Gigabyte GA-K8NXP-9(NForce 4 Ultra) Review!

[Mem]

Link..

The performance of the Gigabyte GA-K8NXP-9 was outstanding for most of the benchmarks we put it through. Socket 939 Athlon64 processors are already extremely fast, but somehow nVidia was able to squeeze out just a bit more with its nForce 4 Ultra chipset. Looking at the benchmarks, the GA-K8NXP-9 was first in almost all the tests

 

[flexy]

nice...hope the final bios/chipset allows better overclocks...otherwise..niiiiiiiceeeeee

 

[Rebel Nugget]

Does anyone have any idea when that board is going to hit the market?

 

[Thermalrock]

is there any preview of the asus? i was planning on getting the asus sli one. i like gigabyte too tho if its faster ill get the gigabyte. im assuming the sli will perform about the same. if it doesnt i can go ultra as i dont wanna buy two video cards anyway. been thinking if sli only costs 50 bucks more theres not really a point in going ultra. now if it were faster that would be a good reason.

faster than the sli only using one video card that is of course.

 

[mdahc]

Does anyone know if Gigabyte boards' DPS cards output a significant amount of heat? I was considering purchasing the GA-K8NXP-9 after reading the Anandtech and PCStats reviews, but after thinking about it, since I have a Lian-Li PC-V1000 case, the DPS card would be at the very bottom pointing upward and blowing its heat directly towards the CPU. Does anyone think this will be a major problem (i.e. will this increase my CPU temperature)?

 

[Rudee]

Thanks for the link. I'll definitely keep my eye out for this Mobo when it gets released. I'll go with the SLI though.

 

[flexy]

Originally posted by: mdahc
Does anyone know if Gigabyte boards' DPS cards output a significant amount of heat? I was considering purchasing the GA-K8NXP-9 after reading the Anandtech and PCStats reviews, but after thinking about it, since I have a Lian-Li PC-V1000 case, the DPS card would be at the very bottom pointing upward and blowing its heat directly towards the CPU. Does anyone think this will be a major problem (i.e. will this increase my CPU temperature)?

you sure it would be at the bottom ? according to this pic and *my* case it would definatly be at the top...question is whether i can mount a XP-120 heatsink with that thing....

 

[Mem]

You`re welcome guys,don`t forget Anandtech also have a first look review of this board here .

This Gigabyte board was a joy to test and was exceptionally stable in all our benchmarks. It certainly appears that Gigabyte heard the litany of complaints about memory performance with the K8NSNXP-939 because the K8NXP-9 is both fast and stable with any memory that we threw at it.

 

[mdahc]

Originally posted by: flexy

Originally posted by: mdahc
Does anyone know if Gigabyte boards' DPS cards output a significant amount of heat? I was considering purchasing the GA-K8NXP-9 after reading the Anandtech and PCStats reviews, but after thinking about it, since I have a Lian-Li PC-V1000 case, the DPS card would be at the very bottom pointing upward and blowing its heat directly towards the CPU. Does anyone think this will be a major problem (i.e. will this increase my CPU temperature)?

you sure it would be at the bottom ? according to this pic and *my* case it would definatly be at the top...question is whether i can mount a XP-120 heatsink with that thing....

Yes, the PC-V1000 mounts the motherboard upside down.

 

[Googer]

According to TomsHardware:
It should be avalable in December
http://www.tomshardware.com/mo...041020/nforce4-09.html

My assumption based on similar past Gigabyte Boards, is that it should retail for around $200

 

[Googer]

I dont think DPS should be much of a heat Issue, Motherboards that have DPS are said to have cooler running processores because of it. Any heat dissapartion from DPS is rather minimal on the whole scope of things.


Also I have been told that the motherboard will operate fine with out DPS installed. Just in a 3phase instead of
the 6phase mode.

 

[jkresh]

have to take that toms hardware article with a grain of salt as it says asus's sli will be out second week in november and that didnt happen

 

[stelleg151]

Although 217 scares me, I think those folks at PCStats are overclocking newbs. I think they should drop the mem divider and cpu multi and really see the limit of the board, because it sure doesnt look like thats what theyve been doing on their motherboard reviews, getting the NEO2 Platinum to only 236.... I trust anandtech when they say that the bios-limited 250 will probably easily surpassed.

 

[Googer]

I dont think that it is toms fault or his site, he was most likely repeating what he was told by asus.

 

[Samus]

where the HELL are these nForce4 Ultra boards!?

 

[Googer]

Ultra boards have no SLI capabilty and one x16 slot. That is important, because some of us dont want SLI for many reasons: because it does not work in all games, the extra PCI-E lanes can be used for add on cards, A better path to take is to use the $500 on a DX 10 card that will out perform a SLI setup in ALL GAMES, not just those that are written for it.

SLI generates too much heat, uses too many slots, uses too much electricty, and is not the best price to performance ratio. Its like the Prescott of graphics solutions.

 

[flexy]

SLI generates too much heat, uses too many slots, uses too much electricty, and is not the best price to performance ratio. Its like the Prescott of graphics solutions.

you are right...i personally dont like SLI either because iof these reasons.

Give me a NICE card like an R5xx...why would i NEED SLI ?

regarding the gigabyte overclocking: AFAIK they had to test with a beta bios and therefore coudnt up the HTT/FSB ?


edit: i got me expensive memory and expect a HTT/FSB of AT LEAST 260, if not more (270, 280). Should be possible because i saw othes do it, running 1:1.

That gigabyte better DOES go over 235 (like in that review)...if it would only do 235 i would cross it off my "to buy"- list immediately.

 

[Googer]

YOUR MONEY WOULD BE BETTER SPENT ON A SECOND CPU RATHER THAN A SECOND GPU. AT LEAST YOU COULD RUN FOLDING AT HOME WHILE YOU KICK BUTT ON MARS............

 

[Googer]

AMD OPTERON RULES THE ROOOST!

 

[jiffylube1024]

Originally posted by: Googer
Ultra boards have no SLI capabilty and one x16 slot. That is important, because some of us dont want SLI for many reasons: because it does not work in all games, the extra PCI-E lanes can be used for add on cards, A better path to take is to use the $500 on a DX 10 card that will out perform a SLI setup in ALL GAMES, not just those that are written for it.

SLI generates too much heat, uses too many slots, uses too much electricty, and is not the best price to performance ratio. Its like the Prescott of graphics solutions.

There are no extra PCI-e lanes on single 16X slot vs dual slot motherboards since in SLI mode they just run in an 8X/8X configuration.

 

[gobucks]

a lot of the SLI boards will still have PCIe x1 slots, as well. MSI omitted them, but Asus and Gigabyte both have 2 x1 slots on their SLI boards. Personally, if SLI boards are available no later than Ultra boards, and have x1 slots, and are not too expensive (Asus says it's looking for a $180 SLI Deluxe board, only $30-40 than the speculated price for most ultra boards), I'm probably gonna go for it just to have an upgrade possibility if next gen hardware ends up sucking ass. This first refresh is absolutely pathetic, with the X850 cards being only 20MHz core/40MHz memory faster than their predecessors, while raising prices by $50 on all models, and requiring a dual slot solution, so if things keep up this way, doubling up on my 6600GT for cheap as hell might be a more desirable upgrade path while I wait for a real improvement to surface, maybe when Microsoft releases its Aero Glass desktop environment in 2006-2007. Of course, if my above conditions don't hold, then I'll simply go with an NF4 Ultra instead.

 

[Googer]

Incorrect, as we speak all known chipsets/motherboards currently avalable Have a total of 20 lanes. Those 20 lanes can be divided up any way you like. You can have 20 x1 slots and intergrated graphics if you wish, two x8 and an x4 (total of 3 slots) ; as long as it adds up to twenty.

Personly I would want one x16 for my graphics and the remaining four lanes to be used as an x4 slot for a future scsi card from LSI. Modems, sound, etc can run from the classic pci bus, but PCI-X would be preffered.

I am aware that nVIDIA splits the number of lanes in half when in sli mode. Respectfully speaking, I think you missed the point to my statement or just dont fully understand PCI-express yet.

 

[Googer]

I just dont want the added space taken up on my motherboard for something i may never have a desire to use. The space taken by the x16 slot running in x8 would be better put to use for my scsi controller. Since SLI
offers minimal performance in some games, I would rather Save $600, let it grow interest, and later have the latest gen DX 10 card than two obsolite nVIDIA DX9 cards that have half the performance of a DX10 part. If you think I am kidding go to Ebay.com and buy yourself an old Voodoo pci SLI setup and benchmark it against another card that is a generation or two older.

 

[MBetz]

I agree that sli is probably a waste of money, but there are no wasted lanes on an sli board with sli off and only one with sli on.
Sli does, however provide for a more inexpensive upgrade path for those who can't wait for the next generation of video cards.
Price-performance ratios don't matter to everyone. (Last time I checked alienware was still in business.)

 

[Nyati13]

Originally posted by: Googer
Incorrect, as we speak all known chipsets/motherboards currently avalable Have a total of 20 lanes. Those 20 lanes can be divided up any way you like. You can have 20 x1 slots and intergrated graphics if you wish, two x8 and an x4 (total of 3 slots) ; as long as it adds up to twenty.

Personly I would want one x16 for my graphics and the remaining four lanes to be used as an x4 slot for a future scsi card from LSI. Modems, sound, etc can run from the classic pci bus, but PCI-X would be preffered.

I am aware that nVIDIA splits the number of lanes in half when in sli mode. Respectfully speaking, I think you missed the point to my statement or just dont fully understand PCI-express yet.

The ASUS SLI board has the primary PCI-E slot as 16x, it has the 2 1x slots, and the SLI slot functions as a 3rd 1x when the Single/Dual switch is set to Single. So there is only 1 1X slot missing of the available 20.
Other SLI boards will likely be similar, and may even include that 3rd 1X slot. It wouldn't take much for the second physical 16x slot to be able to run an 8x expansion card instead of a second graphics card, but on a non-SLI board you are locked into 1 16X, and only have 4X left to work with, and there is no way to split the 16X, unless it went to an almost SLI-like format.