Gigabyte 8IXEP i845E Review (11)
Overclocker 20 May 2002

Conclusion

Gigabyte 8IEXP is packed with features. You name it you have it. Firewire, USB2.0, ATA133 RAID, Overclocking features, Creative 5.1 audio. In general, the performance of this board is slightly below average and this is especially apparent in the AGP graphics performance. The AGP performance should be rectified by a newer BIOS. The rest of the benchmark which does not rely on AGP seems to average and it doesn't seem to be that slow in rendering benchmark like Lightwave. The BIOS in the test is F3A dated 9 Apr 2002.

Installation is a no brainer. Settings can be done within the BIOS. This is especially useful. The multilingual BIOS is also useful to non native English user.

Overclocking wise, this board has up to 355Mhz FSB for you to meddle with. The overclockability depends a lot on the CPU and vcore, We did a test and it would run up to 145Mhz FSB from the default 133Mhz. The other options include adjustments for Fix PCI/AGP, Host DRAM Clk ratio, AGP, CPU, DIMM voltage adjustments.

You can also use the EasyTune 4, an updated version of easytune that looks better with a new skin and allows you to set a number of parameters all through software running Windows.

Overall, this board is quite a highly integrated board which provides all you need. The new packaging and the SPDIF that comes with the package is definitely something that is new. Other than the performance should be improved, I would recommend this board to those who wants all the functionality on one board.

Priced : USD 144.00 (pricewatch.com).

Discuss

Pros 好处:

• FSB (1mhz) up to 355Mhz adjustable at 1Mhz stepping. other options include adjustments for Fix PCI/AGP, Host DRAM Clk ratio, AGP, CPU, DIMM voltage adjustments.
• Onboard LAN
• 6 Channel audio
• USB 2.0 
• Promise ATA133 RAID

Cons 坏处:

• AGP Performance needs tuning up
• No Smart card / Memory stick connector

Ratings

Here are my ratings out of 5 stars.

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