Original Link: https://www.anandtech.com/show/1067



After giving you an exclusive first look at MSI's 655 Max motherboard last Monday, we are happy to bring you yet another motherboard review based on SiS' 655 chipset.

Today we take an in depth look at Gigabyte's SiS 655-powered motherboard, dubbed the SINXP1394 (formerly called the 8SQ800 Ultra2). As you will read in the coming pages, Gigabyte has combined a unique mix of features, performance and value into their SINXP1394 motherboard.

So without creating anymore anticipation then is necessary, read on to find out whether the Gigabyte SINXP1394 is right for you…



Gigabyte SINXP1394 Rev.1.0: Basic Features

Motherboard Specifications

CPU Interface
Socket-478
Chipset
SiS 655 North Bridge (A0 stepping)
SiS 963 South Bridge (A2 stepping)
Bus Speeds
up to 355MHz (in 1MHz increments)
Core Voltages Supported
up to 1.725V (in 0.025V increments)
I/O Voltages Supported
N/A
DRAM Voltages Supported
up to 2.6V (in 0.1V increments)
Memory Slots
4 184-pin DDR DIMM Slots
Expansion Slots
1 AGP 8X Slot
5 PCI Slots
Onboard RAID
ITE GigaRAID 8212F Controller
Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394
USB 2.0 supported through South Bridge
3-port FireWire Riser Card (RTL8801)
Onboard LAN
Intel RC82540EM Gigabit LAN controller
Onboard Audio
Realtek ALC650 controller
Onboard Serial ATA
Silicon Image 3112A controller (via two onboard connectors)
BIOS Revision
M05

2-12-2003 UDPATE: Gigabyte sends word that, even though the vast majority of SINXP1394 motherboards will be B0 stepping, there will be a small amount of A0 stepping SINXP1394 motherboards sold too. Gigabyte says they have made a particular modification to the BIOS of A0 stepping motherboards that allows full support for Hyper Threading (all B0 SINXP1394 boards support Hyper Threading of course). We have also received information that, while the SINXP1394 is capable of 800MHz FSB support through overclocking, Gigabyte cannot guarantee that the upcoming 800MHz FSB Pentium 4 processors will operate correctly in Gigabyte SINXP1394 motherboards until they find out exactly what changes Intel makes to mass production 800MHz FSB Pentium 4 silicon.

We will keep you updated on 800MHz FSB support as we continue to receive information throughout the month.

When Gigabyte introduced their E7205-based motherboard (the 8INXP) last November, they also introduced a new marketing campaign centered on the word "dual". Today, Gigabyte is continuing that campaign with the Gigabyte SINXP1394 (the “1394” stands for FireWire support), based on Silicon Integrated System’s dual channel DDR chipset, aptly dubbed the 655. Just as the 8INXP was marketed as "The 6-Dual Miracle”, so will Gigabyte’s SINXP1394. We’ll recap what Gigabyte considers “The 6-Dual Miracle” for your reference here:

1. Dual Power System (DPS): this is a separate, add-in card that gives the SINXP1394 6-phase power circuitry instead of 3-phase. Gigabyte claims that, in Parallel mode (versus Backup mode), DPS is able to deliver better system stability (especially while overclocked) in addition to longer onboard components life. Skip to the BIOS and Overclocking section for our test results with DPS installed.

2. Dual Logical Processors: this is nothing more than Gigabyte's way of saying their board supports Intel's Hyper Threading technology. Supposedly, later SiS 648 steppings (B revision) support Hyper Threading as well.

3. Dual Channel DDR: essentially, a chipset that supports dual channel operation effectively doubles the peak memory bandwidth available (versus the traditional single channel solutions that currently dominate the market of course). For example normally, if you had two DDR400 modules installed in a conventional single channel motherboard, the available peak bandwidth would never exceed 3.2GB/s. However, with a dual channel motherboard like the SINXP1394 that peak bandwidth is now doubled to 6.4GB/s. In fact, 6.4GB/s of peak bandwidth is exactly what the SINXP1394 is capable of offering simply by choosing a specific BIOS ratio. This is despite the fact that the SiS 655 chipset “officially” supports no higher than Dual DDR333 operation.

4. Dual RAID: this is Gigabyte's way of saying their board supports both Serial ATA RAID (via the SI3112A controller) and IDE RAID (via the GR IT8212F controller). Read on to find out more about these two features.

5. Dual BIOS: this feature is also fairly self-explanatory. The SINXP1394 supports two BIOS chips. This feature is nice to have if you corrupt your first BIOS chip (e.g. you lose power to your system as you're updating your primary BIOS). You can switch over to the second BIOS chip in this situation, and not have to go through the trouble of correcting the issue through other, time-consuming means such as a board RMA or the swap-trick.

6. Dual Cooling: this is the least interesting of the six "Dual Miracles". The North Bridge HSF and DPS HSF form the "Dual Cooling" feature. We’d like to reiterate to Gigabyte that calling this a feature is beyond tacky.

We see that Gigabyte opts for Intel’s Gigabit LAN chip, dubbed RC82540EM. The Gigabit Ethernet standard will eventually go mainstream, but for now we see it only being used on high-end boards as Gigabit switches/hubs are not as common among end users. There are very few motherboards that use this LAN chip; some include ASUS’s P4G8X, MSI’s 845PE Max2-FIR and Tyan’s S2662.

For onboard sound, Gigabyte chose a common controller; Realtek's ALC650 chip. This chip is standard among motherboards based on NVIDIA’s nForce2 chipset, and we have had no complaints about the quality of its DACs.

There’s nothing of note about the SINXP1394’s I/O configuration. Included are two PS/2 ports, two serial ports, one parallel port, a Game port, two rear USB 2.0 ports, a Gigabit LAN port, and Mic In, Line In, and Line Out, which drive the onboard sound. We’d like to see Gigabyte (and all motherboard makers for that matter) standardize their I/O ports to reflect that of ABIT’s I/O setup, which is a bit more feature-rich and useful. For example, parallel, serial and game ports are becoming less and less useful everyday. We’d like to see more USB 2.0, FireWire and SPDIF ports instead, as ABIT has continually done with their MAX series of motherboards.

The SINXP1394 carries over yet another feature that can be found on the 8INXP, and that is its Serial ATA controller from Silicon Image, dubbed the SI3112A. This particular Serial ATA RAID controller has been gaining lots of momentum recently, especially with high-end motherboards. Some of the motherboards we’ve reviewed over the last few months that have the SI3112A controller onboard are the ABIT NF7-S (nForce2 SPP), ASUS P4G8X (E7205), ASUS A7N8X Deluxe (nForce2 SPP), Intel D845PEBT2 (845PE), Epox 4PEA+ (845PE) and ECS L4S8A (SiS 648). If you don’t already know by now, the 3112A is capable of supporting up to two independent Serial ATA devices, as well as RAID 0 (striping) and RAID 1 (mirroring).

The SINXP1394’s IDE support is more than adequate for most users. The Primary and Secondary IDE connectors support two channels each, or up to four IDE devices total. There are an additional two IDE connectors, which is powered by the GigaRAID IT8212F controller. This is the first motherboard we’ve encountered that utilizes this particular RAID controller, so we haven’t had much experience with how it compares to onboard RAID solutions from Promise, HighPoint and others. This GigaRAID controller was developed by ITE, and is in fact RAID 0 (striping), RAID 1 (mirroring) and RAID 0+1 capable (as well as compatible with the ATA133 interface). You can read more about this IDE RAID controller here.

Both IDE RAID connectors support 2 channels each or up to four IDE devices total. Therefore, you should be able to have 8 IDE devices running at once with the SINXP1394. However, what makes this GigaRAID controller even more special is the fact that it can support ATAPI devices (i.e. optical drives like a CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, CD-RW, etc.). Most motherboards feature onboard RAID controllers that lack support for ATAPI drives, and therefore you’re only able to connect hard drives or some derivative thereof. For those serious users looking to hook up four optical drives and four hard drives to their system, the GigaRAID IT8212F-powered Gigabyte SINXP1394 is a great choice.

The SiS 963 South Bridge is what gives the Gigabyte SINXP1394 its USB 2.0 support. Therefore, you’ll be able to activate six independent USB 2.0 ports on the SINXP1394 via the two rear USB 2.0 ports as well as through the two USB 2.0 headers located at the bottom of the motherboard. To activate the USB 2.0 headers, simply look through the accessory package Gigabyte bundles with this motherboard, and you should see one four-port USB 2.0 bracket with two USB 2.0 header connectors attached. This bracket will fit perfectly into each of the 9-pin USB 2.0 headers at the bottom of the board, giving you a total of exactly six usable USB 2.0 ports.

Unlike the 8INXP, the SINXP1394 comes with FireWire support (hence the "1394"). While FireWire support isn’t physically supported by the SINXP1394 itself (via an onboard FireWire controller for example), a FireWire riser card is bundled. This FireWire riser card supports up to three FireWire ports, and is powered by the Realtek RTL8801.



Gigabyte SINXP1394: Board Layout

While the Gigabyte SINXP1394 certainly has a standard looking layout for an ATX motherboard, it has a rather unusual layout for a SiS 655 motherboard. Nonetheless, we were pleased (as always) with the way Gigabyte laid out this particular motherboard.

Let’s start out by looking at the positioning of the ATX (20-pin) connector. We see that Gigabyte places the ATX connector on the right-hand side of the motherboard, which is perfect because most users don’t have PSUs (Power Supply Unit) that have an extra long ATX cable. By positioning the ATX connector on the far right-hand side of the motherboard, the vast majority of PSU ATX cables won’t obstruct the installation/uninstallation of the CPU HSF, North Bridge HSF or any other components that you may decide to modify or uninstall in that general area.

Like most other P4 motherboards on the market, the ATX12V connector is located on the left-hand side of the motherboard near the I/O ports. This isn't the best location for the ATX12V connector, as the ATX12V cable will get in the way of uninstalling the CPU HSF. We’d like to see the ATX12V connector placed somewhere at the very top of the motherboard, whether it’s on the left or right portion of the motherboard doesn’t matter. The ATX12V is especially important since the vast majority of ATX12V cables that come attached to PSU’s are almost always exactly the same length, unlike ATX cables which can varry greatly in length.

We’re happy to see that Gigabyte continues to place the Primary and Secondary IDE connectors to the right of the DIMM slots as well as just above the midsection of the motherboard. We've experienced what a hassle it can be to have the Primary and Secondary IDE connectors placed on the lower portion of the motherboard. It makes it much more difficult for IDE cables to reach to the highest bays of a large-sized ATX case if the Primary and Secondary IDE connectors are placed below the mid-section of the motherboard.

Another good layout feature the Gigabyte SINXP1394 brings to the table is the placement of the DIMM connectors. A lot of motherboard makers are placing the DIMM connectors much too close to where the video card is usually installed. However, in the SINXP1394’s case this annoyance isn’t repeated. The DIMM connectors are far enough away from just about any video card you could imagine installing. We’ve always liked a good deal of room between DIMM connectors and the AGP slot because it doesn’t force us to uninstall the video card if we want to install or uninstall memory. Those of you that frequently upgrade and maintain your hardware know how annoying cramped DIMM connector space can be.

Thankfully the USB 2.0 headers are located at the very bottom of the motherboard. This is the best place to position the USB headers, as it has little chance of getting tangled up with any other wires or hardware components.



Gigabyte SINXP1394: BIOS and Overclocking

Yet again, Gigabyte chooses the Award BIOS to power their high-end motherboards.

The SINXP1394’s PC Health section is pretty standard among dual channel DDR motherboard BIOSes we’ve encountered. Here you’ll find readings on CPU temperature, PSU readings (all rails) and CPU and System fan speeds. There’s also an option for setting a CPU warning temperature as well as enabling or disabling CPU fan failure warning and/or System fan failure warning. Unfortunately there are no VDIMM or VAGP readings, but those options aren’t too common to begin with.

As usual, Gigabyte hides the Advanced Chipset Features section of their BIOS, as they have in boards such as the 8SG667 (SiS 648), 8PE667 (845PE), 7VAXP (KT400) and 8INXP (E7205). Therefore, as you would do with those previously mentioned motherboards, you’re forced to press and hold CTRL while hitting the F1 key to bring up the Advanced Chipset Features section. Gigabyte hides the Advanced Chipset Features section simply because they don't want users fooling around with DRAM timings, which can potentially prevent your system from POSTing if you set those timings too aggressively.

Once you expose it, the SINXP1394’s Advanced Chipset Features section isn’t any different from Gigabyte’s other Advanced Chipset Features sections. In the SINXP1394 BIOS you’re allowed to adjust CAS Latency, Precharge to Active, Active to Precharge, Active to CMD, and several other options that don't noticeably boost performance.

One of the most anticipated aspects of SiS 655 motherboards has been their support for multiple memory frequencies. While there isn’t a single Granite Bay motherboard on the market that supports more than dual DDR266 operation, all SiS 655 boards will support at least dual DDR333 operation. Interestingly enough, Gigabyte decided to go all out and provide an option in the SINXP1394 BIOS for up to dual DDR540. Obviously you won’t be hitting anywhere near DDR540, but there is an option for dual DDR400, which can be run quite successfully on the SINXP1394.

There isn’t any real room to fool around with voltage adjustments in the SINXP1394 BIOS. VDIMM is adjustable as high as just 2.6V in 0.1V increments. This shouldn’t be a problem for your average user, but enthusiasts may be turned of by this limited VDIMM control, as 2.7V or 2.8V would help in memory overclocking (though this only applies to fanatical enthusiasts of course). VAGP is also quite limited; up to 1.6V in 0.1V increments is hardly flexible compared to most other enthusiast boards, but is an unnecessary BIOS option anyway, as VAGP doesn’t really aid AGP overclockers all that much.

The saving grace of this board is its very high Vcore potential. While 1.725V in 0.1V increments may not seem like a lot to very serious overclockers, actual Vcore will run just under 1.8V. That’s right, Gigabyte’s SINXP1394 is quite the overvolter; 1.57V on Auto (default) Vcore to be exact. That’s 1.795V if you decide to set Vcore to 1.725V in the BIOS. Certainly, you would have to be crazy to run a Pentium 4 at 1.795V with any conventional cooling for any length of time unless you’re content with frying your CPU within months (or even weeks depending on your exact setup). Still, this Vcore should suit just about anyone.

Unlike other SiS chipset-based boards, the SINXP1394 includes the much needed AGP/PCI lock. We've become accustomed to seeing this feature on 845PE boards as well as some nForce2 boards, but only recently on SiS boards.

FSB Overclocking Results

Normally we don’t see P4 boards based on SiS chipsets overclock all that well using cheap or even good overclocking setups. Intel 845PE-based boards have easily outpaced SiS 645/645DX/648 in FSB overclocking. However, we’re glad to report that SiS has modified the SiS 655 in some way as to allow a huge boost in FSB overclocking, as was initially evidenced in our MSI 655 Max review. The following table lists the components we used for overclocking the FSB using the Gigabyte SINXP1394 motherboard:

Front Side Bus Overclocking Testbed

Processor:
Pentium 4 2.26GHz
CPU Vcore:
1.5V (actual)
Cooling:
Intel Retail HSF & Thermal Pad
Power Supply:
Enermax 300W

If some of you may have been thinking that the overclocking results we experienced with the SiS 655-powered MSI 655 Max was just a fluke, think again. Gigabyte’s SINXP1394 was able to reliably operate at 164MHz FSB, which is the second highest FSB overclock our AnandTech labs has ever overclocked a P4 board based on a SiS chipset (MSI’s 655 Max is still the highest overclocking SiS board we’ve encountered). In fact, we were able to boot into Windows XP at 168MHz FSB (which is the highest we’ve ever been able to boot into Windows on any P4 motherboard) and run a few benchmarks before the system finally froze. Coincidently, the MSI 655 Max was also able to boot into Windows XP at 168MHz FSB before finally beginning to show signs of instability. Let us remind users that our system configuration listed in the table above is a bare minimum setup for FSB overclockers. Serious overclockers should look to purchase a high-quality and high-wattage PSU in addition to copper cooling.

After having tested Gigabyte’s patented DPS (Dual Power System) add-in card with their 8INXP motherboard in mid-November, it was clear from our tests that DPS, though “transforming” the 8INXP into a 6-phase motherboard, did nothing for overclocking in our numerous stress and benchmarking tests. The same is true with DPS installed in the SINXP1394. Stability and performance were identical. In addition, we have yet to see any real reproducible evidence that confirms Gigabyte’s claim that onboard components will last longer with DPS installed in Backup mode.



Gigabyte SINXP1394: Stress Testing

We managed to test the SINXP1394 in several different areas and configurations, including:

1. Chipset and motherboard stress testing was conducted by running the FSB at 164MHz.
2. Memory stress testing was conducted by running RAM at 333MHz and 400MHz in dual DDR operation at the most aggressive timings possible.

Front Side Bus Stress Test Results:

As usual we ran a large load of stress tests and benchmarks to ensure the SINXP1394 was absolutely stable at each overclocked FSB speed we experimented with. We ran our usual array of stress tests, including Prime95 torture tests, which were run in the background for a total of 48 hours. Just as we did with Gigabyte’s 8INXP, we ran lots of other tasks such as data compression, various DX8 games, and light apps like Word and Excel while Prime95 was running. Finally, we reran our entire benchmark suite, which includes Sysmark 2002, Quake3 Arena, Jedi Knight II, Unreal Tournament 2003, SPECviewperf 7.0, and XMPEG. In the end, 164MHz FSB (163.86MHz FSB) was the highest overclock we were able to achieve without encountering any reliability problems.

Memory Stress Test Results:

In our experience, the best motherboards on the market are usually the ones that can handle high memory speeds, not just high FSB speeds. As far as actual memory speeds are concerned, some the best motherboards are able to run memory at 333MHz with all memory banks filled. Here were the timings we were able to achieve in that scenario:

Stable Dual DDR333 Timings
(4/4 banks populated)

Clock Speed:
166MHz
Timing Mode:
N/A
CAS Latency:
2.0
Bank Interleave:
N/A
Precharge to Active:
2T
Active to Precharge:
6T
Active to CMD:
2T
Command Rate:
N/A

Interestingly enough we were unable to achieve CAS2/2T/5T/2T at any memory speed with any amount of memory banks filled. That is, even with only one memory module installed and running at 266MHz, CAS2/2T/6T/2T was the most aggressive timings we were able to reach. We experienced this “issue” with three different BIOSes, including M01, M04 and M05. The M05 BIOS was definitely the fastest BIOS out of the three, but did not remedy this odd timing “issue.” We put the word “issue” in quotes because the performance delta between an Active to Precharge setting of 5T and 6T is very small. However, we note this experience because we rarely encounter a motherboard that can’t do CAS2/2T/5T/2T yet can do CAS2/2T/6T/2T.

In the coming months you’ll be hearing even more ruckus about DDR400, mostly from Intel and their partners. This is obviously because Intel will be officially supporting DDR400. Intel is already working with JEDEC and other industry bodies and companies on ratifying a DDR400 standard. Anyway, Gigabyte seems confident that their SINXP1394 can support DDR400 quite well, and that indeed held true in our tests. Here were the timings we were able to achieve with four identical Corsair XMS PC3200 modules running at 400MHz:

Stable Dual DDR400 Timings
(4/4 banks populated)

Clock Speed:
200MHz
Timing Mode:
N/A
CAS Latency:
2.0
Bank Interleave:
N/A
Precharge to Active:
2T
Active to Precharge:
6T
Active to CMD:
2T
Command Rate:
N/A

Being able to run CAS2/2T/6T/2T with four banks filled and running at 400MHz is no small feat by any means. MSI’s 655 Max board was able to achieve slightly better, but both Gigabyte and MSI’s memory performance at 400MHz is simply excellent.

As usual, we ran several memory stress tests and general apps to make sure all these timings were stable. We started off by running Prime95 torture tests; a grand total of 24 hours of Prime95 was successfully run at the timings listed in the above charts. We also ran Sciencemark (memory tests only) and Super Pi. Neither stress test was able to bring the SINXP1394 to its knees.



Gigabyte SINXP1394: Tech Support and RMA

For your reference, we will repost our tech support evaluation procedure here:

The way our Tech Support evaluation works is first we anonymously email the manufacturer's tech support address(es), obviously not using our AnandTech mail server to avoid any sort of preferential treatment. Our emails (we can and will send more than one just to make sure we're not getting the staff on an "off" day) all contain fixable problems that we've had with our motherboard. We then give the manufacturer up to 72 hours to respond over business days and will report not only whether they even responded within the time allotted but also if they were successful in fixing our problems. If we do eventually receive a response after the review is published, we will go back and amend the review with the total time it took for the manufacturer to respond to our requests.

The idea here is to encourage manufacturers to improve their technical support as well as provide new criteria to base your motherboard purchasing decisions upon; with motherboards looking more and more alike every day, we have to help separate the boys from the men in as many ways as possible. As usual, we're interested in your feedback on this and other parts of our reviews so please do email us with your comments.

Gigabyte's RMA policy is easy to follow and fairly good for a tier one motherboard maker like Gigabyte:


Giga-Byte offers a 1-3 year(depending on Model) manufacturer's Limited warranty. If you are experiencing difficulties in warranty service through your dealer or place of purchase, Giga-Byte may attempt to resolve this issue.

Please reply with:

Name:
Address:

Phone:
FAX:
Model number and Revision:
Serial number(10 digit): SN
Problem:
Dealer(include contact info):
CPU type + size:
Memory type + size:

Gigabyte still hasn’t changed their RMA policy. Like ASUS, Gigabyte would like you to deal with the vendor you purchased your motherboard from rather than directly with them. This is understandable, as the cost of RMAs, facilities, employees, etc. can be prohibitive. Still, we would love it if the tier one guys would adopt similar RMA policies akin to Epox, Albatron or AOpen's.

Unfortunately we did not receive a response from Gigabyte's tech support within 72 hours this time around. Smaller motherboard manufacturers would almost certainly have responded within 72 hours, as evidenced by previous attempts in several other motherboard reviews. Bigger motherboard makers like ASUS, Gigabyte and MSI don’t usually have to worry as much about RMA and tech support as the smaller guys do; hopefully that will change in the future, albeit unlikely.

Though Gigabyte's RMA policy is just adequate, their tech support performance at the time of publishing wasn’t as good as it has been in the past. Hopefully this is just a slipup, and Gigabyte will get back on track with their otherwise excellent tech support response time.



Performance Test Configuration

Performance Test Configuration

Processor(s):
Intel Pentium 4 2.26GHz
RAM:
512MB Corsair PC3200 CAS2.0 Modules
256MB Corsair PC3200 CAS2.0 Modules
Hard Drive(s):
Western Digital 120GB 7200 RPM Special Edition (8MB Buffer)
Bus Master Drivers:
Intel INF Update v. 4.04.1012
Intel Application Accelerator v2.3
SiS AGP v.1.13
Video Card(s):
ASUS V8460 Ultra NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4600
Video Drivers:
NVIDIA Detonator 40.72 (WHQL Certified)
Operation System(s):
Windows XP Professional SP1
Motherboards:
ABIT IT7 MAX2 Rev 2 (845PE)
Albatron PX845PEV Pro (845PE)
ASUS P4G8X Deluxe (E7205)
ASUS P4T533-C (850E)
Gigabyte SINXP1394 (SiS 655)
MSI 655 Max (SiS 655)

All performance tests run on SiS 655-based motherboards utilized two 256MB Corsair XMS PC3200 modules set to CAS 2/2T/6T/2T timings and running at 266MHz, 333MHz and 400MHz (dual channel). MSI's 655 board was the only exception, running at CAS2.5. Any other performance-enhancing timings (like Command Rate or Bank Interleave) were enabled in SiS 655-based motherboards that contained such timings.

All performance tests run on E7205-based motherboards utilized two 256MB Corsair XMS PC3200 modules set to CAS 2/2T/5T/2T timings and running at 266MHz (dual channel). Any other performance-enhancing timings (like Command Rate or Bank Interleave) were enabled in E7205-based motherboards that contained such timings.

All performance tests run on 845PE motherboards utilized one 512MB Corsair XMS PC3200 module set to CAS 2/2T/5T/2T timings and running at 333MHz. Any other performance-enhancing timings (like Command Rate or Bank Interleave) were enabled in motherboards that contained such timings.

The AnandTech Motherboard Testbed was Sponsored by Newegg. You can buy the components we used to test at www.newegg.com.



Content Creation & General Usage Performance

SYSMark has become a solid measurement of overall system performance since its induction into our benchmarking suite. Although the Internet Content Creation suite caters to more of a niche market, the Office Productivity tests are a perfect measurement of overall system performance in the applications all of us use on a daily basis.

The applications benchmarked include:

· Internet Content Generation: Adobe Photoshop® 6.01, Adobe Premiere® 6.0, Microsoft Windows Media Encoder 7.1, Macromedia Dreamweaver 4, and Macromedia Flash 5

· Office Productivity: Microsoft Word 2002, Microsoft Excel 2002, Microsoft PowerPoint 2002, Microsoft Outlook 2002, Microsoft Access 2002, Netscape Communicator® 6.0, Dragon NaturallySpeaking Preferred v.5, WinZip 8.0, and McAfee VirusScan 5.13.

For more information on the methodology and exactly what SYSMark does to generate these performance scores check out BAPCo's SYSMark 2002 Whitepaper

Content Creation Performance
Internet Content Creation SYSMark 2002
MSI 655 Max (SiS 655-Dual DDR400)

Gigabyte SINXP1394 (SiS 655-Dual DDR400)

ASUS P4T533-C (850E-PC1066)

MSI 655 Max (SiS 655-Dual DDR333)

Gigabyte SINXP1394 (SiS 655-Dual DDR333)

MSI 655 Max (SiS 655-Dual DDR266)

ASUS P4G8X Deluxe (E7205-Dual DDR266)

Gigabyte SINXP1394 (SiS 655-Dual DDR266)

Albatron PX845PEV Pro (845PE-DDR333)

ABIT IT7 MAX2 V.2 (845PE-DDR333)

327

326

326

324

322

319

317

316

308

307

|
0
|
65
|
131
|
196
|
262
|
327
|
392

 

General Usage Performance
Office Productivity SYSMark 2002
ASUS P4T533-C (850E-PC1066)

ASUS P4G8X Deluxe (E7205-Dual DDR266)

MSI 655 Max (SiS 655-Dual DDR400)

ABIT IT7 MAX2 V.2 (845PE-DDR333)

Gigabyte SINXP1394 (SiS 655-Dual DDR400)

Albatron PX845PEV Pro (845PE-DDR333)

Gigabyte SINXP1394 (SiS 655-Dual DDR333)

MSI 655 Max (SiS 655-Dual DDR333)

MSI 655 Max (SiS 655-Dual DDR266)

Gigabyte SINXP1394 (SiS 655-Dual DDR266)

191

189

181

181

180

179

179

178

178

176

|
0
|
38
|
76
|
115
|
153
|
191
|
229



Media Encoding Performance

MPEG-4 Video Encoding Performance
MPEG-2 to DiVX Conversion using XMpeg 4.5 & DiVX 5.0.2 (Frames per Second - Higher is Better)
MSI 655 Max (SiS 655-Dual DDR333)

MSI 655 Max (SiS 655-Dual DDR400)

Gigabyte SINXP1394 (SiS 655-Dual DDR400)

ASUS P4G8X Deluxe (E7205-Dual DDR266)

Gigabyte SINXP1394 (SiS 655-Dual DDR333)

Gigabyte SINXP1394 (SiS 655-Dual DDR266)

MSI 655 Max (SiS 655-Dual DDR266)

ASUS P4T533-C (850E-PC1066)

ABIT IT7 MAX2 V.2 (845PE-DDR333)

Albatron PX845PEV Pro (845PE-DDR333)

53.6

52.7

52.5

52.3

51.8

51.5

51.4

50.5

47.5

47.2

|
0
|
11
|
21
|
32
|
43
|
54
|
64



Quake III Arena & Jedi Knight 2 Performance

Quake III's usefulness as a gaming benchmark has diminished mostly because of the fact that we're able to consistently produce frame rates over 300 fps at 1024x768 with the fastest video cards. But as the benchmark becomes less GPU limited, it becomes a perfect candidate for CPU and platform tests such as this one.

Gaming Performance
Quake III Arena - 1024x768 High Quality
MSI 655 Max (SiS 655-Dual DDR400)

MSI 655 Max (SiS 655-Dual DDR333)

Gigabyte SINXP1394 (SiS 655-Dual DDR400)

ASUS P4T533-C (850E-PC1066)

ASUS P4G8X Deluxe (E7205-Dual DDR266)

Gigabyte SINXP1394 (SiS 655-Dual DDR333)

MSI 655 Max (SiS 655-Dual DDR266)

Gigabyte SINXP1394 (SiS 655-Dual DDR266)

ABIT IT7 MAX2 V.2 (845PE-DDR333)

Albatron PX845PEV Pro (845PE-DDR333)

296.1

293.5

293.0

292.0

291.7

290.8

284.7

283.2

282.0

281.5

|
0
|
59
|
118
|
178
|
237
|
296
|
36

 

Gaming Performance
Jedi Knight 2: Outcast - 1024x768 High Quality, AF Disabled
MSI 655 Max (SiS 655-Dual DDR400)

ASUS P4T533-C (850E-PC1066)

Gigabyte SINXP1394 (SiS 655-Dual DDR400)

MSI 655 Max (SiS 655-Dual DDR333)

ASUS P4G8X Deluxe (E7205-Dual DDR266)

Gigabyte SINXP1394 (SiS 655-Dual DDR333)

Albatron PX845PEV Pro (845PE-DDR333)

MSI 655 Max (SiS 655-Dual DDR266)

Gigabyte SINXP1394 (SiS 655-Dual DDR266)

ABIT IT7 MAX2 V.2 (845PE-DDR333)

118.5

117.2

117.1

116.6

116.2

115.9

113.4

113.2

113.0

112.8

|
0
|
24
|
47
|
71
|
95
|
119
|
142



Unreal Tournament 2003 Performance - High Detail

Gaming Performance
Unreal Tournament 2003 Demo - Flyby 1024x768
MSI 655 Max (SiS 655-Dual DDR400)

MSI 655 Max (SiS 655-Dual DDR333)

ASUS P4G8X Deluxe (E7205-Dual DDR266)

Gigabyte SINXP1394 (SiS 655-Dual DDR400)

ASUS P4T533-C (850E-PC1066)

Gigabyte SINXP1394 (SiS 655-Dual DDR333)

Gigabyte SINXP1394 (SiS 655-Dual DDR266)

MSI 655 Max (SiS 655-Dual DDR266)

Albatron PX845PEV Pro (845PE-DDR333)

ABIT IT7 MAX2 V.2 (845PE-DDR333)

166.94

165.77

164.94

164.92

163.84

163.50

162.82

162.53

153.88

152.31

|
0
|
33
|
67
|
100
|
134
|
167
|
200

 

Gaming Performance
Unreal Tournament 2003 Demo - Botmatch 1024x768
ASUS P4G8X Deluxe (E7205-Dual DDR266)

ASUS P4T533-C (850E-PC1066)

MSI 655 Max (SiS 655-Dual DDR400)

Gigabyte SINXP1394 (SiS 655-Dual DDR400)

Gigabyte SINXP1394 (SiS 655-Dual DDR333)

MSI 655 Max (SiS 655-Dual DDR333)

Gigabyte SINXP1394 (SiS 655-Dual DDR266)

ABIT IT7 MAX2 V.2 (845PE-DDR333)

Albatron PX845PEV Pro (845PE-DDR333)

MSI 655 Max (SiS 655-Dual DDR266)

61.99

61.40

61.38

61.18

61.10

60.81

60.05

59.98

59.44

58.76

|
0
|
12
|
25
|
37
|
50
|
62
|
74



High End Workstation Performance - SPEC Viewperf 7.0

The latest version of SPEC Viewperf proves to be an excellent stress test for memory bandwidth and overall platform performance as you're about to see. The benchmarks included version 7 of the benchmark suite are:

3ds max (3dsmax-01)
Unigraphics (ugs-01)
Pro/Engineer (proe-01)
DesignReview (drv-08)
Data Explorer (dx-07)
Lightscape (light-05)

High End Workstation Performance
SPEC Viewperf 7.0 - 3DSMAX-01
MSI 655 Max (SiS 655-Dual DDR400)

MSI 655 Max (SiS 655-Dual DDR333)

Gigabyte SINXP1394 (SiS 655-Dual DDR400)

Gigabyte SINXP1394 (SiS 655-Dual DDR333)

MSI 655 Max (SiS 655-Dual DDR266)

Gigabyte SINXP1394 (SiS 655-Dual DDR266)

ASUS P4G8X Deluxe (E7205-Dual DDR266)

ASUS P4T533-C (850E-PC1066)

ABIT IT7 MAX2 V.2 (845PE-DDR333)

Albatron PX845PEV Pro (845PE-DDR333)

9.484

9.469

9.440

9.399

9.250

9.205

9.078

8.698

8.478

8.447

|
0
|
2
|
4
|
6
|
8
|
9
|
11

 

High End Workstation Performance
SPEC Viewperf 7.0 - DRV-08
Gigabyte SINXP1394 (SiS 655-Dual DDR400)

Gigabyte SINXP1394 (SiS 655-Dual DDR333)

MSI 655 Max (SiS 655-Dual DDR400)

MSI 655 Max (SiS 655-Dual DDR333)

ASUS P4T533-C (850E-PC1066)

ASUS P4G8X Deluxe (E7205-Dual DDR266)

Gigabyte SINXP1394 (SiS 655-Dual DDR266)

MSI 655 Max (SiS 655-Dual DDR266)

Albatron PX845PEV Pro (845PE-DDR333)

ABIT IT7 MAX2 V.2 (845PE-DDR333)

45.78

45.54

45.45

44.75

44.07

42.80

42.50

40.62

38.35

37.40

|
0
|
9
|
18
|
27
|
37
|
46
|
55

 

High End Workstation Performance
SPEC Viewperf 7.0 - DX-07
Gigabyte SINXP1394 (SiS 655-Dual DDR400)

MSI 655 Max (SiS 655-Dual DDR333)

MSI 655 Max (SiS 655-Dual DDR400)

Gigabyte SINXP1394 (SiS 655-Dual DDR333)

MSI 655 Max (SiS 655-Dual DDR266)

Gigabyte SINXP1394 (SiS 655-Dual DDR266)

ASUS P4G8X Deluxe (E7205-Dual DDR266)

ASUS P4T533-C (850E-PC1066)

Albatron PX845PEV Pro (845PE-DDR333)

ABIT IT7 MAX2 V.2 (845PE-DDR333)

29.80

29.41

29.34

29.30

28.89

28.12

27.76

26.81

26.58

26.44

|
0
|
6
|
12
|
18
|
24
|
30
|
36



High End Workstation Performance (continued)

High End Workstation Performance
SPEC Viewperf 7.0 - LIGHT-05
ASUS P4T533-C (850E-PC1066)

ASUS P4G8X Deluxe (E7205-Dual DDR266)

ABIT IT7 MAX2 V.2 (845PE-DDR333)

Albatron PX845PEV Pro (845PE-DDR333)

MSI 655 Max (SiS 655-Dual DDR400)

MSI 655 Max (SiS 655-Dual DDR333)

Gigabyte SINXP1394 (SiS 655-Dual DDR400)

MSI 655 Max (SiS 655-Dual DDR266)

Gigabyte SINXP1394 (SiS 655-Dual DDR333)

Gigabyte SINXP1394 (SiS 655-Dual DDR266)

10.74

9.956

9.883

9.873

9.409

9.377

9.376

9.350

9.175

9.108

|
0
|
2
|
4
|
6
|
9
|
11
|
13

 

High End Workstation Performance
SPEC Viewperf 7.0 - ProE-01
Gigabyte SINXP1394 (SiS 655-Dual DDR400)

MSI 655 Max (SiS 655-Dual DDR400)

Gigabyte SINXP1394 (SiS 655-Dual DDR333)

ASUS P4T533-C (850E-PC1066)

MSI 655 Max (SiS 655-Dual DDR333)

ASUS P4G8X Deluxe (E7205-Dual DDR266)

Gigabyte SINXP1394 (SiS 655-Dual DDR266)

MSI 655 Max (SiS 655-Dual DDR266)

ABIT IT7 MAX2 V.2 (845PE-DDR333)

Albatron PX845PEV Pro (845PE-DDR333)

8.758

8.750

8.688

8.645

8.581

8.501

7.942

7.930

7.845

7.787

|
0
|
2
|
4
|
5
|
7
|
9
|
11

 

High End Workstation Performance
SPEC Viewperf 7.0 - UGS-01
ASUS P4G8X Deluxe (E7205-Dual DDR266)

ASUS P4T533-C (850E-PC1066)

Gigabyte SINXP1394 (SiS 655-Dual DDR400)

Albatron PX845PEV Pro (845PE-DDR333)

MSI 655 Max (SiS 655-Dual DDR400)

MSI 655 Max (SiS 655-Dual DDR333)

Gigabyte SINXP1394 (SiS 655-Dual DDR333)

MSI 655 Max (SiS 655-Dual DDR266)

Gigabyte SINXP1394 (SiS 655-Dual DDR266)

ABIT IT7 MAX2 V.2 (845PE-DDR333)

3.641

3.621

3.601

3.590

3.570

3.562

3.540

3.531

3.513

3.501

|
0
|
1
|
1
|
2
|
3
|
4
|
4



Final Words

With the SINXP1394, Gigabyte has certainly produced one of the nicest and fastest feature-filled Pentium 4 motherboards on the market. Loaded with onboard Serial ATA and IDE RAID, FireWire, USB 2.0, dual channel DDR400 and Hyper Threading support among other nice features, the Gigabyte SINXP1394 is quite the all-in-one wonder. And in case you're curious, even though we used the A0 stepping Gigabyte SINXP1394 for this review, all of Gigabyte's SiS 655 boards will ship with a B0 stepping North Bridge that adds Hyper Threading support. 2-15-2003 UDPATE Go to Page 2 for updated information on Hyper Threading support.

Gigabyte tells us that the SINXP1394 should be available by the end of February for about $210. While we think this is a bit steep for a high-end Pentium 4 motherboard, you must remember that this is a dual channel DDR motherboard. In fact on the whole, dual channel DDR motherboards based on SiS chipsets (655 as an example) will be significantly cheaper than dual channel DDR motherboards based on Intel chipsets (E7205 as an example), mostly due to chipset selling price, which comes in around $38 for SiS 655 chipsets and $55 for Intel E7205 chipsets. So while the Gigabyte SINXP1394 should sell for a very reasonable price given its dual channel DDR support, there’s still tough competition from the likes of ABIT with their MAX series of motherboards based on the 845PE chipset.

For comparison, ABIT’s IT7 MAX2 V.2 (845PE) is currently selling for a few bucks under $170 at several major online vendors in the U.S. Is the performance difference between the ABIT IT7 MAX2 V.2 and Gigabyte SINXP1394 great enough to warrant the extra cost the SINXP1394 will command? That’s completely up to you, the consumer. If you want the latest and greatest Pentium 4 motherboard and are willing to spend the bucks, then you no doubt want to go for a motherboard based on the SiS 655 chipset. This could be the MSI 655 Max, Gigabyte SINXP1394 or the ASUS P4SDX Deluxe (which we will have a review of soon) depending on exactly what you’re willing to spend and what features you need. And even though Gigabyte’s SINXP1394 is supposed to be selling for $210 at those same major online vendors, you will likely be seeing SINXP1394 motherboards for under $200.

Of course, we mustn't rule out E7205 motherboards, as the performance difference between Intel E7205 and SiS 655 chipsets aren't great. Again, it all comes down to how much extra you want to spend. ASUS's P4G8X, Gigabyte's 8INXP and MSI's GNB Max are all excellent E7205 motherboards.

Stay tuned as we will be bringing you an article on 800MHz FSB processors and motherboards soon?/p>

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