advice on gigabyte MB

[Rich]

good morning, all. i'm in the market for a custom built pc. the shop
that i am dealing with has suggested a gigabyte GA-8SG800 main board.
this board meets my requirement in that there are no integrated
components such as NIC, sound, video, etc. but i am not a hardware
man and was hoping to receive some advice here regarding both the
quality and reliability of gigbayte main boards/chip sets in general,
this specific board as well as any alternative main boards and/or chip
sets. as i mentioned i prefer to not have any integrated components
on the main board.

thanks in advance.

rich

 

[Wheat Muncher]

Rich put me in my place by writing

good morning, all. i'm in the market for a custom built pc. the shop
that i am dealing with has suggested a gigabyte GA-8SG800 main board.
this board meets my requirement in that there are no integrated
components such as NIC, sound, video, etc. but i am not a hardware
man and was hoping to receive some advice here regarding both the
quality and reliability of gigbayte main boards/chip sets in general,
this specific board as well as any alternative main boards and/or chip
sets. as i mentioned i prefer to not have any integrated components
on the main board.

thanks in advance.

rich

All I have used on my personal equipment and those I build is Gigabyte (a
couple MSI here and there) and I have never had a problem. Gigabyte boards
are stable and reliable, although do not (as of my last attempt) take too
well to overclocking, so be aware of that. They advertise that they can be
OC'd, and even include software to do so through the desktop-not the BIOS
and jumpers. I prefer the VIA chipset, but others may have their own
preferences.
Although I have no specific experience with this particular mainboard, I
think you will be satisfied with the purchase.

 

[Alien Zord]

good morning, all. i'm in the market for a custom built pc. the shop
that i am dealing with has suggested a gigabyte GA-8SG800 main board.
this board meets my requirement in that there are no integrated
components such as NIC, sound, video, etc. but i am not a hardware
man and was hoping to receive some advice here regarding both the
quality and reliability of gigbayte main boards/chip sets in general,
this specific board as well as any alternative main boards and/or chip
sets. as i mentioned i prefer to not have any integrated components
on the main board.

I use over 200 a year. My favourite mobos, never fail to work on first
switch-on. Prefer Intel chipsets for Intel CPUs and Nforce2 for AMD.
All good boards nowadays tend to have on-board sound, NIC, USB2,
IEEE1394. Don't like ALC600 sound chip though, it fails if you o/c the
PCI bus even slightly.

 

[Rich]

I use over 200 a year. My favourite mobos, never fail to work on first
switch-on. Prefer Intel chipsets for Intel CPUs and Nforce2 for AMD.
All good boards nowadays tend to have on-board sound, NIC, USB2,
IEEE1394. Don't like ALC600 sound chip though, it fails if you o/c the
PCI bus even slightly.

i keep running into that....many integrated components on MB's. i'm
guessing it lowers their cost. i've never liked that preferring a
cleaner, less kludged solution. maybe i'm wrong about integration but
all my pc's have been configured like that and i've had little to no
trouble...hardware wise.

i appreciate your thoughts. thanks.

rich

 

[kony]

i keep running into that....many integrated components on MB's. i'm
guessing it lowers their cost. i've never liked that preferring a
cleaner, less kludged solution. maybe i'm wrong about integration but
all my pc's have been configured like that and i've had little to no
trouble...hardware wise.

i appreciate your thoughts. thanks.

rich

It certainly does not lower the cost, but what it does is make the
board more marketable. Onboard features like the network adapter are
often about as good as the $5-20 NICs are, so unless you alway use
Intel or 3Com you'll probably get little benefit from avoiding the
onboard networking.

Sound is a different matter, can vary from poor to good, and from low
to higher CPU utilization, but it can be disabled, and you're no worse
off than if there wasn't any integrated audio. Many people are quite
happy with onboard audio, even the worst onboard audio, because they
never use anything better than cheap computer speakers or don't mind
potentially losing a few FPS in games, since the savings in using the
onboard sound can buy a better video card, which usually more than
makes up for it... to each his own.

Of course integrated video is no competition to high-end cards for
gaming and you may find quirks with compatibility, but so long as the
board also has the AGP slot it's not that big of an issue either. The
main thing to do if you'll be wanting to add your own cards is to get
a full ATX instead of mATX form-factor.


Dave

 

[Wheat Muncher]

Rich put me in my place by writing

thanks for the reply. i'm not interested in OC so that's not a worry.
as i said i'm not a hardware guy and my primary concern is for
stability and reliability. i tend to keep pc's for several years
before upgrading or buying new.

for this pc i'm planning on running WinXP pro with an intel CPU. the
GB homepage lists the following chipsets for the board i'm
considering:

Northbridge: SiS648 HMAC Host & Memory & AGP Controller
Southbridge: SiS963 MuTIOL® Media I/O
Super I/O: ITE 8705 chip
REALTEK ALC650 codec chip

another poster stated that he prefers an intel chipset with an intel
CPU. that's the way i've always had my main boards configured but is
it really THAT important? opinions on the chipsets listed above?

thanks again.

rich

Well, the chipsets really come into play when you are driving some serious
gaming hardware IMO, but it may just be me. They are getting so generic now
that I don't think you would know one from the other by performance unless
you were a real hardware junkie. I like VIA because I have always run with
them and trust their chipsets. I have never really had problems with SiS on
the ones I have built either though. If I wanted a board, I wouldn't let
the chipset be the make or break factor, unless one is far inferior to the
other in terms of support. If you like the board (I looked at it, it's a
fairly decent looking board) I would get it. SiS has been around for a long
time now, so I am sure you can trust their product. If the next board I
want only comes with an SiS, I will be getting it I suppose. The SiS
chipset you are looking at right now seems to be fairly upgradeable, it
will handle the 2GB of DDR 400 and the 8X AGP, and is capable of handling
ATA133. I can't ever see you needing more than 2GB of RAM. The only thing
missing off of it that I would maybe look for on another board is the
Serial ATA. This might be a viable option for upgrading you hard drive to a
faster one in the future, and it might not be. Better to have it and not
need it, than to want it and not have it.
The onboard sound is something that has come quite a long way now. I have
always disabled it previously and replaced it with a good soundblaster, but
many of the new ones (onboard) are crystal clear and powerful enough to
maintain the signal through longer wires. I would go with the ALC650 and
run it, I think you might be impressed. If you don't like it, it is simple
and cheap to toss in a soundblaster in it's place.
It looks like you have chosen a fairly solid board, although I was quite
dissappointed to see Gigabyte sway away from the dual BIOS. It saved my
bacon a couple of times.

I hope this helps you out. It is not really a "technical" rundown, I could
get into that and ramble on and on, but it is how I judge things when I
build my systems. Numbers look great on paper, but sometimes they are just
there to make things look fancy. I like to take a real world look at it.
;-)

 

[Stacey]

Rich put me in my place by writing

http://www.anandtech.com/chipsets/showdoc.html?i=1660

http://www.tomshardware.com/motherboard/20021204/sis648-07.html

This is a chipset that's almost a year old, has no dual DRR support but ran
as well as an 850E (last fall) which was pretty good. Personally I'd be
looking at a springdale/800FSB setup if I was buying a P4 system right now
and for your uses (gaming?) an AMD/nforce might be a better performance for
the price than this setup is going to cost?

I'm using a gigabyte 845G board (they had DDR333 support before the PE
boards came out) and had been ultra stable even running the FSB at 150
instead of 133. I do like an Intel chipset with an intel chip but like the
SIS chipsets I've used with AMD's so this might be a winner?

 

[S.Heenan]

good morning, all. i'm in the market for a custom built pc. the shop
that i am dealing with has suggested a gigabyte GA-8SG800 main board.
this board meets my requirement in that there are no integrated
components such as NIC, sound, video, etc. but i am not a hardware
man and was hoping to receive some advice here regarding both the
quality and reliability of gigbayte main boards/chip sets in general,
this specific board as well as any alternative main boards and/or chip
sets. as i mentioned i prefer to not have any integrated components
on the main board.

thanks in advance.

rich

Gigabyte is one of three brands I use and recommend. They make a huge array
of boards for the Pentium 4. If you plan to buy a P4 800MHz processor,
you'll want a board based on the newer SiS 648FX chipset or the Intel
865PE/875P. Especially in the case of the latter chipsets, the boards are
fully featured. This one does have audio, but it looks to fit the bill in
every other way.

http://tw.giga-byte.com/MotherBoard/Products/Products_GA-8S648FX.htm