Socket 939 Roundup: Battle at the Top
by Wesley Fink on July 30, 2004 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Gigabyte K8NSNXP-939: Features and Layout
| Gigabyte K8NSNXP-939 Motherboard Specifications | |
| CPU Interface | Socket 939 Athlon 64 |
| Chipset | nVidia nForce3 Ultra |
| Bus Speeds | 200MHz to 455MHz (in 1MHz increments) |
| CPU Ratios | 5x to 25x in 0.5x increments |
| PCI/AGP Speeds | Auto, 66MHz to 100MHz (in 1MHz increments) |
| HyperTransport | 1x-5x (200MHz to 1GHz) |
| Core Voltage | 0.8V to 1.70V in 0.025V increments |
| DRAM Voltage | +.1V, +.2V |
| AGP Voltage | +.1V, +.2V, +.3V |
| HyperTransport Voltage | +.1V, +.2V, +.3V |
| Memory Slots | Four 184-pin DDR DIMM Slots Dual-Channel Unbuffered Memory to 4GB |
| Expansion Slots | 1 AGP 8X Slot 5 PCI Slots |
| Onboard SATA/RAID | nVidia 2-Drive SATA(RAID 0, 1) Plus SiI3512 2-Drive SATA (RAID 0, 1) |
| Onboard IDE/RAID | Two Standard nVidia ATA133/100/66 (4 drives). Can be combined with SATA drives for RAID 0, 1, 0+1, JBOD |
| Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394 | 8 USB 2.0 ports supported by nF3-250 2 1394B FireWire ports by TI controller |
| Dual Onboard LAN | 1Gigabit Ethernet by Marvell 8001 10/100 Ethernet by ICS 1883 |
| Onboard Audio | Realtek ALC850 8-Channel with UAJ |
| Tested BIOS | M03 Beta |
More than any other manufacturer, Gigabyte loads their premium boards with every feature that you can think of, and then some. The K8NSNXP-939 certainly follows in that tradition as a member of the 6-Dual Deluxe family. Gigabyte has also developed a reputation of providing some of the widest ranges of adjustments to allow the Computer Enthusiast to squeeze the last bit of performance from their board, CPU, and memory, and the 939 continues that tradition.
The one glaring area that continues to plague recent Gigabyte designs is the extremely limited range of memory voltage adjustments. In this case, memory can be adjusted to +.2V and that's it. After seeing this complaint voiced in review after review, you would think that Gigabyte would seriously consider a wider range of vDIMM adjustments. Offsetting the limited vDIMM is a decent range of CPU voltage adjustments and the excellent addition of HyperTransport voltage options.
The most notable features of the K8NSNXP-939 include high-speed 1394B Firewire for firewire fanciers, Dual LAN, extensive RAID capabilities spanning SATA and IDE drives, and 8-channel audio with UAJ. We were also impressed with the updated design of the DPS 6-phase power module. It now sits lower on the board and our past complaints that the DPS impeded air flow are now history in the new design.
Layout of the Gigabyte 939 is nearly ideal, with the added step that even the SATA connectors are in locations that will not interfere with the largest PCI and AGP cards. The unique AGP EZ-Fix slot is also proving to be very useful, especially when using top-line 2-slot video cards. Anyone who has tried to remove a 6800 Ultra from a common rear-lever AGP slot probably cursed the designer and maybe broke the lever trying to find it under 2 slots of video card in a sea of capacitors. That's not to say EZ-Fix is that easy with a 2-slot card, but at least you have a fighting chance of removing the card. Gigabyte also kept capacitors away from the AGP slot.
ECS KV2 Extreme: Overclocking and Stress Testing
Gigabyte K8NSNXP-939: Overclocking and Stress Testing
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jrphoenix - Friday, July 30, 2004 - link
I am using the Gigabyte 939 NF3 board for the past week now. It appears that their are two lan connections listed as Marvell (lan 1) and Nvidia (lan 2). I have been using the Nvidia one?To get the firewall to function with the Gigabyte board all you have to do is download the Nvidia 4 in 1's after installing the Gigabyte drivers.
Of course I'm a noob.
Wesley Fink - Friday, July 30, 2004 - link
#70 - The nVidia fiewall is a port on the chipset that allows for direct communication with the Gigabit chip PHY layer. It is therefore very difficult to determine if the on-chip port is being used just from looking at the specifications.Earlier this week we asked nVidia for help in identifying which motherboards were using the on-chip gigabit port. nVidia is looking into the list of boards we supplied and said they would be providing us with updated information soon. When we receive that info we will post it.
Anemone - Friday, July 30, 2004 - link
Any chance to have tested the OCZ 4000 gold rev 2, with the 2.5-3-3 latencies and compare that to the 3700 EB?Curious as I narrow down things.
Any news on Pci-e for AMD64's?
Thanks!
REMF - Friday, July 30, 2004 - link
i too would like to know whether the Gigabyte NF3 board uses the nVidia NIC/firewall, and if not not, why anandtech failed to mention the fact?geogecko - Thursday, July 29, 2004 - link
What is the noise difference in the retail packaged CPU fans in this class (S-939), and the Thermaltake Silent Boost K8 used in the reviews.I notice that Thermaltake also has another CPU cooler using heatpipes, the SilentTower 4-in-1 CPU Cooler. Have you guys tested this out?
My current PC (AMD XP 1800+ with the equivalent of a Volcano 9) gets too loud for me when it gets warmed up, and that's with it sitting on the floor next to my desk.
Staples - Tuesday, July 27, 2004 - link
#62, you must have read the post incorrectly. I was hoping you would have used the same CPU, which you did not. Somehow you read the opposite. I figure in comparing the chipset to the other, using a different CPU throws in a ton of extra variables. Now if you are looking at it from a prospective of which is faster, then your setup is fair. Of course most people would buy the Northwood on the 875 but it becomes more of a platform benchmark rather than anything that could be called a chipset competition.About the FX53, one reason I do not like you using it is because it is AMD's flagship product and at least from what I remember, the Presscott that you used was not an EE. Even so, the biggest bother is that the FX53 will always cost more than $500 and very few people will actually ever buy it when they can get so much more band for their month with just a regular class AMD64. This is the case with the EE too, they will always cost an arm and a leg so I'd say only about 5% of people will be buying the FX and the EE series chips. By an overwhelming majority, most consumers will be buying the non-enthusiast parts.
bigtoe33 - Tuesday, July 27, 2004 - link
Please take this as the official responce to the rumours about 3500 and 3700EB.We have NOT stopped production of these modules, it sells quicker than we can produce it..that is the only real issue.
We have just shipped another huge order so please go bug your favourite stores to stock it..
EB is here to stay at least for the time being.
Tony
expletive - Monday, July 26, 2004 - link
Also, has the performance discrepancy with Halo and the nforce boards ben figured out yet? If it somehting that may resurface in other games ill get an nforce board. If it is fixable or just a one off with halo, i can save a few $ and get a via board while i am waiting for PCIx...John
expletive - Monday, July 26, 2004 - link
Does the Gigabyte board use the Nvidia LAN as well? I see it says marvel but after the last series of posts with the marvell/nvidia chipset i am confused now...Anemone - Monday, July 26, 2004 - link
Thank you for enlightening on the LAN issue with the NF3 ultra - for me I'm getting and FX.Since this article is getting referenced a lot with people I talk with and such, can we keep a front page link to it for a while?
Also looking forward to memory reviews as well. Rather sad the 3700EB has been discontinued :(
Hopefully OCZ will have something better to take its place in not too long, but that might be impossible.