Gigabyte GA-7ZMM Socket-A KM133 micro-ATX

The Test

In recent times, choosing a motherboard cannot be completely determined by a Winstone score. Now, many boards come within one Winstone point of each other and therefore the need to benchmark boards against each other falls. Therefore you should not base your decision entirely on the benchmarks you see here, but also on the technical features and advantages of this particular board, seeing as that will probably make the greatest difference in your overall experience.

Click Here to learn about AnandTech's Motherboard Testing Methodology.

Gigabyte was once again the first to release a new Socket-A solution with the GA-7ZMM.  However, the motherboard does not really live up to most people’s expectation.  Its performance is not particularly attractive.  In some occasions it is better than the reference board, but in some occasions there is quite some gap between it and the reference board.  It obviously means that Gigabyte still has a lot to work on.

Feature wise, the GA-7ZMM definitely loses quite a few points here, especially among overclockers where the inclusion of multiplier ratio controls is a prerequisite. 

From an OEM point of view, the GA-7ZMM can be a good solution however.  Overclocking is never a feature that OEM builders will look into, and the board does have nice features such as optional on-board sound and decent expansion slots implementation, including an AMR slot for cheap modem solution.  Stability of the motherboard is average, but again performance is something Gigabyte still has to work on.

In short, the GA-7ZMM might be a solution for OEM builders, but for general users, who don’t care too much about video performance and want a cheap solution so that they can overclock their Duron processors to the limit, the GA-7ZMM does not seem to be the right choice.  They should sit back a little bit and wait for some other solutions, at least one with multiplier ratio settings.