Jetway 939GT4-SLI: Gem with a New SLI Twist
by Wesley Fink on August 24, 2005 8:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Jetway has had many interesting products in the last couple of years. Smaller players in the PC Market often have a hard time getting noticed, and we applaud Jetway for bringing some unique products to market as a means of shining the spotlight on the Jetway brand. When we first heard of the Jetway nForce4 SLI board with 3 x16 PCIe slots, we figured it was just another interesting twist from Jetway. However, the idea is such a good one that we really wanted to take a closer look.
The first SLI motherboards provided SLI capabilities with a Paddle card that was reversed to switch between single x16 video and dual x8 operation.
Jetway did a very clever and elegant rethinking of SLI in the design of the 939GT4-SLI-G, which is the subject of this review. All of the competing SLI boards use at least two-slot spacing between the two x16 slots to allow for double-width cards like the NVIDIA 6800 Ultra. Jetway used this fact to create a fresh new approach.
Jetway does not need a paddle card, or jumpers, or switches in this arrangement. The design is simplicity in itself. What's more, this board theoretically could be a better performer without the paddle, jumpers or switches that can limit overclocking performance.
The first SLI motherboards provided SLI capabilities with a Paddle card that was reversed to switch between single x16 video and dual x8 operation.
Jetway did a very clever and elegant rethinking of SLI in the design of the 939GT4-SLI-G, which is the subject of this review. All of the competing SLI boards use at least two-slot spacing between the two x16 slots to allow for double-width cards like the NVIDIA 6800 Ultra. Jetway used this fact to create a fresh new approach.
Jetway does not need a paddle card, or jumpers, or switches in this arrangement. The design is simplicity in itself. What's more, this board theoretically could be a better performer without the paddle, jumpers or switches that can limit overclocking performance.
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joex444 - Wednesday, August 24, 2005 - link
Maybe a lil OT, as it applies to any SLI board, but:Can you run a video card in one of the green slots and then use a PCIe RAID5 card, like the Areca x8 RAID5/6 8 port SATA card?
I do need RAID5, I run a development web server with a SQL server on my PC.
Furen - Thursday, August 25, 2005 - link
I would guess yes, since you can throw a 1x device onto 16x slot and they work fine. Of course your graphics performance will be slightly worse, but the difference should be negligible.Leper Messiah - Wednesday, August 24, 2005 - link
$129 SLi board with this kind of performance? I'm there! Dual core 3800+ Jetway mobo, and an x800xl or something for now seems to be very tempting right now...slsmnaz - Wednesday, August 24, 2005 - link
Why is an SLI board w/ an x800xl tempting?OvErHeAtInG - Wednesday, August 24, 2005 - link
Because he could upgrade to 7800 GTX/GT SLI's when the price comes down.ncasebee - Wednesday, August 24, 2005 - link
You are sure that this is the same board as the one included in EVGA's free mobo deal? If it is, I see no reason not to get this board, and save myself the money.Furen - Wednesday, August 24, 2005 - link
You could always ask EVGA directly... say something like "I've heard good things about the Jetway motherboard and was wondering if they are manufacturing it for you" or something of the sort, heh.Furen - Wednesday, August 24, 2005 - link
OK, I went into EVGA's support forums and though the motherboard is a rebranded Jetway they are pretty behement about you not using the Jetway bios. It might just be them throwing a bit of FUD at you but I just wanted to point it out. By the way, it seems that their current bios is a bit flaky on the overclocking front (Jetway's has already been fixed, it seems).Calin - Wednesday, August 24, 2005 - link
than on other boards made by Jetway. We had one board (from several bought less than three years ago, in several months) gone bad - the capacitors were dead.Other than that, I wonder if one could use all three PCI-E slots (having one 16x card and two 8x cards), and if not, a chipset change could solve that
Calin
joex444 - Wednesday, August 24, 2005 - link
Remember that this is just a paddle-less design. With the paddle you can't use the 2nd PCIe x16 slot if it is set to single mode; you need to switch the paddle to dual mode which cuts it to two x8 slots each physically having a x16 connector. Either way, there are only 16 usable lanes.It's the same thing, plug a card in the yellow and the "paddle" is set to single x16; plug a card in the green and the "paddle" is set to dual x8.