Gigabyte K8NSNXP-939 Motherboard

MediaMan

The K8NSNXP-939 from Gigabyte, offers a wealth of features. The Dual Power System (DPS) has now become a permanent feature and the adoption of NVIDIA's nForce3 Ultra chipset brings hefty promises of massive hard drive support, NVIDIA's firewall and disk management.

Read it here

Unregistered

Excellant review, I've just added your url to my favs list. However three points for need clarifying. 1) In your benchmarking, one test system was based on the Asus k8v 939, which doesn't exist. The only Asus 939 mb is the a8v(abit's 939 mb is the av8, both use the via kt800 pro cs), the kv8 has the 754 socket.

2) You listed testing the "Asus k8v" with a AMD64 3800, while the others had FX-53s. Wouldn't it have been more accurate to use an FX-53 for all the machines in order to draw clearer comparisons?

3) Did Gigabyte respond to your query on the capacitor placement next to the cpu?

TheBaron

hey now, the man makes mistakes

leaving the typos out of the equation, excellent review MM

MediaMan

Unregistered wrote:

In your benchmarking, one test system was based on the Asus k8v 939, which doesn't exist. The only Asus 939 mb is the a8v"

You are most correct. Dyslexia setting in again. My apologies. That damn ASUS board (Socket 939) is refusing to be properly named. Somehow I got it stuck in my head with the rest of the model numbers of a kazillion other boards.

It's next on my review list and I hope to get it right by that time.

Unregistered wrote:

2) You listed testing the "Asus k8v" with a AMD64 3800, while the others had FX-53s. Wouldn't it have been more accurate to use an FX-53 for all the machines in order to draw clearer comparisons?

Two were 3800+ tests (Gigabyte K8NSNXP-939 and ASUS A8V) and two were FX-53 tests. (ASUS SK8N and Gigabyte K8NNXP-940). See above comment. Late nights make for interesting habits for model numbers.

Unregistered wrote:

3) Did Gigabyte respond to your query on the capacitor placement next to the cpu?

Not as of yet but I had sent them the pictures. We are still going back and forth on that plus the botched Marvell driver. On the issue of the capacitors I suspect some engineer in Taiwan is saying "oops." On the Marvell driver issue they believe they are right until I can prove them wrong. That means complete format and reinstallation at least 3 times to confirm.


Glad you enjoyed the review.

MediaMan

TheBaron wrote:

hey now, the man makes mistakes

Mistakes? Naaaahh...never...I make conversation starters.

mmonnin

Call them what you want MM, but we know what they are.;)

Unregistered

THX for the review. I am missing three (for me) important topics though:

Does the AGP/PCI-Lock work ?

What intelligent Fan-Features has Gigabyte to offer ? If any, is it equal to Q-Fan / Silenttek, so can it switch out fans as well ?

Is this a board which can be used for a silent PC ? How much noise will the onboard fan generate ?

Best Regards

MediaMan

Unregistered wrote:

THX for the review. I am missing three (for me) important topics though:

Does the AGP/PCI-Lock work ?

I'll look into it.

Unregistered wrote:

What intelligent Fan-Features has Gigabyte to offer ? If any, is it equal to Q-Fan / Silenttek, so can it switch out fans as well ?

With a 939-pin processor there is AMD's Cool'n'Quiet feature which is very good. If the CPU will also dial down in speed when Cool'n'Quiet is enabled.

Take a more detailed look here: http://www.short-media.com/review.php?r=247&p=3

Unregistered wrote:

Is this a board which can be used for a silent PC ? How much noise will the onboard fan generate ?

The onboard nForce and DPS fans are very quiet.

Unregistered

Hi Mediaman,

I understand very well what cool and quiet is. When it works, the CPU should be cooler with dowb to 22w dissipation, but than we want to gain the benefit from this with a CPU and Case fans slowing down, becoming quieter (or simply stop as q-fan and silenttek can do)as well.

When playing games and full power is needed, the fans should be adjusted automatically so that the CPU is not overheated.

For me it does not matter wether the CPU has 34 degree celsius or 55 degree celsius. What matters is wether the PC is quiet or not. The should be controlled by the motherboard.

Unregistered

Was a Windows driver provided for the 1394B controller that actually enables S800 mode?

Unregistered

FW800 driver: it's ought to be released in SP2.

By T2k!

Unregistered

Just bought it...will post pix and specs...very curious as what will finally happen...thanks for the reviews and postings!

mmonnin

All you unregistered folk should sign up to the forums and post your findings there.:)

Unregistered

Hi Mediaman!

Just read your article. Very well written, but I'm puzzled about the LAN and supposed firewall feature. To my knowledge, the hardware firewall only works in conjunction with the internal GbE MAC of the nForce3 chipset and an external PHY. So far, so good. However, the only kind of GbE mentioned for this board is the Marvell solution, which is a complete GbE solution and doesn't seem to make use of the internal MAC. That leaves the ICS 1883 PHY which is rated for 100Mbit Fast Ethernet only.

Does this mean that the firewall only works with the 2nd 100Mbit LAN? Or does it even work at all? I'm know the firewall part of ForceWare will install because the nForce3 Ultra inherently supports it, but if it's not used properly....?

Unregistered

The nForce3 has NO SoundStorm feature (only nForce2 and upcoming nForce4) so Gigabyte cann't implement it in this board.
But that was the only crap that i see i the review. The rest was fine ;-)

Unregistered

A comparisson with MSI K8N NEO2 nForce 3 Ultra would be greatly appreciated

Unregistered

Can you adjust the multipler from the Bios? I have heard no and did not see that in your review.

Unregistered

I've bought this mobo since then I can confirm: yes, you can.

However I have issues regarding my FX-53 FSB speed...

solidus667

Regarding the capacitor location:

I think they are located just fine. The heatsynch and mounting are both symmetrical, so you can mount it in either direction. Mount it (the retail heatsynch) with the lever facing toward the PCI slots and the lever will not get in the way and you have TONS of room. There is no problem here!

Unregistered

yup, what solidus said :-)
The lever goes on the side of the CPU closest to the AGP slot.

I've been unable to get this mobo stable in dual channel mode. I've tried every timing, voltage, and prayer, and three brands of RAM (current is Corsair Twin-1024 3200XL PRO). It is rock solid in single-channel mode, but significantly slower. I'm waiting for an answer back from Gigabyte on this issue.

confuzzled

Hello. I have read your review, and based on it, I bought this motherboard. Could you confirm you actually have the Nforce3 chipset features working? For some reason, it appears the Firewall and Network Access Manager are not functional on my version.

I have been trying to get answered whether or not these features actually DO work. Could you please tell me which version of the Forceware drivers you used?

Thanks for your time.

cimerol

I have the same problem with my system. solid in single channel mode and terrible in dual channel mode. I am beginning to think this ram needs more power than the board can produce.

thinking of switching to ocz or kingston hyperx, pc3500.

MediaMan

Cimerol,

Just pointing out the utterly obvious. Have you got the RAM in the proper DIMM slots? I have used both Corsair and Crucial 2 x 512 with no problems.

confuzzled,

I use the latest Forceware drivers from the NVIDIA site. This motherboard is not the GB version will all of the features enabled that are capable with this type of chipset.

Think of it like those motherboards that came with and without Soundstorm. Same chipset just not enabled.

cimerol

MM,

Yes, I have tried a few configurations suggested by the Ram Guy @ Corsair. It's just very unstable and quite a few BSOD's when in dual-channel mode, even with loose timings. Thinking of switching memory modules.

MediaMan

Yer kidding!


Okay...download MEMTEST86 from our downloads page...see the main page of short-media and run that.

I've had some funky Corsair ram before and it's best to start with double checking the ram for full functionality. See if there are any errors. I believe I have the 3200LL series of Corsair Ram on my system and everything on AUTO with no problems through 32-bit or 64-bit.

Start there by checking the bill of health of your ram.

cimerol

I have already run memtest. as a pair and single sticks. no errors at all. my old setup was an asus a8v with 3200LL, since swapping mobo's i went with the 3200XL. i thought i was upgrading, but same problems. so far, i'm not a happy corsair customer.

my cousin has a pair of kingston hyperx, i'm going to try them before i totally swear off corsair. i will let you know how i make out!!

my main concern is, corsair wants 2.75 or 2.8 ddr volts, with this mobo, it only goes +.2, which is still only 2.7v. now i'm not a ram expert, but that voltage doesn't add up.

MediaMan

Interesting.

And here I sit with the 3200LL Corsair memory with no problems at default. Let me know what you find out.

cimerol

actually, i wish i kept the 3200LL, the support voltage is only 2.6, which I feel will work better than the 3200XL which is 2.75 to 2.85 according to the Ram Guy.