Gigabyte 7NNXP (nForce2 Ultra 400): Gigabyte Goes nForce
by Evan Lieb on July 5, 2003 10:53 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
In terms of features and speed, Gigabyte’s first foray into NVIDIA chipset-based motherboards is no slouch by any stretch of the imagination. The Gigabyte 7NNXP is based on NVIDIA's latest and greatest Athlon XP chipset, dubbed the nForce2 Ultra 400. The nForce2 Ultra 400 is different from NVIDIA's earlier nForce2 chipsets in only one way; official 400MHz FSB support. Results from NVIDIA's in-house testing confirmed that nForce2 Ultra 400 was able to reach higher FSB speeds than their older chipsets from last year, which reached average speeds of only 420MHz FSB. (However, nForce2 chipset steppings predating nForce2 Ultra 400 did gradually perform a bit better.)
If you refer back to our nForce2 6-way Motherboard roundup in December 2002, you'll see that nForce2 motherboards from ABIT, ASUS, Chaintech, Epox, Leadtek, and MSI were all revision 1.x. In other words, they were not based on the nForce2 Ultra 400 chipset. Now, virtually every single nForce2 motherboard available for purchase is based on NVIDIA’s nForce2 Ultra 400 chipset, and each motherboard is accordingly marked version 2.0. For example, the old ASUS A7N8X Deluxe motherboard (based on the original nForce2 chipset) was a revision 1.x motherboard, while the new ASUS A7N8X Deluxe motherboard (based on the nForce2 Ultra 400 chipset) is a revision 2.0 motherboard. This applies to all other motherboard manufacturers, not just ASUS.
When we first saw the Gigabyte 7NNXP motherboard we were delighted to see so many onboard features that previous nForce2 motherboards lacked. Read on to learn about these new features and why this motherboard may just be part of your next Athlon XP system.
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Anonymous User - Friday, July 11, 2003 - link
Is it really important ....Anonymous User - Friday, July 11, 2003 - link
Please Go back to The OLD way of doing reviews,without any flash!
Even better Make Charts with the numbers instead
of these unnecessary Printer head killers.
:(
Anonymous User - Thursday, July 10, 2003 - link
Regardless of the size of Flash itself, it would seem many users prefer not to use it because of Flash advertisements.For Christ's sake, it's not like GIFs are huge, and this is just annoying.
Anonymous User - Wednesday, July 9, 2003 - link
I filter all Flash/Shockwave content because of all those annoying overlay ads out there. Please revert back to something that is standards-based like plain HTML or GIF/JPG.Thanks.
Anonymous User - Wednesday, July 9, 2003 - link
The ITE chips support ATAPI devices I read, has this been tested?Anonymous User - Wednesday, July 9, 2003 - link
The board is a non-runner in my competition sinceit does NOT have HSF mounting holes! I seems as if
Gigabyte has overlooked the NEED for these holes
to save time/money on the engineering/production costs, and consquently will suffer poor sales of this part. The socket is arranged in an orientation that would preclude this part being used in a machine that will be transported any
distance with a most of the effective HSFs on the
market today. The socket arrangement should have the mounting lugs facing top to bottom to provide
against the sag of the HSF combination. Installing
the socket as they have, will result in the need for shimming (hate those things), and even then,
the mechanical stresses will be the achilles heel
of many many installations.
Sorry for the long-winded, but I have developed
this opinion through extensive use and study of the socket A specified hardware.
As for the fellow whom was looking for "any-time"
support contacts for Giga-byte? Hah!! It doesn't exist. Any inquiry I have made to thier support site seems to "get lost" for an always indeterminate time, occasionaly permantly.
It's a good thing that Giga-byte generally does
an excellent job producing thier products, (I own
20 of thier boards so-far) because if the support
side of thier business governed thier corporate
health, they would have folded by now.
Anonymous User - Tuesday, July 8, 2003 - link
The size of the Flash download is irrelevant. I don't know about the others, but I choose not to install such dreadful programs because other websites use them for extremely irritating advertisements. It's been a while since I did HTML, but is there a way that you could have the page test for Flash and then display a GIF if no flash is available? Heck, just the numbers in plain text would be fine with me if you don't want to make Flash and GIF charts. Just no loathsome Flash forced on us.Zuni - Tuesday, July 8, 2003 - link
Correction its 400k, which on a 56k modem takes a minute.http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/downl...
Zuni - Tuesday, July 8, 2003 - link
Flash is less than a 200k download, dialup can handle that no problem. GIF/PNG are 2-3 times the size of flash graphs. Over 80% of the internet uses flash, so do we at this time.Anonymous User - Tuesday, July 8, 2003 - link
What's with the Flash charts? I filter all Flash/Shockwave content so I see a big nothing there. Please revert to a standard like GIF or PNG! Thanks.