Gigabyte 7NNXP (nForce2 Ultra 400): Gigabyte Goes nForce
by Evan Lieb on July 5, 2003 10:53 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Gigabyte 7NNXP: Stress Testing
We performed stress tests on the 7NNXP in several different areas and configurations, including:
1. Chipset and motherboard stress testing was conducted by running the FSB at 222MHz
2. Memory stress testing was conducted by running RAM at 400MHz with two DIMM slots filled and at 400MHz with all four DIMM slots filled in dual DDR mode at the lowest timings possible.
Front Side Bus Stress Test Results:
As standard practice, we ran a large load of stress tests and benchmarks to ensure the 7NNXP was absolutely stable at each overclocked FSB speed. These stress tests included Prime95 torture tests, which were run in the background for a total of 24 hours.
We proceeded to run several other tasks, such as data compression, various DX8 games, and light apps like Word and Excel with Prime95 running in the background. Finally, we reran our entire benchmark suite, which includes Sysmark 2002, Quake3 Arena, Unreal Tournament 2003, SPECviewperf 7.0, Jedi Knight 2 and XMPEG. In the end, 222MHz FSB was the highest overclock we were able to achieve with the 7NNXP without encountering any reliability issues.
Memory Stress Test Results:
This memory stress test examines the motherboard’s ability to operate at its officially supported memory frequency (400MHz DDR), and at the lowest supported memory timings that our Corsair TwinX LL modules support:
| Stable Dual DDR400 Timings (2/4 banks populated) |
|
| Clock Speed: | 200MHz |
| Timing Mode: | N/A |
| CAS Latency: | 2.0 |
| Bank Interleave: | N/A |
| RAS to CAS Delay: | 2T |
| RAS Precharge: | 4T |
| Precharge Delay: | 2T |
| Command Rate: | N/A |
It’s not surprising to see that the 7NNXP achieved such low memory timings with just two memory modules spec’ed at DDR400 running in dual channel DDR400 mode. It is standard for any P4 or Athlon XP motherboard to achieve these aggressive performance settings, though only nForce2 and nForce2 Ultra 400 motherboards can achieve a RAS Precharge as low as 4T. However, we suggest you run your memory at CAS 2-2-2-5 instead, as we discovered some time ago that CAS 2-2-2-4 is a bit slower than CAS 2-2-2-5. Of course, the difference will never be noticeable in real world usage.
The following memory stress test is obviously a bit more strenuous on the memory subsystem than most memory stress tests, as it tests for stability when a desktop user installs four DIMMs running in dual DDR400 mode at the most aggressive memory timings attainable in the BIOS:
| Stable Dual DDR400 Timings (4/4 banks populated) |
|
| Clock Speed: | 200MHz |
| Timing Mode: | N/A |
| CAS Latency: | 2.0 |
| Bank Interleave: | N/A |
| RAS to CAS Delay: | 3T |
| RAS Precharge: | 6T |
| Precharge Delay: | 2T |
| Command Rate: | N/A |
It is not unusual to see such lax timings for such a strenuous memory subsystem test such as this. However, we have seen better and so in this case, the 7NNXP does not perform as well as most other modern-day motherboards. Again, the real world performance difference is negligible, so we urge you not to flip out ove small variances in memory timings as seen in the two charts above.
We tested all these memory timings using several stress tests and general applications to guarantee stability. We initiated the tests by running Prime95 torture tests; a grand total of 24 hours of Prime95 was successfully run at the timings listed in the above charts. We also ran Sciencemark (memory tests only) and Super Pi. All three stress tests could not make the 7NNXP fail at the timings listed in the above charts.
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Anonymous User - Sunday, September 14, 2003 - link
Flash again. Yes, like many, I set the "kill bit" for Flash. No Flash is no problem. Spywareblaster free has a flash kill ability for those who do not wish to manipulate the registry. Uninstall flash with macromedia uninstaller, then check kill flash with spywareblaster. All reversable. Love the reviews here and still prefer Abit.nguyendot1 - Saturday, September 13, 2003 - link
I have this mother board with the newest bios. The ITE raid chips do NOT support ATAPI Optical devices. I have the manual sitting in front of me and it specifically states in the troubleshooting section that it does NOT support cd-rom drives. This is just great... THat was a rather large factor in me buying the motherboard, so i could have optical drives out the wazooo... Guess not now.Anonymous User - Wednesday, August 13, 2003 - link
I would be interested in hearing more about the DDR memory and this board. I just sent the motherboard (actually mine is a GA-7N400 pro with the nVidia and AMD Barton 2800) back for replacement because I couldn't get it to boot reliably more than 3 or 4 times; I was using Mushkin PC3200 Blue DDR dual bank, 2 sticks of 512mb each. When I tried one in each bank for dual channel, I couldn't even post as far as video or a single beep. When I tried one stick it would boot 2 or 3 times then not again. When I moved it to another slot it would do the same, boot 2 or 3 times then not. The keyboard would not be present every now and then also. Of course there is no word from Gigabyte. Their tech specs are:Memory
1. Type:Dual Channel DDR400/ 333/ 266- 184pin
2. Max capacity: Up to 3GB by 4 DIMM slots
Does anyone know how I would even guess which memory would work here, or is there something I'm missing with the CAS ? I do like the features on the board, but because of the support I am thinking that is unfortunate.
Anonymous User - Saturday, July 26, 2003 - link
"In fact, if we had to choose between the Gigabyte 7N400 Pro, ABIT NF7-S and ASUS A7N8X Deluxe, we’d choose the 7N400 Pro any day of the week."Why is it that you'd choose 7N400 and not NF7-S?
Anonymous User - Wednesday, July 23, 2003 - link
Any reports of sound problems or quality questions?Evan Lieb - Monday, July 21, 2003 - link
Sorry anonymous user #24, but you simply haven't researched your issues enough. "Issues" such as the following are not issues at all:- Audio stuttering at boot-up is something that happens with lots of boards and is hardly all that much of an issue.
- There are no issues with the ITE RAiD controller if you're know what you're doing (the latest board and controller BIOS), and since I've used it many times with no issues (including the 7NNXP's ITE controller) it's user error.
- The Smart Fan control DOES stop once you disable it in the BIOS. I tried it myself multiple times.
- The voltage values loaded automatically in the BIOS are not incorrect or bad in any way like you claim. The values (such as 2.6V VDIMM) are prefectly acceptable practice.
- BIOS Athlon XP CPU temps are almost always inaccurate, welcome to three years ago.
- Gigabyte's easytune utility works just fine, your issues are odd.
Next.
;)
Anonymous User - Friday, July 18, 2003 - link
I am amazed at how superficial this review is. There could not have been very professional or detailed testing, since a quick look at the forums over on www.nforcershq.com gigabyte forum will show how many flaws/bugs this board has. I have confirmed those on my GA-7NNXP also.Let's see about the list; 1. False starts and lock-ups upon power-up, improper automatic voltage settings on ram and other components, stutering audio on boot of win-xp, most heatsinks require modifications with a cutter to fit around the on-board capacitors, the last few BIOS versions have the north-bridge fan failing to run if the "easy-tune" util is running, the easy-tune util has not been ported to this specific board, so most of it's features do not operate and it shows inaccurate temperatures, there are reported issues with the ITE Raid unit, The system is exceptionally fussy about running in dual-channel DDR, The cpu cooling fan dips in speed even if you turn off smart-fan settings in BIOS,
and last but not least, since there is not yet a properly working temperature monitoring utility and bios version, it is anyone's guess what temp your CPU is *really* running at.
Since these, and more, issues are littering the other forums, I really have to wonder about reviewers who simply boot windows and run game benchmarks. They are so happy to get a free board, they report NONE OF THE NEGATIVES, hence you can not make a valid purchase decision based on these content free superficial reviews.
Sorry, that is that.
Anonymous User - Wednesday, July 16, 2003 - link
Read This For Some Real problems not mentioned in this article :www.nforcershq.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=22527
Anonymous User - Tuesday, July 15, 2003 - link
Anonymous User - Sunday, July 13, 2003 - link
I agree. This is just one of the yellow underlined links on random words in that article:http://adforce.adtech.de/?adlink|82|60988|1|16|AdI...
I scoured my entire machine for stupid link-stealing programs, data-miners, annoying malicious ad-programs and found nothing using any of the latest scanners. Flash is borderline bearable at the best of times, but Anandtech is the only website I use on a regular basis that gives me flash overlay ads. Use some common-sense: If you're going to advertise, at least get paid for it, and make the adverts relevant to those using your site.
WHO IN GOD'S NAME WOULD READ ANANDTECH AND THEN CLICK ON A DELL ADVERT? FFS PPL Something has to be done about this