My next board...
...maybe. After I sell some parts, I may pick up one of these. It looks good, and it's got an insane amount of stuff on it... I like the 4 DIMM slots, too (why can't Abit and Asus do that?). But, on the other hand, it's also a Gigabyte board... it does have a good rating on Newegg, tho.
I wouldn't be replacing my NF7-S with it, unless it can hit >2.56GHz with an 1800+ stably, but I may pick one up to play around with it.
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductdesc.asp?description=13-128-190&depa=1
I wouldn't be replacing my NF7-S with it, unless it can hit >2.56GHz with an 1800+ stably, but I may pick one up to play around with it.
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductdesc.asp?description=13-128-190&depa=1
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Comments
No. No. No. No. No.
It sucks. I have one at work. They are buggy, slow memory performance. Don't even bother to think you can fit anything larger than the standard retail heatsink on it either (it has two capacitors in the way) and is NOTHING to compare agaisnt the ASUS/ABIT boards.
The gigaraid is very poor performing and dont be sold on it's reported features, the ONLY saving grace on this board is the nForce2 chipset that it's built on.
The only thing I've seen Gigabyte do right are their install manuals which have nice color coded pictures. The only problem is after you install everything they tend not to work very well D:.
If you really want to try something different there's rave reviews of the DFI Ultra Lanparty. The only bad review on newegg is somone who flashed and killed their bios from windows *shudder*. You might want to check it out:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=13-136-138&depa=0
http://www.short-media.com/article.php?94.0
Ask him about it for another reference.
It currently powers an un-important rig in the backoffice. It's all that is good for and only just that as well.
I saw a 2GB Pair the other day from Corsair, PC3200. Could put 4 gig into it with that.;)
I trust ya shorty. But.......How did Mediaman manage to give it a 99 out of 110 and a generally glowing review? And you say it suxs? I trust you as you were not depending on more gigacrap boards to review when you said it. I love you guys but... the reviews here are starting to remind me of Tom's Hardware at times also. Glowing reviews meant more to get more hardware to review then to give users the honest truth. Time to get down and dirty and make sure the reviews say what needs to be said, in the review.... One should not have to dig through the forums for the REAL low down on a board SM reviewed. This is a reflection on all the staff....What happened to honesty and integrity here?
There are enough weenie kiss my hinie reviewers in cyberspace out there. Thats not what we expect from SM. I would rather hear this kind of report in the review rather then burried in a forum thread.
And you really don't want to be compared to Tom's Hardware in this sense if you get my drift here.
I know its hard to be honest and get free crap but I would rather pay for serious honest reviews then waste my time reading B.S.
If it helps then setup a paypal account and I'll donate for the next board to be reviewed but I want a honest and serious review that shows the dark side without having to dig thru the forums. I think you might be surprised about how many others really want that also. Or how many thought they were getting it now.
Tex
MM used the Globalwin CAK4-76T HSF. I dont know the size of it but I guess its smaller than the SLK series HSs. Maybe MM should be using of the sorts for the review. Take off some points if large HSs can be fitted.
Could it be a bad board? Im unsure, the problems didn't start showing their face until it started getting heavy usage in a pseudo CAD rig. I never did RMA it as I had a NF7-M lying arond afterwards and that didn't exhibit the same symptoms. My local supplier actually ordered it specially for me, so RMA-ing would have been a real pain and they have done me right with alot of things in the past. I had no intention of upsetting the balance for one motherboard.
Did I get unlucky? Possibly. Im not sure anyone's review can be completely subjective. That's the only obscured side with review stuff, you don't get to keep it in your hands long enough to do more than bench it. It's actual full on 24/7 uptime and usage that determine the board's final verdict. In my instance, I didn't get on well with it, others might however find it to be perfect. My MSI K8T NEO is a prime example.
I've read [H]ardOCP, Viperlairs and other sites reviews on the K8T. All glowing. In actual long projected use, I've found a few indiosincracies that don't appear to have been picked up in the reviews. A prime example would be the somewhat strange SATA RAID performance from the VIA controller after a month's worth of disk thrashing.
This thread:
http://short-media.com/forum/showthread.php?t=9993
.. was one I created to highlight the issue that appeared on my K8T after a months worth of use. I've since had a BIOS update from MSI to aid stability, but I have no faith in the controller, so it's disabled and the embedded PROMISE controller is in use (no problems with that at all).
I guess it's an age old "your mileage may vary" scenario. Reading over at nforcershq.com forums, I see very few posts pertaining to the issues I have with this Gigabyte board that Geeky is looking at. Guess that's the luck of the draw. I haven't had much luck with it and my guy who was using the rig complained about it, so out it came.
So are reviews worth the time we print them for? Yes. Reviews are significant as they provide a good solid baseline introduction to a product and attempt to show what a first run with it displays. Long term use is hard to verify as 99% of all products do get returned after a week or two.