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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Samus - Friday, October 17, 2014 - link
I have the Foxconn board. It was the only board with a 16x slot (1x electrical) so I wouldn't have to cut the slot or card connector to make it fit a videocard. I run a GT430 in it.I actually tested the GT430 on the previous board (H61, 2nd gen i3-2100) using clear tape to "disconnect" 15 lanes of the PCI-E connector on the card and benchmark the difference between 16x and 1x. No measurable difference.
The GT430 just doesn't have enough compute to saturate the bus even at 1x. Some people have said 3D compute performance takes a hit (something I didn't measure) but this is for an HTPC. I'm sticking with the GT430 because it's still the best low-power passive-cooled HTPC card available.
I just didn't feel the onboard Intel HD video is compelling enough for HTPC use. The customization leaves a lot to be desired and it can't lock 23.976.
Just thought I'd let everyone know this makes an excellent, low-watt HTPC platform as long as you stick with a PCIe videocard. The Asus board can do it (it has clearance behind the 1x PCIe slot for the remaining connector of the card) but you'd have to cut the board connector with an x-acto or dremel, voiding your warranty. Likewise, you can hack off most of the PCIe connector on a cheap video card, too.
Something I want to point out. Power usage of Baytrail is about 5w lower when you don't use the iGPU. The iGPU is completely power-gated when its disabled. This allows the chip to boost more often as well.
I wish this information were in the review, but now you have it.
Mvoigt - Sunday, October 19, 2014 - link
http://www.zotac.com/products/graphics-cards/gefor... slap this in, no need to cut anything...Samus - Monday, October 20, 2014 - link
I thought about a 1x card, and the GT610 has all the bells and whistles of NVidia's drivers (specifically the HTPC customizations)However, the GT430 is the last entry-level passive-cooled card made with a 128-bit bus...although its mostly pointless for HTPC use I think it does make a difference in occasional Bluray accelerated 3D playback.
But the real reason I wanted to stick with the GT430 is I already had one lying around. If I were going to build from scratch, I'd probably consider a 1x card if the price were right. Used Matrox 1x cards can be had on eBay dirt cheap and they are also very customizable in resolution\frequency.
Mvoigt - Tuesday, October 21, 2014 - link
I see your point.... but the geforce GT730 comes in 1X format... and wastly more powerfull than the gt 430Mvoigt - Tuesday, October 21, 2014 - link
No critisismen, but let's hope never cards emerge with 128bit..... i feel what you'r saying.... but quad core low power platform with decent card's with make light gaming possible....Mvoigt - Tuesday, October 21, 2014 - link
They are fucking up the ram though..... 5 years ago i had GTX260 with 448bit ram interface......Mvoigt - Tuesday, October 21, 2014 - link
or 4 years ago, dont remember.....DanNeely - Friday, October 17, 2014 - link
Why do these boards even need a 4pin 12v power connector? Unlike LGA 1150 boards with an x16 PCIe slot, they don't need to worry about a high power CPU and a 75W PCIe card. Legacy PCI runs solely on 3.3v; and x1 cards are limited to 25W. Like p3 and earlier boards they're only drawing at most few amps of 12V; which the big ATX connector is more than capable of providing.wetwareinterface - Sunday, October 19, 2014 - link
the 4 pin is there because you can't rely on the atx connector to provide enough amperage on a small 150-175 watt low profile power supply to give you enough when running a card in the slot. also remember there are 2 pci-e connectors on the asus and a pci-e and pci connector running off a bridge on the gigabyte (effectively making it 2 pci-e slots as far as power is concerned)Samus - Monday, October 20, 2014 - link
I had a previous Atom board that ran without the 4-pin connector...UNTIL you plugged in a PCIe card, then it'd just beep and not post.