Giga-Byte = Good Reputation?

[NOX]

"GA-8IRX", own it! Got it last week from Newegg.

There is basically one word to describe this board, and that is stable! I got it with a 1.8 P4 from Newegg. It has been great from install, not one hitch! I?m running it at my brother?s shop right now and will be putting this baby in my main comp at home once I sell all my old stuff.

It came down to the MSI 845 Ultra-AR & GA-8IRX. I decided to go with Gigabyte because of it conservativeness.

 

[Moffat Cafe]

All the Giga-bytes I've ever used booted up with no fuss or muss, ran stable and fast with no problems.
Right now, the GA-7VTXE is a real bargain.

 

[christoph83]

Anyone know if the 8IRX board has atleast a 1/4 PCI divider? I was going to purchase the Asus P4B266 but I cant find any info about it having a 1/4 PCI divider. Is that just really common to have on any motherboard now and its not really mentioned?

 

[Jhhnn]

Any of the modern 133 or 266 chipsets, AMD or Intel, support 1/4 pci divider and 1/2agp divider as well. Older chipsets, particularly the Intel BX, don't necessarily support 1/4 pci, and definitely don't have 1/2 agp.

 

[JC]

I've been using Gigabyte mobos since the 486 days...they've all been great boards. Two thumbs up!

JC

 

[PH0ENIX]

Yup, gigabyte fan here also.

I went for Aopen AX37 in my new system (only P3 DDR platform i saw, and it was nice and cheap), which im very impressed with, but my Linux box is a 233mmx running @ ~285 (95x3), on a Gigabyte GA-5AA. Old board, but stable, good for overclocking (I hear most gigabytes dont give you many options? this one did...), and it's still ticking along 24/7 - though nowadays it's a bit disused... Gigabyte are nice boards.

Bulldawg - it's a longshot, but your post reminds me of someone I knew on IRC... if you're him, you'll know...

 

[oldfart]

Well, hate to spoil the Gigabyte lovin' thread, but I take back my Gigabyte recommendation above. The board I got (tried two of them) is a real POS. Bugs galore, unstable. I wont go into all the details, but I dont like it at all. Its an OK board if you dont overclock, but has serious problems if you do. This was an i815EP-B PIII board, not a P4 board like you are looking for though. I RMA'd it and have an ASUS on the way. It seems every time I try a different brand, I wind up back to ASUS anyway.

 

[BFG10K]

Gigabyte graphics cards are good too

Yes I had a Gigabyte GF2 GTS and it was a very nice board. It didn't overclock very well but it was extremely solid for everything else.

Oldfart, did you try the latest BIOS and chipset drivers for that motherboard?

 

[oldfart]

Hi BFG. Yeah, I tried the latest BIOS and use the same 815 chipset drivers as I always use. The board is just buggy. Its buggy before it even loads Windows. Bleah. Its a long story. I'll be glad to be back to ASUS. Never let me down yet,

 

[BFG10K]

I just can't understand it. You must have been extremely unlucky to get two bad ones - maybe a bad batch or something.

Gigabyte don't have the same amount of BIOS and overclocking options as everyone else but they're rock solid boards. I had mine overclocked and it was still rock solid.

 

[oldfart]

Actually, on this board, just the opposite. It has a TON of overclocking options. More than I have ever seen. Too bad they don't actually worK. For instance, it has this way cool 1/5 and 1/6 PCI divider. Only minor problem is, it causes a BSOD when you use it! "Little" issues like that are not for me.

 

[smp]

I never owned a gigabyte but I would.

I always wanted one of those GA-7DXR's .. (AMD 761) .. sweet board.

 

[GTaudiophile]

Wow, I never thought this thread would go on for so long. Thanks to you all, Newegg is sold out of the GA-8IRX boards. Just like newegg to run out of what I need right as I am ready to buy, which will be the case when they finally get P4 2.0A in stock!

 

[billyjak]

Have a gigabyte 7Ix running in my other computer, rock solid for 2 years

 

[Bovinicus]

I've never used a Gigabyte board. However, the first computer a friend of mine built used a GB motherboard. It never caused him any problems. I believe it is still in use after a few years.

 

[Mota331]

Giga-Byte Boards are peices of #$%&! I bought a GA-7ZX-1 board and had a lot of problems with it. IT TOOK THEM ALMOST 1 YEAR TO ISSUE AN RMA# TO ME. THEN WHEN I SENT IT TO THEM ALL THEY DID WAS UPDATE THE BIOS. THEY DON'T RESPOND TO EMAILS AND I HAD TO PLACE A COMPLAINT WITH THE BBB AND PLANETFEEDBACK.COM. I WOULD NEVER BUY A GIGA-BYTE BOARD EVER AGAIN.

 

[Migroo]

Your loss mate...

 

[Mota331]

Heres the full story

I bought the board with a AMD 1GHz 200FSB chip in October of 2000. When January of 2001 came thats when my problems started. I ran into so many problems such as:
BIOS not reconizing HardDrives
Caused windows to think the drive had bad sectors and had to run the 3 hour scan disk surface scan to get rid of the error
Had the most BlueScreens I had ever seen.
Parallel port didn't work at first
Computer wouldn't turn back on after turning off, I had to leave it turned off all night to get it to work again.


Then there are thoes little things that can drive you nuts. THERE IS NOT A CLEAR CMOS JUMPER.

And like I said, it took them about 11 months to get give me an RMA and all they did is update the Bios which I had already done more than 10 times in that year to try to fix the problem. OH and they don't respond to emails and when you call their tech support number you talk to a guy that you can't understand because he has such a heavy accent.

I think that is all.

Don't buy Giga-byte

 

[LXi]

Gigabyte bigger than Asus in Taiwan? No kidding... Asus is the biggest motherboard maker in the world, so it's bigger than Gigabyte in every corner of the planet. Gigabyte is considered the 2nd or 3rd in Taiwan, neck and neck with MSI, but nobody comes quite close to Asus. Asus is famous for unnecessary premium prices, so is Abit, but at least you get some overclocking with Abits. Gigabyte generally makes decent motherboards, in most case, with no-frills and nothing really spectacular. They're big with OEMs, not end users, so they dont put too much emphasis on tweaking and functionality; most casual users will be just fine with the Gigabytes. But if you ask me, I would go with the MSI because they're reasonably priced, they come with a lot of features and other extras, also that they're of high quality and reliability.

 

[Kingofcomputer]

If you want to buy the new Enlight mid-tower case with usb ports at front, beware, the usb header is 4 pin, works for every mb except Giga-byte's as it's 5 pins.