FIRST LOOK - nForce4: Gigabyte K8NXP-9
by Wesley Fink on November 12, 2004 8:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Overclocking and Memory Stress Testing
With the limited ranges of CPU clock speeds available in the pre-release Gigabyte BIOS, it was not possible to test overclocking thoroughly. We were able to reduce multipliers and easily reach 250FSB, which was the top speed available in the pre-release BIOS. However, until we receive the updated BIOS, we cannot determine the full overclocking capabilities of the K8NXP-9.Since there have been many reports of issues with memory on the earlier Gigabyte nForce3 Ultra, more effort went into testing memory performance on the K8NXP-9. Our memory stress test measures the ability of the K8NXP-9 to operate at its officially supported memory frequency (400MHz DDR), at the lowest memory timings that OCZ PC3200 Platinum Rev. 2 modules will support. All DIMMs used for stress testing were 512MB double-sided (or double-bank) memory. To make sure that memory performed properly in Dual-Channel mode, memory was only tested using either one dual-channel (2 DIMMs) or 2 dual-channels (4 DIMMs).
| Stable DDR400 Timings - One Dual-Channel (2/4 DIMMs populated) |
|
| Clock Speed: | 200MHz |
| CAS Latency: | 2.0 |
| RAS to CAS Delay: | 2T |
| RAS Precharge: | 10T* |
| Precharge Delay: | 2T |
| Command Rate: | 1T |
Using two DIMMs in Dual-Channel 128-bit mode, the memory performed in all benchmarks at the fastest 2-2-2-10 timings, at default voltage. As a further test, we ran every pair of PC3200 DIMMs that we had in the lab at their fastest timings, at DDR400 in DC mode. We had no problem with any RAM that we tested. It appears that the problems with Dual-Channel mode and memory compatibility, which were reported on the earlier Gigabyte nF3 Ultra board, have been improved greatly or eliminated on this nForce4 version.
| Stable DDR400 Timings - 4 DIMMs (4/4 DIMMs populated) |
|
| Clock Speed: | 200MHz |
| CAS Latency: | 2.0 |
| RAS to CAS Delay: | 2T |
| RAS Precharge: | 10T* |
| Precharge Delay: | 2T |
| Command Rate: | 2T |
Tests with all four DIMM slots populated on the Gigabyte required a 2T Command Rate with 4 DIMMs in two dual channels. This is the pattern seen on other top-performing Socket 939 boards. However, an "Auto" setting for Command Rate would not boot, and we had to force a 2T setting in BIOS with 4 DIMMs. Once 2T was set in BIOS, there was no problem running 4 DS DIMMs at the same aggressive 2-2-2-10 timings we had used with 2 DIMMs.
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Alphafox78 - Monday, November 15, 2004 - link
Why isnt there a comparison between this and a similarily configured NF3 board? How can you tell if just swapping the MB and switching to PCIe is going to help if there is no comparison to NF3...?deathwalker - Monday, November 15, 2004 - link
Lonewolf15...buy counting the pins on the pictures provided..it looks like 24 pins.LoneWolf15 - Monday, November 15, 2004 - link
P.S. Wesley, does this board have 20pin ATX +12v P4 power supply connections, or does it use the newer 24pin setup?LoneWolf15 - Monday, November 15, 2004 - link
This is the first Gigabyte board I've ever been interested in, and I have to say, it looks like an awesome board, all features included, with an incredibly clean layout. Can't wait to see what pricing is, and I hope that MSI, ASUS, and Abit rise to the challenge --it looks like the bar has been raised.Electric Mayhem - Monday, November 15, 2004 - link
I remember reading an Nvidia tech spec on their site that the NF4 does support NCQ.jcromano - Sunday, November 14, 2004 - link
I'd like to second #31's question: Will the board support NCQ harddrives? Also, from what I've read on page 2 ("Basic Features"), it sounds like this board will be able to use either AGP or PCie 16x for its graphics card. Is that correct? In the pictures of the board, are the 1x slots the white and green ones near the bottom, and is the 16x slot the black slot just below them? (If so, the 16x slot appears shorter than the 1x slots. Does that make sense?)KaRRiLLioN - Sunday, November 14, 2004 - link
After the fiasco I had with my K8NSNXP NF3 Ultra board, I'm going to pass up Gigabyte on this offering. That issue made that $230 board a piece of junk. My MSI is performing much better.Xspringe2 - Sunday, November 14, 2004 - link
Are there any dual opteron nforce4 based motherboard reviews in the pipeline?Thanks!
noxipoo - Sunday, November 14, 2004 - link
does this board support NCQ hardrives?Decoder - Saturday, November 13, 2004 - link
With nForce 4 AMD has achieved the mobo + cpu superiority over Intel. SLI will be the cream on the top. No wonder Dell has expressed interest in using AMD for workstations , gaming rigs and servers.Kudos to AMD and nVidia.