Friday, November 09, 2001

Introduction

Gigabyte is a very dynamic manufacturer, and has always offered a wide selection of products. This time, they're catalog is being updated with by addition of the GA-60XET motherboard, which is based on the Intel i815EP stepping B chipset. Unlike many such boards on the market, though, the GA-60XET includes a great number of Overclocking features - something which should prove welcome to many experienced users who wish to get the most from their systems.

So, without further ado, let's take a closer look.

Audio

Rather than using the audio circuitry that's included in the chipset, Gigabyte has chosen to offer users the option of a Creative CT-5880 audio chip. As a result, GA-60XETs that are equipped with the CT-5880 are able to produce a more vibrant range of sound than most boards on the market. The CT-5880, for instance, is able to produce some very interesting sound-effects when employed within 3D games. Even though it may fall short of being a SoundBlaster Live card, the Creative chip is able to hold its own when compared to the likes of the SoundBlaster PCI128, and beats the internal audio-circuitry of standard chipsets hands-down.

BIOS

The GA-60XET's BIOS system is unique in that it is actually composed of two separate BIOS chips - a rare feature for most motherboards. The GA-60XET's DualBIOS feature offers a secondary BIOS system that allows users to start-up their systems even if their primary BIOS becomes corrupted. Added security features also allow users to restrict access, including the ability to prevent BIOS write-access.

Configuration

Configuration of the GA-60XET is most effectively accomplished from within the BIOS, as only a single set of jumpers is actually related to the CPU. These jumpers, labeled SW1, can be used to force the FSB to 66MHz, 100MHz, 133MHz, and others. The BIOS, however, reproduces that functionality and more, which means that most users should be content to leave SW1 in the Auto setting. Elsewhere on-board, a set of jumpers are present that permit the AGP bus, and memory bus voltages to be adjusted. Once again though, the same functionality is available through the BIOS system, which makes them of little practical use to most users.

As mentioned earlier, the FSB frequency can be set to between 66MHz and 200MHz in 1MHz steps.

The clock multiplier setting is not adjustable. However, since this feature is usually ignored by most CPUs anyways, the loss is rather minor.

The Vcore voltage is user-adjustable to any of the settings indicated in the table above. And, while there is direct way to adjust the Vio voltage, that setting is in fact altered whenever users tweak the RAM voltage setting. As a result, any augmentation that is applied to RAM voltage is automatically applied to the Vio voltage.

The RAM voltage setting can be set to: 3.4v, 3.5v, or 3.6v, while the AGP bus voltage can be set to 1.6v, 1.7v, or 1.8v.

Finally, the independent memory bus can be set to operate at either 100MHz or 133MHz, or at a setting that is automatically determined by the system. As you might expect, an entire slew of memory timing options are also included.

Next: Technical details.