B support will have to be used on a separate connecting device that can plug directly into the motherboard.

An S/P DIF connection may have been an attractive option for a board like this. Perhaps the thinking behind the decision not to include this option lay in the fact that performance hungry gamers, who would find this most appealing, would be using different motherboard/video card combinations.

The MOFSET chips are passively cooled front and back side of the motherboard.

 

BIOS

Pressing CTRL-F1 will enable the advanced options to the BIOS. Most of the BIOS is standard configuration.

TV output, via the SVIDEO output, is multi-format making this an internationally portable product.

Secondly the video output can be set to a variety of configurations.

The DUAL CHANNEL INTERLEAVE can be set to SYSTEM OPTIMAL or GRAPHICS OPTIMAL to provide either an overall system performance optimization or favor the graphics performance.

 

The other BIOS screens are standard as in most motherboards.

 

 

 

 

 

Overclocking functions are extremely limited. Note the absense of any voltage control and multiplier settings with the release BIOS.

Benchmarks.

 

The test systems.

Gigabyte GA-8TRS350M 9100 PRO IGP

• Intel P4 2.4 GHz 512KB 800 MHz processor (HT enabled)
• Gigabyte GA-8TRS350MT mATX motherboard
• 2 x 256 MB Corsair PC3200 DDR RAM in DIMM 1 and 3
• Sony 52x CD
• Seagate 120 GB SATA Hard Drive
• Samsung 950p 19″ Monitors
• PS/2 Keyboard and Mouse
• Retail HSF packaged with processor
• AMK SX1000 modded PC case (window, fans, cables, loom)
• Enermax 465 Watt FC PSU
• Windows XP Professional Service Pack 1 updated
• GART V 1.009-1 driver
• Display Driver Version: 6.14.10.6436
• SM Bus Driver Version: 5.10.1000.3

RS300 (9100 IGP)

• Intel P4 2.4 GHz 512KB 800 MHz processor (HT enabled)
• Gigabyte GA-8TRS300M mATX motherboard
• MSI 9100 IGP reference motherboard (tested with FX5200 & MX440 video cards)
• 2 x 256 MB Corsair PC3200 DDR RAM in DIMM 1 and 3
• Sony 52x CD
• Western Digital 80 GB Hard Drive
• Samsung 950p 19″ Monitors
• PS/2 Keyboard and Mouse
• Retail HSF packaged with processor
• AMK SX1000 modded PC case (window, fans, cables, loom)
• Enermax 465 Watt FC PSU
• Windows XP Professional Service Pack 1 updated
• GART V 1.007b driver
• Display Driver Version: 4.14.01.6404
• SM Bus Driver Version: 5.10.1000.2b

Programs used

• 
  Sisoft Sandra 2004
• FutureMark
  3DMark 03
• Quake
  III Arena
• GL
  Excess
• SpecviewPerf 7.1
• Serious Sam SE
• Unreal Tournament 2003 flyby benchmarks
• Aquamark3
• X2
  Demo
• Wolfenstein Enemy Territory (Railgun demo)

 

 

The video

	ATI Radeon 9100 PRO IGP Gigabyte GA-8TRS350MT	ATI Radeon 9100 IGP Gigabyte GA-8TRS300M & MSI reference board	NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440-SE on MSI reference board	NVIDIA GeForce FX5200 on MSI reference board
Onboard Memory		Configurable up to 128 MB of main memory	Memory 64MB DDR	Memory 64MB DDR
Core clock	300 MHz	300 MHz	250MHz	250MHz
Memory Clock	400MHz effective DDR memory	400MHz effective DDR memory	333MHz effective DDR memory	333MHz effective DDR memory
AGP	AGP 8x	AGP 8x	AGP 4x/2x	AGP 8x
Memory Bandwidth	6.4 GB/second	6.4 GB/second	2.15 GB/second	2.15GB/second
RAMDAC	400MHz	400MHz	350MHz	350MHz
Drivers Used	see above	ATI 7.94 test drivers	53.03	52.16

 

Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 1 slipstreamed used for installation. Catalyst settings: let application decide for Anti-Aliasing/Anisotropic filtering. Wait for Vertical Sync set to disabled. AGP aperture
was set to 64 MB. Windows visual effects
was set to ADJUST FOR BEST PERFORMANCE and system restore set to disabled. Pagefile set to 1024 MB min and maximum settings.

Individual performance will vary with any particular or specific timings or
tweaks enabled by you. All programs were benchmarked with initial monitor
settings at 1024×768@75Hz. Your own mileage may very.

3DMark 2003

3D Mark 2003 was originally designed to measure performance specifically in
shader-heavy titles.

 

Aquamark3

Aquamark3 is a benchmark from Massive Development. For the most part
it is a DirectX 8.1 benchmark though it is run with DirectX 9.0c installed. Four
measurement sets were used. The first has high and low detail with Anti Aliasing
and Anisotropic filtering turned off. The second has high and low detail with
Anti-Aliasing (6x) and Anisotropic filtering (16x) set at max.

 

GL Excess

GL Excess is an OPENGL benchmark that is optimized for DX8.1.

Quake III high quality

Quake III still continues to hang around. This benchmark is one that
most can’t just let go of and it retains grandfather rights in the community.
Many of today’s games are based upon the Quake engine. The accuracy of this benchmark is becoming questionable with frame rates consistently around or over 300.

Serious Sam

Serious Sam uses OPENGL.

UT2003 Flyby

Wolfenstein Enemy Territory: Railgun timedemo

Wolfenstein Enemy Territory uses an improved version of the heavily
modified Quake III engine from Return to Castle Wolfenstein. The Railgun time
demo results were recorded.

 

X2 Rolling Demo

X2 – The Threat is a teaser with a benchmark option for Egosoft’s
upcoming release. It does not use pixel shaders.

Sisoft Sandra 2004

 

Specviewperf 7.1

SpecviewPerf measures the rendering performance of systems
running under OPENGL incorporating eight standard SPECopc applications viewsets:

 

Benchmark Conclusions

The 9100 PRO IGP does not show outstanding performance compared to its 9100 IGP predecessor and it’s only the memory bandwidth score that pulls the performance curve of the 9100 PRO IGP up. All test systems were run at default settings.

1024 x 768 @ 75 Hz monitor settings except where otherwise indicated.	RS350 vs. RS300
3D Mark 2003	4.9% slower
Aquamark AA off, Aniso Off Details vlow	5.3% slower
Aquamark AA off, Aniso Off Details vhigh	no change
GL Excess	1.3% slower
Quake III high quality v.11	0.8% slower
Serious Sam	0.3% slower
UT2003 – flyby – antalus	0.8% faster
UT2003 – flyby – asbestos	0.6% faster
UT2003 – flyby – citadel	no change
Wolfenstein Enemy Territory (railgun demo)	0.8% slower
X2 Rolling demo	3.5% faster
Sandra CPU Arithmetic (sum of scores)	8.6% faster
Sandra CPU MultiMedia Benchmark (sum of scores)	0.6% faster
Sandra Memory Bandwidth (sum of scores)	15.6% faster
SpecviewPerf 7.1 (sum of scores)	6.7% slower
Overall (sum of all % scores)	14% faster

Disappointingly the 3DMARK03 benchmark at 1024×78 only increased by 2% when the TOP PERFORMANCE and GRAPHICS OPTIMAL settings were enabled.

Conclusion

The Gigabyte GA-8TRS350MT must be put into proper perspective. It is a cost-effective solution with good 3D performance; not impressive compared to gaming PCs but it’s not meant to compete with $500 video cards. The GA-8TRS350MT only costs around $80. Just add RAM, processor, hard drive, mouse, keyboard, case, psu and monitor. The GA-8TRS350MT is also aggressively priced against a separate video card/motherboard combination with similar features and performance and price matters for a lot of buyers. Don’t expect it to be a high performance gaming system because it isn’t.

In what it is, a motherboard with an integrated graphics processor, the Gigabyte GA-9TRS350MT is an excellent product. The performance enhancements from the RS300 to RS350 chipset didn’t shine though but the RS350 does add 2 extra USB ports, better audio and SATA RAID 0/1.

The strength of the 9100 PRO IGP does begin to come through at higher 3D details where it leaves nVidia competitors behind. Benchmarks using newer game engines, like Aquamark, do begin to show this. The 9100 PRO IGP boasts DirectX 9.0 support though game detail settings will have to be very conservative to achieve decent frame rates.

The Gigabyte GA-8TRS350MT has a host of features including 8 x USB and SATA RAID 0/1. The Realtek ALC655 is an above average onboard audio solution delivering EAX 1.0 and 2.0 compatible sound, Direct Sound 3D, A3D, HRTF 3D Positional and Sensaura 3DPA enhancement. The mATX size allows for small builds of what could amount to be a very affordable all-purpose PC.

It all boils down to value and the ability to do the job. This is a full-featured motherboard at a micro-ATX size. The GA-8TRS350MT provides the features and options required in a PC motherboard and above average performance for an integrated graphics solution. It’s the right tool for that job.

Our thanks to Gigabyte for
their support of this and many other sites.

 

Scores Breakdown

Attribute	Score	Comments
Bonus items & software	7.5	Norton Internet Security is pretty well the only freebee.
Design & layout	8.5	Layout is very good.
Documentation	7.5	Gigabyte need to revist their manuals and stop trying to make one manual cover many products.
Features & options	9.5	Outstanding list of features especially for a sub-$100 USD board.
Fine-tuning features	8	An adequate amount of standard BIOS features.
Overclocking features	7	Not an overclocker’s BIOS
Performance & stability	9	Completely stable in all tests.
Presentation	8.5	Gigabyte has a good design going but the back of the package promos features not included with the product inside.
Price / value	9	Very good value especially when all the features and onboard video is taken into consideration.
Total score	74.5/90	82.8%