Gigabyte GA-K8VNXP (K8T800 Athlon64 motherboard)

Some companies seem pleased to focus on motherboards and video cards or even just one component, but there is also a group of companies that seem to want to do a little bit of everything. Gigabyte Technology definitely belongs to the latter group. Gigabyte offers a wide range of products, from various motherboards based on competing Intel and AMD chipsets and video cards based on competing ATI and NVIDIA chips to notebook PCs and LCDs.

Knowing this probably makes it not at all surprising that Gigabyte offers a wide selection of motherboards for AMD's 64-bit processors. Gigabyte certainly did not want to be left behind in this market. We were lucky enough to get our hands on one of Gigabyte's most feature-packed offerings for the Athlon 64 - the GA-K8VNXP. This mainboard is based on VIA's K8T800 chipset, and it is loaded with features, such as IDE and SATA RAID, IEEE1394b support, gigabit ethernet, and six-channel audio. The features really would not mean much to many consumers if the mainboard does not perform well when compared to its peers. That is why we will be checking out how the GA-K8VNXP's performance compares to Leadtek nForce2 and nForce3 solutions.

This is only a taste of what this board offers. To get your fill of specs for this board, check out Gigabyte's GA-K8VNXP detailed spec list.

Specifications:

• CPU: Socket 754 for AMD athlon 64 processor
• Chipset: VIA K8T800 (with VIA VT8237 South Bridge)
• Expansion slots: 1 x AGP 8X, 5 x PCI, 1 x DPS (for the included Dual Power Supply add-on board)
• Audio: Realtek ALC658 Audio AC'97 Codec
• System Bus: Hyper-Transport Bus
• Form Factor: ATX form factor - 30.5 x 24.4 cm
• BIOS: Award, 2 x 4Mb flash ROM

Features:

• Dual Power System (DPS K8) - provides 6-phase power circuit
• DualBIOS - Gigabyte patented DualBIOS enables quick BIOS recovery
• Dual LAN - Gigabit LAN controller + 10/100 ethernet controller
• Dual RAID
  • Serial ATA interface with RAID 0 and 1 functionality
  • GigaRAID Controller provides ATA133 IDE RAID, supporting RAID levels 0, 1, and 0+1 and JBOD configuration
• Hardware for external SATA drive support
• CPU Overheat Protection
• Supports CPU Vcore, AGP, and DIMM voltage adjustments via BIOS
• Supports FSB adjusments via BIOS
• Supports AGP 8X interface
• Integrated ALC658 6-channel audio with Universal Audio Jack (UAJ)
• Eight USB 2.0/1.1 ports
• Three IEEE1394 ports

Package Contents:

• GA-K8VNXP motherboard
• CD for motherboard drivers and utilities
• User´s manual
• Quick PC Installation Guide
• GigaRAID manual
• GC-SATA Card with SATA cable and power cable - used for external SATA drives
• 3 x Ultra ATA 100/133 IDE cable
• 1x Floppy drive cable
• 1 x Serial ATA cable
• 1 x Serial ATA power cable
• USB + IEEE1394 back panel bracket
• Audio Combo Kit: SURROUND Kit + SPDIF Out Kit
• I/O shield
• DPS K8
• Motherboard settings label and case badge

Manuals and Mobo Settings Sticker

Plenty of Cables and I/O Shield

DPS K8, External SATA Connector, and Audio and USB 2.0/IEEE1394 Connectors

Before I took this board out of the box, I was a little worried that the number of features included would have caused the engineers at Gigabyte to make some compromises with the layout to fit everything on the PCB. As it turns out, this worry was unnecessary because very little about the layout of this mainboard made me wonder what those engineers were thinking. It is very well laid out. I only had two minor issues with this mainboard's layout. The first is where the 12 volt power connector was placed. It is near the CPU socket and the K8T800 chip. This could easily cause the 12V power cable to be in an awkward place when it is plugged in. The other minor issue I had was that the floppy drive connector and ATX power connector are adjacent to each other, which could cause a little bit of a jam in that area.

However, this one little thing that could be a negative aspect of this layout actually turned out to be a positive one once I realized that having the floppy connector located there prevents the ugly, air-blocking floppy cable from being strewn across the motherboard. In other words, when the motherboard is installed, the floppy connector ends up being close to where the floppy drive usually is in a mid-tower case. What is even better is that the IDE1 and IDE2 connectors are placed equally well! This will allow most people to easily keep IDE cables out of the way, unless they choose to use the K8VNXP's IDE RAID functionality, because those connectors were placed a bit farther away.

Another great aspect of the GA-K8VNXP's layout is that nearly all of the connectors for USB, IEEE1394, etc. are located on the bottom (when the board is installed) of the board. This makes them easy to find and work with.

Gigabyte definitely deserves props for the layout of this mainboard. I am convinced that the layout was designed with the end-user experience in mind. I think a few other companies should follow Gigabyte's lead in this often overlooked aspect of motherboard design.

In order to give the GA-K8VNXP a workout, I put it and the components listed below together to make a nice test system for this mainboard.

• Chieftech X-Sonic Mid-Tower Case (review)
• SilverStone 400W SST-ST400 PSU (review)
• AMD Athlon 64 3200+
• Zalman CNPS7000A-Cu HSF (review)
• Corsair TWINX1024-3200LLPRO (review coming soon!)
• Reference GeForce FX 5950 Ultra
• Hitachi Deskstar 7K250 80GB Serial ATA 7200RPM Hard Drive w/8MB Buffer
• Pioneer DVD-ROM
• Sony floppy drive

Before installation I was a little worried that the large Zalman CPU cooler would prevent me from being able to install the DPS K8 unit. Fortunately, this was not a problem. Also, I did initially try to install the two DIMMS in slots 2 and 3, but the PC would not boot with this setup. This was unfortunate becauase the hefty CPU cooler could have presented another problem. Once again it worked out, though. I am not exactly thrilled that the DIMM in slot 1 is actually touching the copper heatsink on the CNPS-7000A, but it does not seem to be causing any problems with the system. I expect that most people looking at this mainboard will have smaller HSF units, thus eliminating these worries.

As with the great layout, Gigabyte was thinking about the consumer when the connectors were chosen for this board. Whatever could be color-coded was color-coded, and that's no exaggeration. Even the front panel connectors were color-coded. However, Gigabyte did not stop there. With a relatively large plus sign on each appropriate pin, the polarity was clearly marked on each colored set of pins on the front panel connectors. This attention to detail made connecting the front panel pins easier than I ever thought it could be.

Gigabyte did not stop there, though. The AGP slot uses the much friendlier pin-type design for the retaining mechanism, as opposed to the usual clip-type design that can make it very hard to remove a video card that has a large cooling unit on it. As I mentioned in the layout section, the placement of the FDD, IDE1, and IDE2 connectors made it easy to keep the cables out of the way of the case's main airflow path.

After I was done assembling the test system, I installed 32-bit Windows XP Pro (and Service Pack 1) on it without any problems. Unfortunately, I experienced some problems during the driver installation, but I am not sure what they were related to. The first problem was a random reset during boot-up after I installed the VIA 4-in-1 drivers. However, this did not seem to cause any problems and has not happened since. The other issue I saw was a Windows system error that I was unable to track down, but as with the other issue I have only seen it once since installing everything. Both of these issues were a little disconcerting, but the fact that they only showed up once each is somewhat redeeming.

Here's what the system looked like with everything in it: