Author: Tom Karpik
Editor: Howard Ha
Publish Date: Wednesday, March 16th, 2005
Originally Published on Neoseeker (http://www.neoseeker.com)
Article Link: http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews/gak8nultrasli/
Copyright Neo Era Media, Inc. - please do not redistribute or use for commercial purposes.
Introduction
The last few months have been witness to an almost complete domination of the Athlon 64 PCI Express market by NVIDIA and their nForce 4 chipset. Granted, VIA (and others) clearly have very attractive solutions, as we saw in our Soltek K890Pro-939 review, but there is nothing that compares to the nForce 4 in terms of sheer features and overclockability. The enthusiast tug of the chipset is unprecedented. Throw NVIDIA's SLI technology into the bag and you have a virtually monopolistic product, leaving the competition in the dust.
It is no surprise that motherboard makers are snatching up the nForce 4 and pumping out motherboards like there's no tomorrow. Some of these manufacturers have three, four, maybe even five motherboards already released or in the works that make use of the nForce 4. One such manufacturer, and the focus of today's review, is Gigabyte Technology, Inc.
While Gigabyte Technology's primary source of income has always been their motherboards, they have recently been expanding their product line-up, and becoming a very diverse company. The computer enthusiast market has steadily been growing in recent years, and Gigabyte is not one to sit on its butt and watch things pass them by - they've dived right into the core of things and are now a definitive enthusiast favourite.
In January, Gigabyte pleasantly surprised us with their K8NXP-SLI motherboard and 3D1 video card combo. This was a two-in-one product aimed at the fresh PCI-Express enthusiast, combining a superb, feature-packed SLI-capable motherboard with an innovative dual-GPU GeForce 6600 GT. The idea was a good one, and both products are still lab favourites around here, but thereupon a question emerged: is there an alternative to Gigabyte's high end Sigma series for those looking for a Gigabyte SLI solution?
Fortunately enough, Gigabyte has addressed this, and has now brought us the K8N Ultra-SLI - a motherboard so identical to the K8NXP-SLI that we have to wonder what the sense in having two such boards around is.
Read on to find out how this motherboard fares against its older cousin as well as some interesting competitors!
Specifications
The raw specifications, as shamelessly ripped from Gigabyte's site, read as follows:
| Processor | Socket 939 (AMD Athlon 64/64 FX) |
|---|---|
| Chipset | NVIDIA nForce 4 SLI + NVIDIA MCP |
| Memory | DDR400/DDR333/DDR266, 184-pin Supports Dual-Channel Max capacity is 4 GB @ 1 GB per slot |
| Integrated Peripherals | ITE IT8712 Super I/O chip Silicon Image Sil3114 SATA/RAID controller Texas Instruments IEEE1394b (Firewire 800) controller Marvell 8053 Gigabit Ethernet controller CICADA8201 Gigabit LAN PHY chip Realtek ALC850 AC'97 codec |
| Internal I/O Connectors | 8x Serial ATA (4x Serial ATA 3.0 Gb/s) 2x ATA133/100/66 Bus Master IDE 1x FDD 3x USB 2.0/1.1 (supports 6 ports) 2x IEEE 1394b (supports 3 ports) 3x fan pin headers CD-in |
| Expansion Slots | 2x PCI-Express x16 slots, supporting two PCI-Express graphics cards in SLI mode 2x PCI-Express x1 slots 2x PCI slots (PCI 2.3 compliant) |
| Rear Panel I/O | 4x USB 2.0/1.1 2x RJ45 (Ethernet) 4x Line-out, 1x Line-in, 1x Mic Coaxial S/PDIF I/O PS/2 keyboard + mouse 1x COM (serial) 1x LPT (parallel) |
| CPU/AGP/DIMM Settings | CPU HT/Multiplier/Vcore adjustable via BIOS PCI-Express x16 voltage/clock adjustable via BIOS DIMM voltage/clock adjustable via BIOS |
| Power | ATX/BTX power connector, ATX +12V connector Power-off by Windows 98/ME/2000/XP shut down and switch |
| Form Factor | ATX form factor 30.5 x 24.4 cm |
| Hardware Monitoring | System health status auto-detection and reports by BIOS Detection and reporting of opened case, voltages, and fan speeds |
| BIOS | 2x 4 Mbit flash ROM, Award BIOS |
| Other Features | NVIDIA SLI multi-GPU support Supports NVIDIA firewall Norton Internet Security Download Center XpressTM Installation XpressTM Recovery Q-FlashTM @BIOSTM |
You keen readers out there might notice that these specifications are almost identical to the K8NXP-SLI - that's because they are. The two boards use identical PCBs, and the only features lacking on the K8N Ultra-SLI is the bundled PCI WiFi adapter, as well as Gigabyte's proprietary DPS (Dual-Power System). The contact points for the DPS connector are still present on the PCB.
One of Gigabyte's most definite strengths is the quality and quantity of their bundled accessories - this time is no exception. The sheer amount of everything included is astounding.
First off, we have eight Serial ATA cables, four in orange and four in red. Along with the SATA cables, Gigabyte provides four SATA power adapters, with two SATA power plugs on each end. They figure that you might want to use up to eight hard drives, but don't have a SATA-ready power supply. The usual 80-conductor IDE cable and floppy cable is also provided.
Next up are the USB and Firewire back plates. I'm used to seeing one - Gigabyte has bundled three. Two of the back plates are USB-only and contain two USB 2.0 ports each. The last backplanes contains two USB 2.0 ports, one Firewire 800 port, and one Firewire 400 port.
What motherboard bundle would be complete without the manual, quick installation guides, and driver CD? Not this one. You can expect to find the usual collection of things, including a SATA RAID manual for the Sil3114 controller, in this bundle. The manual comes in at 83 English pages, and is very cleanly written and laid out, with intuitive, high-quality diagrams.
Lastly we have the SLI toys. You can expect to find the much-coveted SLI bridge, as well as Gigabyte's own interesting addition: a retention bracket for holding the SLI bridge in place. Some people have reported that their SLI bridge is uncomfortably loose, so this is a much-appreciated addition. The bridge is merely a metal bracket that you screw into the expansion slot cover between your SLI babies, with a metal arm and pad coming up and over the SLI bridge, keeping it snuggly pushed down.
The Board
Component-wise, nothing has changed from the K8NXP-SLI. Gigabyte has deviated from the norm by using all four SATA ports from the nForce MCP, as well as adding four additional ports from the Silicon Image Sil3114 controller. The Sil3114 is a fairly advanced solution, supporting RAID5, as well as the usual RAID0, RAID1, RAID10, and JBOD.
Dual Gigabit Ethernet is also a standard feature on this motherboard. Besides the onboard GbE offered by the nForce 4 chipset, Gigabyte has added an additional Marvell controller for a second GbE connection. This is definitely handy for anyone who wants to use their computer for some routing work, as well as possibly load-balancing the two GbE connections for even higher performance.
DIMM slots need not be a worry, with a total of four present on the board. Each slot supports a maximum of 1 GB, for up to a total of 4 GB, which really makes the point of 64-bit memory access moot. Obviously >4 GB of RAM is not an issue on desktop boards yet.
As with all recent Gigabyte boards, the K8N Ultra-SLI comes with a Dual BIOS feature in the event that one of the BIOSes is FUBARed, perhaps because your bratty little brother or sister has learned how to use flash utilities or some such silly reason.
In terms of board layout, the Gigabyte K8N Ultra SLI is a winner. We'll get the obligatory DIMM slot discussion out of the way by saying that there is ample space between the first PCI-Express x16 slot and the DIMM slots, about 1.5" to be exact. All the nForce 3 boards we looked had a downright stupid placement for the MCP SATA ports (right below the CPU socket). You won't find that on this nForce 4 board: All 8 of the SATA ports are near the bottom of the board, with four being aligned with the bottom edge, and the other four being aligned with the right edge. The remaining USB/Firewire connectors are all located at the bottom edge of the board, which is ideal, as you don't want them blocking off any expansion slots.
A Gigabyte motherboard would not be a Gigabyte motherboard without the vibrant colour scheme and the Gigabyte Blue PCB. They might as well trademark the colour. While the colours are definitely attractive, they're also a huge convenience for anyone giving a shot at putting together their computer for the first time. Everything has been colourized and explained, even the front panel pin headers. I had no trouble at all figuring out what LED and switch went where. This is also a plus in my books, as I absolutely hate having to break out of the zone to dig through the manual. It kills my geek ego. ;-)
The nForce 4 chip is passively cooled by a wide heatsink, which is atypical of nForce 4 motherboards. Even the K8NXP-SLI had an active cooling solution. While I welcome this change (less fans is always less noise), it may have adverse effects on stability, or at the very least, overclocking ability.
There is a good deal of room separating the prized PCIe x16 slots. With a PCIe x1 slot stuck in between them, you'll lose out on the ability to use that slot if you have a dual-slot video card in the first PCIe x16 slot. With a single-slot video card, you should still be able to use a PCIe x1 card in the little slot, though things may get a little tight. As is the going standard across all other PCIe motherboards, two regular PCI/33 MHz slots are provided, located at the very bottom of the board.
The one and only gripe I have with the layout of this motherboard is one that will probably follow me for many years to come: the placement of the +12V ATX connector. While the ATX/BTX connector is located in an unobtrusive location (at least in my opinion), the +12V ATX connector is located all the way at the other extreme of the board, directly behind the PS/2 ports. I don't know about anyone else, but I hate this.
In general, Gigabyte definitely has a winner here. Other than that +12V ATX connector complaint I have, this board has a very user-friendly and neat layout.
It's understandable that Gigabyte chooses to hide some BIOS options but one of life's mysteries will always be why Gigabyte hides some of the more mundane ones like SMART monitoring for the hard drives. The entire Advanced Chipset Features menu, as well as certain options in other menus, is hidden from view unless CTRL+F1 is pressed on the main BIOS screen. Fortunately enough it's easy to get back the full set of features.
Once unlocked, the K8N Ultra-SLI's BIOS is very robust. On the overclocking front, the K8N Ultra-SLI does not disappoint in the least. There is a very solid selection of voltages and frequency adjustment options on the K8N Ultra-SLI, including CPU multiplier, HT bus speed, Vcore, VDIMM, and PCI-Express clock rate. Someone a little more hardcore would probably prefer to have an extra 0.1 V or so for VDIMM.
Gigabyte has outdone themselves when it comes to memory adjustment options. The K8N Ultra-SLI provides us with options for the memory divider ratio, CAS latency, row cycle time (tRC), row refresh cycle time (tRFC), RAS to CAS delay (tRCD), row to row delay (tRRD), minimum RAS active time (tRAS), row precharge time (tRP), write recovery time (tWR), write to read delay (tWTR), read to write delay (tRWT), refresh period (tREF), and of course 1T/2T timing. Memory tweakers out there will have a field day with this motherboard.
Adjustable ranges for the various overclocking options are as follows:
If DDR timing setting is set to "Auto", all of the memory tuning options become grayed out, and everything is set automatically.
A quirk that has been carried on from the K8NXP-SLI is the fact that the default BIOS setting for the NVRAID controller is RAID enabled. Any user who overlooks this will be perplexed when the BIOS refuses to recognize their shiny new SATA drive. We had hoped Gigabyte would default the controller to non-RAID mode, but apparently that hasn't happened.
All in all, this is an inspiring BIOS from a tweaker's perspective. Other than the inconvenience of hiding features, I have no complaints here whatsoever - you should be able to squeeze every ounce of performance from your CPU and RAM with the Gigabyte K8N Ultra-SLI. This is a nice departure from Gigabyte's usually more conservative stance.
Our benchmark system consisted of the following:
One of the initial frustrations we had with the Gigabyte board were errors and lock ups from various applications. Memory tests and alternate sticks of memory proved to be no avail and there is only a single BIOS revision at this time. After some hours of frustration and troubleshooting, we found that the passive heatsink on the nForce 4 chip was to blame. Although the heatsink was hot to the touch, the MCP was still overheating, causing system instability. Taking the heatsink off, cleaning it (along with the chip), and applying some Arctic Silver 3 fixed all stability issues. The thermal interface pad just wasn't doing its job too well.
| |
While this was a simple fix, it was not one that should have been required in the first place. Quite frankly, I'm surprised that something like this passed Quality Assurance. Anyway, back to the results.
We've got a very nice crop of Socket 939 PCI-Express available to us, which ought to illustrate the performance differences between manufacturers, board versions, and chipsets. For those of you interested primarily in SLI performance, we recommend that you take a look at our Hands On With SLI article as well as our testing of Gigabyte's 3D1 and Leadtek WinFast 6600GT pair.
The nForce 4 version 6.39 driver package was used on the K8N Ultra-SLI and DFI LanParty NF4 SLI-DR, version 6.37 was used on the DFI LanParty NF4 Ultra-D, and an older driver set was used on the K8NXP-SLI. Other drivers used for testing included VIA Hyperion version 4.55 for the Soltek K890Pro-939 and Forceware 66.93 video drivers for all boards.
A list of benchmarks performed follows:
All of the boards scored within 0.3 points of each other, with the DFI LanParty NF4 SLI taking the rear. With general desktop performance there does not seem to be a huge variation between the different boards.
Our two Gigabyte siblings bring up the rear in memory bandwidth performance, scoring identically to each other. Both DFI boards score around 500 MB/sec better than the Gigabyte boards, and quite surprisingly, the Soltek K890Pro-939 takes the crown by slightly inching out the DFIs.
HDTach IDE scores are almost all identical across the board, the biggest variation in the burst scores are under 1MB/s, and there is no variation in the average read scores. CPU utilization is also essentially as the measured processor usage is +/- 2%.
The SATA scores are a little more interesting. The Soltek K890Pro-939, the only non-nForce 4 board, scores about 5 MB/sec less than the nForce 4 boards in the burst speed test, which were all within 2.6 MB/sec of each other. Average read speeds stay identical across the board. The two Gigabyte boards had a higher CPU utilization (4% with our K8N Ultra-SLI) than every other board.
The USB 2.0 scores turn the tables once again. This time, the Soltek K890Pro-939 comes out on top, scoring about 4.2 MB/sec more than the four nForce 4 boards, which all hovered around the 32.6 MB/sec mark. The DFI LanParty NF4 Ultra had the highest CPU utilization out of every board (at 10%), with the Soltek K890Pro-939 and Gigabyte K8N Ultra-SLI at 7%. Our other two boards clocked in at 2%. This 5% difference is quite interesting, as both the Gigabyte boards are virtually identical.
The Gigabyte K8N Ultra-SLI's nForce 4 Gigabit Ethernet controller performs on-par with the K8NXP-SLI's in throughput performance. While the two DFI boards both score considerably higher, ~950 Mbits/sec is still quite fast. Soltek's K890Pro-939 brings up a distant rear. When it comes to CPU utilization, the Gigabyte K8N Ultra-SLI comes out on top, using only 35.34%, as compared to the two DFI boards and Soltek board, which use around 37.5% and 38.16% respectively. Oddly enough, the Gigabyte K8NXP-SLI comes in last, at 42%. Processor usage for the nForce 4 network adapter should go down as we worked with NVIDIA in identifying a bug with their IDE driver that is interfering with Active Armor. We are told that the bug has been fixed but we are still awaiting updated drivers. The Marvell based GbE connection looks like it is PCIe based as it scored a very solid 946 Mbps with roughly the same processor usage
Gigabyte's K8N Ultra-SLI hands the other boards their butts on a silver platter in the Rightmark Audio tests. It scores consistently higher than every other board, even beating out its older brother, the K8NXP-SLI, by a huge margin.
Things do not quite pan out for the Ultra-SLI as it heads up the rear when High Quality sound and EAX2 are enabled.
LAME MP3 encoding results are are all within 3 seconds of each other, and that can be attributed to the margin of error.
Our K8N Ultra-SLI takes a significant hit here and is 40 seconds behind the leader over a total encoding time of just over 20 minutes.
Comanche 4 is a good indication of triangle throughput and the results show us that the DFI boards are about 1 FPS faster than the Gigabyte and Soltek boards. All in all, the test does not show any large discrepancies between the boards.
All of our boards, with the exception of the K8NXP-SLI, are within 0.6 FPS of each other. The aforementioned board trails behind the second-to-last K8N Ultra-SLI by 3.2 FPS
The differences between the motherboards are more pronounced in Halo. Taking the crown is the Soltek K890Pro-939. Next in line, about 6 FPS behind, are the DFI boards. Bringing up the rear are the Gigabyte boards, about 9 FPS behind. Unfortunately, the K8N Ultra-SLI takes the last spot.
Sadly, the two Gigabyte boards bring up the rear once again, but this time the K8N Ultra-SLI overtakes the K8NXP-SLI by about 2 FPS. The difference between the highest and lowest scores is 5 FPS which is a delta of 8%, which is not insignificant.
The trend continues with the Gigabyte boards placing last. The relative difference here is smaller than what was seen in Half-Life 2
Unreal Tournament 2004 paints a similar picture - the Gigabyte boards are still behind, and we have to wonder if this relates to the abnormally low SiSoft Sandra Memory benchmark scores.
X2 is where it all goes to hell. If it weren't for the K8N Ultra-SLI grabbing the crown right from the K890Pro-939's reach, the picture would be very similar as what we witnessed in the past few tests. There is a whopping 14 FPS difference between the slowest performer, the K8NXP-SLI, and the K8N Ultra-SLI. What makes this situation stranger is that these boards are almost identical, as previously mentioned.
Overclocking
It seems that with every Socket 939 board that we test, overclocking capabilities only get better. Our last Gigabyte board, the K8NXP-SLI, topped out at the high 270's on the HT bus. On our K8N Ultra-SLI sample, I've managed to crank things up to 295 MHz. While I've been somewhat spoiled by the DFI LanParty NF4 Ultra's 365 MHz, I remind myself that going from 200 MHz to ~300 MHz is a ~50% jump. A few years ago, hardcore overclockers would have killed for such percentages.
The other settings I used were a 6:5 memory divider (166 MHz) resulting in a speed of 246 MHz on our OCZ PC4200 EL Dual-Channel Platinum Edition, HT multiplier of 3x, and CPU multiplier of 8x. The HTT bus ran at 885 MHz and our Week 50 UPGW Athlon 64 3000+ Winchester ran at 2360 MHz. Based on previous testing, the RAM still had about 17 MHz of headroom and the Athlon 64 around 200 MHz.
I have a feeling that the K8N Ultra-SLI's passive heatsink is holding back its overclocking abilities. The first Prime95 run at 300 MHz took about 4 minutes to error out, while 298 MHz generated errors in about 2 minutes. This is (at least partially) indicative of heat possibly being a factor. If you were to slap on a small fan on the heatsink (which runs extremely hot), you would probably be able to break 300 MHz.
Conclusion
Gigabyte has a pretty good product on their hands with the K8N Ultra-SLI, although I wouldn't go so far as to call it spectacular. You won't beat any records if that is your goal with this motherboard, but otherwise you'll enjoy a snappy and stable computing experience. To be fair, in an age of everyone-and-their-mother releasing nForce 4 motherboards it's hard to stand out unless there is some drool-inducing whiz-bang feature that you just have to have.
The K8N Ultra-SLI is a very nice board as far as most motherboards go. While it was not a top-notch performer in all cases like the DFI LanParty NF4 SLI, it is still a quality board and for most real world tests, where the bounds are not simply the limitations of the mainboard, the performance differences should shrink. We did mention that we encountered stability issues at the beginning of our testing rounds, which were attributed to poor cooling of the nForce 4 chip. A good cleaning and application of Arctic Silver 3 fixed everything. We can't say for sure whether this is an issue that afflicts all boards or just our board, but we would like to see Gigabyte do some additional QA in the future to make sure that this doesn't happen. The passive heatsink can get quite toasty indeed while the board is under load - I'd estimate around 65 to 70 degrees Celsius based on the speed with which the heatsink induces pain on my fingers.
The Gigabyte K8N Ultra-SLI has two very important things going for it. The first is its SLI capability. You might think "Well duh, it's an SLI board". But then the second thing comes into play: the price. Priced at around $160 US, this top-notch nForce 4 SLI board is an absolute steal, especially when you consider that enthusiast boards like the DFI LanParty NF4 SLI-DR go for well over the $200 mark. If you're in the market for an nForce 4 PCI-Express motherboard but have doubts about the additional cost of SLI, the Gigabyte K8N Ultra-SLI ought to be near the top of your list as it can compete with Ultra based boards on pricing.
All in all, Gigabyte has a solid product that is positioned in the lucrative low-cost performance-oriented segment of the market. Soltek's K890Pro-939 was a top-notch PCI-Express performer at a very low price point, but the draw to the Gigabyte K8N Ultra-SLI here is the fact that it is an nForce 4-based board with true SLI capabilities.
Keep this motherboard on your lists. It's worth a definite look.
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