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Gigabyte K8NXP-SLI (nVidia nForce4 SLI) MoBo ReviewAuthor: Aleksandr MitrofanovDate: 15/04/2005
No sooner had the first nForce4 SLI-based motherboards appeared on sale than they turned a rarity in no time. No wonder that many buyers of these boards are not hasty at using the SLI but restrict to a single video card. Anyway, this situation is easy to explain: prices for motherboards like these are not over the top and are somewhere on par with Intel's high-end boards which at expansion options are inferior to nForce4 Ultra\SLI. The second also a formidable argument is the longevity of the platform. While Intel systems are still waiting for a new generation of boards with the south bridge ICH7 to come (where support for SerialATA II is to be added), then the combination Socket939 + nForce4 SLI meets all the user needs for quite a long time. The third argument - to use the SLI technology originally, one has got to have a lot of money. Just see for yourselves - a good-quality and powerful PSU plus two video cards. But since no one has so far abolished the upgrade, users do that (or are planning for it :) gradually. In view of the above, the shortage for nF4 SLI motherboards is quite understandable. At the same time, motherboard manufacturers are also experiencing a certain shortage. Coupled with the strongest desire to save, companies are trying to implement SLI on the nForce4 Ultra chipset. From the technical viewpoint, they are doing the right job and many firms have already presented first products like that. Of course, the volume of purchase of the chipset with the "genuine" SLI integrated is not significant (mind you, it is much more expensive). Besides, nVidia asks for a certain recompense from the assembly operators building SLI systems (which also adds to the end price). This results in a conflict of interests among the manufacturers of nVidia motherboards. The company is definitely unwilling to allow NF4 Ultra SLI motherboards appear on sale, so is doing its best to press upon the manufacturers. So, until the situation is finally cleared up, only leading manufacturers are able to release motherboards on the nForce4 SLI chipset. For now, second-rank manufacturers are still temporizing (although there are exceptions - e.g. a DFI motherboard based on the nF4 SLI chipset). Today, we are testing Gigabyte K8NXP-SLI based on the nVidia nForce4 SLI chipset. Note that its design is three quarters equivalent to that of Gigabyte K8NXP-9 (nForce4 Ultra. As the inquisitive reader may remember, it's just this board we started introduction to the nForce4 chipset family, and therefore, the detailed description of specifications for the chipset is presented in that review. Gigabyte K8NXP-SLI Specifications
PackageThe board is packaged into a box with handles to carry it around:  The boxes are joined with one another and open up like a book: 
Package bundle
The board's package bundle is worth the high price because for eight SerialATA channels there are eight respective cables and four power adapters (8 connectors altogether). For six additional USB2.0 ports, there are three brackets, two ports on each. On one of these brackets, there is another pair of Firewire ports. Altogether, the board offers support for three IEEE1394 ports, so to make the most of the board's capabilities, you would have to buy a bracket with one Firewire port.  The HDD cable and the ParallelATA cable are all proprietary: of blue color with a Gigabyte logo.  Note, that a very convenient bracket for plugging in external SerialATA devices has been removed. On the other hand, the user gets a WiFi wireless communications module, a manual, and a drivers CD.  In the same box, there is also a DPS module with which the user can "amplify" the board's power supply module.  As regards the documentation, it has nothing to complain about on the whole. Anyway, the manual lacks a description of the section dealing with those BIOS settings to do with memory performance. Of special mention is an SLI connector aimed at joining two video cards:  As regards the drivers CD, apart from the necessary drivers and Gigabyte's proprietary utilities (@BIOS, FaceWizard, and others) there is also Norton Internet Security 2005 (v8.0). The board costs around 190$, and in view of that the package bundle is worth a firm "5/5".
Gigabyte K8NXP-SLI LayoutDuring assembly of a PC, no issues come up. First, there are no problems with blocking the DIMM slots by latches: the PCI Express x16 slot is positioned at quite a distance. Secondly, connectors for plugging in IDE cables are positioned with gaps and are colored differently.
 Nor there are problems with plugging in power supply cables: the main 24-pin and additional 4-pin power connectors are positioned over the board's edges. Also, over the board's edges there are connectors for plugging in various brackets. To cool the chipset, a cooler with a 40 mm fan is used.  The cooler is plugged in to the two-pin NB_FAN connector. Besides it, there are the following connectors for fans: the PWR_FAN near the main power connector, SYS_FAN in the bottom left corner of the board, and the CPU_FAN near the processor socket.  By the way, the plastic frame of the processor socket uses a traditional (Gigabyte's) scheme of fastening with plastic pins. That means in installing non-standard coolers (like Zalman 7700 or Asus Star Ice) you would have to remove both the frame and the reinforcement plate from the board's reverse side:  There are four DIMM slots on the board, and the maximum memory capacity makes up 4 GB.  At the same time, the scheme of setting the modules to the dual-channel mode is different from what we saw on Asus A8N-SLI. On K8NXP-SLI we have to install modules into the slots of the same color (by the way, you won't be able to fit three modules - in that case, the system won't start). As regards the SLI technology, there are two PCI Express x16 slots onboard (in the SLI mode, they run as x8, that is enable 8 channels each), with an SLI terminator between them. The latter is designed for switching between the single-channel and the SLI mode.
 A few words on the SLI-terminator. Don't think it is some sort of a complicated item - its job is to be a substitute for 20 regular jumpers. But that terminator can be turned in 10 seconds, whereas it would take much longer to switch twenty jumpers inside a dark and cramped housing :)). Interestingly, but we found no additional power connectors onboard, the way it is on A8N-SLI. I am not sure if that is right - two PCI Express video cards are able consuming up to 150W altogether. However, developers know that better - the aspect must have been explored and thoroughly calculated by engineers at Gigabyte. Also, there are two PCI Express x1 and two PCI slots onboard. 
Expansion optionsBased on nForce4 SLI chipset, Gigabyte K8NXP-SLI offers support for four SerialATA-II channels. Respective connectors are installed near the chipset, colored orange and have plastic limiters.
 Four more SerialATA channels are implemented with a Sil3114 chip made by Silicon Image. Therefore, the respective connectors are colored red and are fitted on the board's edge.  So, 12 hard disks can be plugged in to Gigabyte K8NXP-SLI: 8 over the SerialATA (four of which over the SerialATA II), and 4 over the ParallelATA. Then, there are two Gigabit LAN controllers. The first is the VITESSE 8201 chip:  The second is the 88E8053 chip (connected to the PCI Express x1 bus) made by Marvell.  Thus, we get two RJ45 connectors on the rear panel of the board at a time. Besides two LAN controllers, K8NXP-SLI uses two controllers to support the Firewire bus.  These are TSB82AA2 and TSB81BA3 chips made by Texas Instruments. Therefore, the board offers support for three IEEE1394b ports. All the ports are additional - i.e. they require plugging in brackets (there is one bracket with two ports in the bundle). Besides the Firewire, the board supports 10 USB 2.0 ports, four of which are on the rear panel, with 6 more plugged in through headers (shipped in the package bundle). And the last thing to dwell on is the integrated audio. ALC850 chip is used as the codec, which supports output for 8 channels.  The board's rear panel looks like this:  Instead of one of the COM ports, there is an SP-DIF input and output. The missing COM port is provided only by the board's design and has to be plugged in via a bracket. But the matching connector is not welded. Traditionally, a jumpers layout diagram:  Gigabyte K8NXP-SLI uses no jumpers. To reset the BIOS settings, you have to close the CLR_CMOS near the orange SATA connectors. Now on to the BIOS settings.
BIOSThe BIOS of Gigabyte K8NXP-SLI is built on the Award BIOS Phoenix version.
 On pressing the "Ctrl+F1" key combination you get access to the undocumented "Advanced Chipset Features" section:  Inside it, apart from a number of memory latency settings, the user can choose the required memory frequency  as well as multipliers for the HyperTransport bus:  We found no special issues of compatibility to memory modules. However, when overclocking the system in the synchronous mode the maximum frequency of OCZ PC3200 400512ELDCPER2-K Platinum rev2.0 and Patriot PC3200 XBL modules proved to be less than that on Asus A8N-SLI. Now move on to the section to do with the system monitoring.  The board is able monitoring the temperature of the processor and system, voltage levels, as well as the rotational speeds of the three fans. Besides, the speed of the processor cooler can be set dependent on the CPU temperature with the Smart FAN feature.  As to the Cool'n'Quiet feature, the board does support it. However, we found the respective item in the BIOS settings. Finally, the board offers support for the DualBIOS technology:  This technology allows experimenting safely with the BIOS, e.g. changing the POST screen boot-up image with the FaceWizard utility.
Overclocking and stabilityLet's take a look at the power converter. It uses a 3-phase power scheme, in which there are five 3300 mkF, four 1800 mkF, and five 1000 mkF capacitors.
 But if we activate the VRM_CONN slot and install the DPS module, then the power supply module operates following a 6-phase scheme.  By the way, on the DPS module there are two 3300 mF, one 1500 mF and three 1000 mkF capacitors. Besides, there is also an additional fan on which improves cooling of the power supply module. Despite the theoretical advantage of using the DPS, we found no benefits in practice. In particular, the board runs absolutely stably without the DPS module, and no improvements in overclocking results were found after installing it. Besides, installation of the DPS module makes the assembly operator's job a bit complicated. For instance, in using Gigabyte 3D Cooler the DPS blocks the fastening clip of the cooler.  But with Zalman 7700, the DPS fails to be installed in its default form.  To make the DPS module fit into the slot, the 40 mm fan has to be removed. That can be done absolutely safely - the air flow from the 120 mm fan and the Zalman 7700 cooler is enough to blow the whole power supply module of the motherboard. Now on to the overclocking features.  First, the Gigabyte K8NXP-SLI allows adjusting the system bus speed within 200 to 400 MHz in 1 MHz increments. You can't enter the required value directly, so you have to scroll through all the interim values.
 Another item is the feature for changing the processor's multiplier.  Its adjustment range is within 4 to 11 (the maximum for the 3500+ model) in 1 increments. For each multiplier, there is a respective clock speed. But as the HTT (or FSB) speed goes up, the specified values are not recalculated, which may result in a confusion. The next item deals with raising the processor voltage (Vcore) from 0.8V to 1.75V in 0.025-0.05V increments.   The next item deals with raising the memory voltage.  The Vmem voltage can be raised by +0.2V in 0.1V increments. Besides, the overclocker can increase voltage on the chipset by 0.3V in 0.1V increments,  and on the HT bus.
 Finally, the user can adjust the PCI Express bus within 100 MHz to 150 MHz.  Now on to the practical overclocking. The board demonstrated good results: a stable running at ~300 MHz.  But despite the stable operation at such a high speed, the picture sometimes jittered in 3D benchmarks. You can overclock the board using the proprietary Gigabyte EasyTune 5 utility. But our attempts to overclock using nVidia nTune failed: even with the most recent version (v 2.00.23, already available to download from nVidia's official web site:) it hung deadly at the stage of startup. Like in Asus A8N-SLI, this product by Gigabyte offers quite an interesting feature - "Robust Graphics Booster".  Once it is activated, the motherboard increases the frequencies of the core and the memory of the video card. But in practice we found no effect of enabling the feature (perhaps the situation will change in future versions of the BIOS). Besides, programmers at Gigabyte provided for a manual raise of frequencies of the core and video card memory. To that end, two features are used: "R.G.B. core clock %" and "R.G.B. memory clock %" (which become accessible upon pressing the Ctrl+F1):
 The overclocking extent can be selected as percentages.  In trying to test these features we got unstable running in 3D applications (again, perhaps future versions will fix that). The last interesting feature is "M.I.B. 2" which is meant for automatic optimization of memory settings:  it offers ready-made settings templates for specific modules: 
PerformanceNote that Gigabyte K8NXP-SLI overstates the nominal FSB by 1MHz:  As contenders to our board in question we used a system based in a motherboard with ATI Xpress 200 chipset (support for Athlon64 Socket939 + PCI Express video), as well as Gigabyte K8NXP-9 (nForce4 Ultra) and Asus A8N-SLI (nForce4 SLI). In our test setup, we used the following hardware:
Let's first take a look at the results of synthetic benchmarks.   Now on to the gaming benchmarks (i.e. real-world applications).          Final WordsGigabyte K8NXP-SLI is a direct competitor to Asus A8N-SLI. Even a detailed comparison of these two boards is unlikely to reveal the leader (even at specific area of tests). Anyway, at the package bundle Gigabyte's board that comes with a WiFi modules is a better performer. The Asus' product offers a bracket for plugging in external SerialATA devices. At expansion options, there is absolute parity. The Asus' product offers an extra PCI slot, while Gigabyte's offers support for three Firewire-800 ports (Asus' offers merely two IEEE1394 ports). At the overclocking capabilities, both the products are approximately equal. But in some fine points, Gigabyte K8NXP-SLI is second to A8N-SLI. That applies, above all, to the operation stability in the overclocking mode (at HTT=300MHz, the Gigabyte's products demonstrate a jittering of the 3D-image) and compatibility to various memory modules (at that, the Asus' board does a bit better). Therefore, the user will make the choice of a motherboard guided by the retail prices and personal preferences.
ConclusionPros:
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