The Battle of Bay Trail-D: GIGABYTE J1900N-D3V and ASUS J1900I-C Reviewed
by Ian Cutress on October 17, 2014 10:00 AM ESTConclusion: The Motherboards
With only a few dollars separating our two candidates, one might imagine that they would act very similar to each other and you end up buying more for the brand over the capabilities. To a certain extent that is true, but these boards actually differ quite a lot in terms of their functionality. It all comes down to what extras each manufacturer decided on. The GIGABYTE J1900N-D3V goes with two network ports, a PCI slot, a DVI-D port and a USB 3.0 hub, whereas the ASUS J1900I-C has a single network port, a PCIe 2.0x 1 slot, a HDMI port and fan controls. The best way to compare ends up as a rundown of the feature set:
| GIGABYTE vs. ASUS, J1900 mini-ITX | ||
| GIGABTYE J1900N-D3V | ASUS J1900I-C | |
| Network Ports | 2 | 1 |
| USB 2.0 Ports | 2 | 6 |
| USB 3.0 Porrts | 4 | 1 |
| PCIe 2.0 x1 | 0 | 1 |
| PCI | 1 | 0 |
| Mini-PCIe | 1 | 1 |
| Digital Display | DVI-D | HDMI |
| BIOS Visuals | Text | Designed |
| Fan Controls | No | BIOS + OS |
| Update BIOS in BIOS | No | Yes |
| Control Network Priority | No | Yes |
On the performance side of the equation, almost nothing splits these two boards. CPU results are all very similar, they draw almost the same power from idle to load, but it can be said that the ASUS has the upper hand for POST times and DPC Latency. Both motherboards seem to match each other on audio quality and USB speed.
One area where the J1900I-C surpasses the J1900N-D3V is in the BIOS and software packages. ASUS has this squared down with an easy to understand menu, extensive fan controls and a tool to update the BIOS from within the BIOS. The fan controls in the OS software fully test the fans, and we even get a form of Network management control. In contrast to the GIGABYE board, the BIOS is flat with plenty of confusing options. The GIGABYTE’s software is a little better, but still nothing to direct the fans.
On the counter argument, the GIGABYTE J1900N-D3V is more equipped for network connectivity and USB 3.0. While the four USB 3.0 ports are coming from a hub, the idea here is not for simultaneous access – it allows four high speed devices to be connected at once and when one is needed on its own, it gets the full bandwidth. The only downside here is that for the ASUS and the GIGABYTE boards the on-disk drivers had trouble initializing USB 3.0 on Windows 7, so the latest drivers are needed. ASUS would also argue, in terms of functionality, that a HDMI and PCIe 2.0 x1 would be more welcome for more people than a DVI-D and PCI slot.
The conclusion about which board to buy comes down to common sense. As a day-to-day product for home use, the ASUS would be my choice as the better experience especially if the user had to deal with fan controls or USB 3.0 boost. That being said, the four USB 3.0 ports on the GIGABYTE is a difficult one to concede as it could be very useful for connected devices that require bandwidth. If the BIOS and Software packages were updated to include fan controls, and the BIOS went into GIGABYTE's 'Classic' EFI style, it would probably swing me towards the GIGABYTE. However, for embedded applications that requires increased network connectivity or PCI, the GIGABYTE targets that market well, with the ASUS focusing on HDMI/PCIe.
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Flunk - Friday, October 17, 2014 - link
Yes, but that's like comparing a man with two broken legs to a man with no legs. Yes, the man with the broken legs is faster, but neither is going to be competing in any footraces anytime soon. These are not really suitable for PC gaming.Slap the two of them into tablets and the AMD will run Candy Crush better, but this is the desktop and neither can really manage anything on that level.
AJSB - Friday, October 17, 2014 - link
I said *LIGHT* gaming....i also specified a certain resolution up to 1366x768 (forget about 1920x1080).It all depends the kind of titles it plays....many indies will play just fine...and so it will MANY of the "old" titles like CoH (NOT CoH2), CoD2, BF2,etc. at those resolutions....lot's of people still play at least CoD2 online (and doesn't have those crazy UAV/HELIs in MP) and theres lots of mods for CoH and BF2 to play online or offline (i actually prefer play those offline).
Having said so, i play with a A6-5400K OC to 4GHz w/ iGPU OC to 950MHz and 8GB RAM at 2133MHz (CPU, iGPU and RAM were all undervolted to cut temps and power drain).
This rig gives me more freedom to play more demanding titles that i doubt a AM1 could.
PICman - Friday, October 17, 2014 - link
As usual, good review. However, as XZerg pointed out, the lack of idle and load power consumption is a problem. It's not just power consumption, but also heat generation and cooling. I guess the tests were run with a high wattage power supply, making idle power measurements meaningless?Non-working USB 3.0 ports is a big issue for me, also.
Torpe - Friday, October 17, 2014 - link
How well do these chips do with Quick Sync for Handbrake?Devo2007 - Saturday, October 18, 2014 - link
Did you read the part that mentioned these are the B3-stepping processors that don't have QuickSync?abufrejoval - Tuesday, October 21, 2014 - link
My GIGABYTE J1900N-D3V wasn't properly informed about that "fact" and just runs QuickSync anyway... Actually the initial Intel chipset drivers didn't enable QuickSync and I was quite hopping mad, because ARK had reported QuickSync support for the J1900, irrespective of the stepping.Actually I believe that the QuickSync feature gap lies between the J1850 and the J1900 and isn't stepping dependent.
abufrejoval - Tuesday, October 21, 2014 - link
Need edit!Fortgot to mention: It's a B3 stepping and runs around 80 frames/sec of DVD to MP4 conversion using DVDFab9 using QS. The QuickSync enabled Handbrake nightly builds I tried produced faulty output and the last stable release doesn't yet support QS.
Batch video conversion isn't exactly the forte of this device, but it would make it a credible Plex server once QS support for encoding is built in (for devices that need the run-time conversion).
Torpe - Tuesday, October 21, 2014 - link
Thanks for the answer.BillyONeal - Friday, October 17, 2014 - link
Windows 7 needs USB 3 drivers because Win7 has no USB 3 support. That was added in Win8.nathanddrews - Friday, October 17, 2014 - link
"Readers of our motherboard review section will have noted the trend in modern motherboards to implement a form of MultiCore Enhancement / Acceleration / Turbo on their motherboards."It's funny the difference between what turbo means today vs what it meant 30 years ago. My first PC (running Geo-DOS) had a "TURBO" button on the case that slowed it down. LOL
I've been using a Windows 8.1 (Bing) tablet with an Atom Z3735D and it's really impressive. It plays UT99 and Halo CE flawlessly at max res and settings (1280x800) and can stream games over Steam IHS. I played Halo for four hours nonstop and still had 30% battery left.