Lab Notes - Gigabyte GA-E7AUM-DS2H - GF9400
by Gary Key on November 25, 2008 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Gary's First Looks
Remember the NVIDIA GeForce 9300/9400 launch a few weeks ago, yeah we forgot about it also, until NVIDIA called last week to remind us this product was no longer on life support. All joking aside, this product introduction turned out to be a paper launch for the most part with ASUS being the only partner that delivered boards into the retail channel, and barely at that. Over the course of the last week, supply is finally catching up to demand with a variety of boards being available through most channels now.
In the meantime, we had this small thing called the i7 launch and it has consumed us for the past few weeks, too much so to be honest. Instead of completing our IGP Chronicles Part 4 with a final look at the GF9300 and AMD 790GX product lines, we ended up waiting and waiting and waiting on the GF9300 product to show up for review. In hindsight, this was the wrong direction to take after it became obvious that the product was being delayed without "officially" being delayed. Apologies are in order for the wait, but fortunately we received our retail review samples from MSI, EVGA, and Gigabyte today. We should have the Zotac GF9300 here by Friday. Our i7/X58 motherboard coverage starts in a couple of days and with those boards tested and out of the way, we can get back to covering product that most of us afford.
We really liked the GF9300 in our launch coverage and considered it to be the ideal chipset for the HTPC and SOHO markets. We had a few problems (growing pains) with the chipset, BIOS, and drivers, but for the most part our concerns have been addressed with the latest driver and BIOS releases. We are still experiencing problems getting CAS4 stable but based on initial testing with the new boards today, it appears the product has matured quickly. This development, along with decent supply, has us strongly recommending the GF9300 product now.
Of course the question now is which motherboard to recommend. We still have significant testing to complete but the Gigabyte GA-E7AUM-DS2H has caught our eye in early testing.
The GA-E7AUM-DS2H features the speedier GF9400 chipset, four DDR2 DIMM slots with 16GB support, Realtek RTL-8211CL Gigabit LAN, Realtek ALC 889a HD audio codec, 5 3Gb/s SATA ports and 1 3Gb/s eSATA port (RAID 0, 1, 0+1, 5, and JBOD), IEEE 1394a via a T.I. TSB43AB23 chipset, an x16 PCIe 2.0 slot, one x1 PCIe slot, and two PCI slots. Gigabyte covers most of the video standards with VGA, HDMI, and DVI-D outputs. All in all, a full featured uATX board that appears to also be a decent overclocker. Our E8400 has reached a stable 450FSB in early testing and the performance of this board is already at the top compared to other boards in this category.
That is it for now, we will be back as soon as possible to wrap up our IGP series. In case this makes any difference in your purchasing decision before Black Friday, we will be recommending the GA-E7AUM-DS2H in our upcoming buyer's guide.
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plonk420 - Wednesday, November 26, 2008 - link
i just want a non-X58 i7 mobo .. and soon...strikeback03 - Wednesday, November 26, 2008 - link
Judging by the article last week, seems like that won't happen until sometime next year. Hope there are some cheaper X58 boards soon; I don't mind a $300 processor, but have no need for a motherboard over $150.chucky2 - Wednesday, November 26, 2008 - link
...when you do the 790G review, can you also check with AMD - and (meaning: both parties) at least someone from like Gigabyte or Asus - on the 690G supporting the 45nm AM2+ CPU's?One would think with the lower power consumption 45nm brings, the 690G's could get a BIOS update that would allow them to keep being used a little while longer.
I wrote Gigabyte, but, apperantly the generic answer I got was all my purchases were worth. I think you'd have a little more attention paid to your request...
Thanks from all of us with perfectly good 690G's!
Chuck
GigabyteColin - Thursday, November 27, 2008 - link
Hi Chucky2,GIGABYTE doesn't plan to have 45nm AM2+ support on our 690 boards. The BIOS chip we used on those boards is limited to 4MB and there is no room to add additional CPU support unless we removed some other feature support. I would imagine it is technically possible to do, but not sure what would have to be taken out of the BIOS code in order to make it work.
chucky2 - Friday, November 28, 2008 - link
First, thanks for that answer - it is infinitely more helpful than what I got through your regular support.Second: This sounds like a great opportunity for Gigabyte to release a Beta - and as such understood to be unsupported - BIOS for the -S2H and -S3H users to keep these great boards working for us a while longer. I really doubt much, if any, of the users wanting to drop in a 45nm AM2+ CPU into one of these would be running any of the Sempron range of chips....those could all be deleted to make room.
Can't imagine a better way for Gigabyte to show it really cares about its customer base more than offering true support long term, and not dropping them when it's convenient.
Chuck
GigabyteColin - Friday, November 28, 2008 - link
I have discussed with our engineers and they are working on a beta for our MA69GM-S2H, MA69G-S3H, and MA69VM-S2 to support 45nm AM2+ CPUs. I make no promises though. haha. Either way I will start a thread in the forums or have Gary help me post the Betas if successful and future posting on the GIGABYTE website.WRH - Thursday, January 1, 2009 - link
GigabyteColin, will Gigabyte or NVIDIA provide all of the necessary Linux 64 drivers for the GA-E7AUM-DS2H anytime soon? I think many HTPC builders would like to use Ubuntu 64 or Mythbuntu for a HTPC and avoid the expense of Windows. I found the Linux 64 drivers for the NVIDIA 9400 graphics card but I don't know if these drivers support the 9400 IGP solution the GA-E7AUM-DS2H uses. This would be a good topic for the forthcoming Anandtech review of this board. It would be great if Anandtech built a 64 bit Linux based HTPC out of this board and commented on any problems encountered. Thanks,chucky2 - Saturday, November 29, 2008 - link
Outstanding!Thanks very much for asking the engineers for us...a low power quad core in one of these AM2 boards will be a VERY nice final upgrade for them.
I don't have a 45nm AM2+ quad core to donate - unless someone is feeling VERY generous :) - else I'd volunteer to Beta test it for you if needed.
Chuck
DeepThought86 - Thursday, November 27, 2008 - link
I second this. My M2A-VM is tingling in anticipation of a 95W 45nm quad....Casper42 - Tuesday, November 25, 2008 - link
Do these support the ability to run with only onboard graphics while surfing the net and such and then press a button in the nVidia Control Panel to activate your 9800/GTX260 before you kick off a game?