Friday, January 12, 2001

Introduction

If the last few years have taught us anything, it's that there is no end to innovation in the information revolution. To that effect, the i815 and i815E chipsets that we've become so familiar with of late have suddenly been pushed aside by the latest generation out of Intel. Dubbed the Intel 815EP, this new bit of silicon is being positioned by its innovators as the replacement for earlier 815 variants, and has already been taken up by Gigabyte for use in its new GA-G0XE motherboard. So far, its shown itself to be more economical, and has divested itself of the integrated video circuitry that was an inherent part of the i815E chipset, while maintaining the latter's support for PC133 memory, and ATA100 drives.

Now of course, with that all said, all that remains is to see how our little contendor performs - and judge wether or not it's worth your hard-earned dollar.

Features

First off, the GA-G0XE comes complete with 4 DIMM slots - a decided show of good sense on Gigabyte's part.

Unfortunately, the GA-G0XE won't truly be able to take advantage of the new slot, simply because the Intel 815 series of chipsets are themselves limited to supporting a maximum of 512MB of memory.

Elsewhere on the board, we find signs of Gigabyte's Dual BIOS technology, which is essentially composed of two independent BIOS - one of whom acts as a backup in case of a viral infection of the primary. This adds an extra measure of security to the system as a whole.

The first sign of trouble is the fact that the FSB frequency cannot be changed from the BIOS. This is what it looks like at first glance when pressing the usual "DEL" Key to enter the BIOS setup. However, if instead of pressing the "DEL' key you press the "CTRL+C" keys silmultaneously, you will find several more settings to appear in the BIOS especially in the "Frequency/Voltage Control" menu. Under this condition, you'll find settings to adjust the FSB from 66Mhz to 180Mhz in steps of 1Mhz. You will also find multiplier adjustments, from 3X to 8X.

It is also possible to physically access the board - and Dip switch array SW1 in particular - to make any such changes.

Next, voltage adjustment is stymied by the fact that such changes can only be made through jumper JP5, and only to increase the voltage by +10%, and this without knowing whether the voltage being increased is the Vio, Vcore, or both! Another jumper - this one labeled JP6 - allows users to augment the memory voltage, but this too is poorly explained, and there is no indication of how much the voltage is actually increased. The BIOS, it seems, is only slightly less frustrating to work with. Configuration of the memory bus, for instance, is limited by the fact that its operating frequency can't be changed. On the other hand, a remarkable array of memory addressing settings can be tinkered with, but these options are not documented, are curiously labeled, and are likely to leave even experienced users perplexed.

Another thing to note is the unusually high number of jumpers that are scattered across the GA-G0XE's surface. Without naming the usual suspects found on most boards, we can add to their ranks JP14 - which can be used to reboot the system in the event of a Time Out, JP15 - which is used to boot in either Safe or Recovery mode, JP20 for activating/deactivating Flash Write Protection, JP21 - which can be used to secure access to the BIOS, and an optional JP33 - which is used to decide whether the mic should be relayed to the front or back or the casing.

Finally, we were a bit surprised by the poor quality of the GA-G0XE's regulators filtration system; we tend to expect a bit better.

Technical details

Plenty of space has been left open around the CPU socket, which should allow for the installation of most large size heatsinks.

The memory slots are too close to the AGP port. Several of the memory retention clips could well come into contact with the graphics card while installing/uninstalling the memory modules.

Only eight 1200Mfd capacitors have been placed around the CPU socket.

The CPU locking lever is made of metal; thus, there is no chance of it breaking.

Three fan connectors have been made available.

Hardware monitoring is controlled by an iTE IT8712F circuit.

Manual assignment of IRQs is not possible.

The BIOS can be reset to the last batch of settings by holding down the "Insert" key at start-up.

Next: Additional features.