Gigabyte's canterwood finally arrived!

JoeBar · 05-02-2003, 02:25 PM

After a long wait i recieved my brand new gigabyte IK1100 mobo along with a pair of WD Raptors.

I'm going to install them over the weekend and keep of course everyone informed. Benchs will follow. The only downside is that i'm still waiting for my corsair pc3500 to arrive (i believe that they will be here early next week), so i'll be using 2 Kingston PC2700 for starters.

Stay tuned...

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SupDawg · 05-02-2003, 02:31 PM

keep us posted!!

ShoNuff_abx · 05-02-2003, 02:32 PM

Hey Joe, I am really looking forward to your review. What processor are you going to use with this setup?

I'm also real curious about the performance of the Raptors as well.

JoeBar · 05-02-2003, 02:36 PM

ShoNuff i'll be using my trusted 2.66ghz for now but i'm waiting the computer store i'm dealing with to get the new 3.00C.
SupDawg i sure will!

JoeBar · 05-03-2003, 01:13 PM

Gigabyte 8IK1100 impressions:
After a long time with asus i had forgotten that a mobo could have colour! This gigabyte in my opinion looks quite nice. The layout is very good with all the connectors in the right places (ide, sata, atx), however i don't like the placement of the 12v connector. If your psu hasn't got long enough cable then it may run over your psu fan. One more minor thing is that i would have liked the floppy connector to be under the ide ones cause normally the floppy (if u have one

) is placed bellow cd-roms. Agp doesn't get in the way of mem slots. All in all a very positive first impression. Lastly the NB heatsink isn't too close to the cpu as with other canterwood boards) and from what i know Thermalright SLK-900 fits.
Installation went without a hitch, just as supposed to be on an Intel based board. The board came with F4 bios and i've updated it to F5. No performance differences between them, nor stability issues. Talking about stability, i haven't experienced a single prob with my Radeon 9700p and 875p with agp8x fastwrites enabled. I haven't done any heavy gaming but 3dmark is running ok and i haven't experienced any 640*480 drops as with granite bay. Vagp is set to normal (1.5v).
I'm talking about volts and guess what crossed my mind? OC'ing

My 2.66ghz p4 has a max oc of 3.26ghz (163mhz fsb) on air. This was tested with both P4PE and P4G8X. The situation hasn't change in IK1100. However something has. At 3.20ghz with the asus boards i needed 1.65v to have a stable system. With IK1100 i run with 1.60v! That's i believe is the answer to everyone out there supporting the infamous asus overvoltin@idle, undervolting@full load prob. With the same psu P4G8X with 1.65v set in bios it fluctuated between 1.73v and 1.61v in mbm. However 1.60v set in IK1100's bios give 1.63v idle and 1.61v under load. The advantage is that the gigabyte board runs my cpu 3-4 'C cooler when idle.
The only prob i have encountered is random beeps from pc speaker. I'm looking for a solution but for now i have unplugged it.

I'm not posting sandra and 3dmark benchs cause i haven't yet recieved by corsair pc3500 modules. If u want however a taste pls let me know.

Update: Gigabyte has released F6 bios but haven't had time to test it. Grab it here

JoeBar · 05-03-2003, 01:32 PM

WD Raptors impressions:
The drivers seems feel well made and have a feeling a quality. They are backed with a 5 year warranty

and have an MTBF of 1.200.000 hours!

The first positive is that they do have a molex connector so no need for a power adapter. The second is the sata cable themselves! Very neat! Even the rounded ide ones seem big and ugly! But the most pleasing is the time to format (or the lack of it

). For a full format it took less than a minute! The endless wait is over my friends...

One last thing is the drive's noise. They do sound like a jet fighter! I don't care about noise but i would like to mention that despite the fact that they are quite loud (i can hear them with all the fans i'm using) their sound is very pleasant.
Intel raid bios is very simple and it gives u the ability to alter stripe size between (4, 8, 16, 32, 64 and 128kb). I choose FAT32 with a 32kb stipe size. Win xp installation went without probs. The drives do feel faster and more responsive than my previous setup (2 WD 40gb SE raid0). Benchs follow:

trias10 · 05-03-2003, 01:35 PM

Sounds like really good stuff. I'm leaning (almost fallen) towards getting the Giga-byte 8KNXP non-ultra. I love ASUS, but I want colors! That and CSA (I know its useless, but we all have to overcompensate for something). I do have one question, what is the max FSB speed you can set with your board? The P4C800 is rumored to go up to 400MHZ in the FSB clock (Which is riduculous as that would give you a 1.6 GHZ FSB). Everything about the Giga-byte sounds good except for OC'ing potential. Gotta do more research. Thanks in advance.

JoeBar · 05-03-2003, 01:36 PM

Here is PC Mark2001 HD bench

JoeBar · 05-03-2003, 01:37 PM

Here is ATTO

JoeBar · 05-03-2003, 01:39 PM

And finally Sandra HD

ShoNuff_abx · 05-03-2003, 01:57 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by JoeBar
WD Raptors impressions:
One last thing is the drive's noise. They do sound like a jet fighter! I don't care about noise but i would like to mention that despite the fact that they are quite loud (i can hear them with all the fans i'm using) their sound is very pleasant.

Good job my friend. I thought these drives would be loud. Other "Professional" reviews failed to mention that. Some even reported the drives to be quite. Overall I will concede the fact that noise is a subjective measurement.

When I get a buyer for my WD800JBR's I may get these. The performance is off the hook!

edited for clarity

JoeBar · 05-03-2003, 03:11 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by ShoNuff
Good job my friend. I thought these drives would be loud. Other "Professional" failed to mention that. Some even reported the drives to be quite. Overall I will concede the fact that noise is a subjective measurement.

When I get a buyer for my WD800JBR's I may get these. The performance is off the hook!

Thanks mate!

Many ppl (especially intel users) out there care a lot about noise. However in my opinion it's also what u hear that matters not only how loud.
One last thing i forgot to mention and the only downside. It's price. One raptor costs a little more than two WD 40gb SE.

Technology costs...

acadia · 05-03-2003, 03:33 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by trias10
Sounds like really good stuff. I'm leaning (almost fallen) towards getting the Giga-byte 8KNXP non-ultra. I love ASUS, but I want colors! That and CSA (I know its useless, but we all have to overcompensate for something). I do have one question, what is the max FSB speed you can set with your board? The P4C800 is rumored to go up to 400MHZ in the FSB clock (Which is riduculous as that would give you a 1.6 GHZ FSB). Everything about the Giga-byte sounds good except for OC'ing potential. Gotta do more research. Thanks in advance.

Don't waste your money on the P4C800, honestly, it's a waste at any price over $150. It doesn't have CSA, it doesn't have the Intel ICH5R South bridge (Integrated SATA Raid), it uses the promise SATA controller as opposed to the Silicon Image.

The GA-8KNXP, which I have, offers the following

CSA Lan
ICH5R, Sata RAid 0
also
Silicon Image SATA Raid controller whcih does raid 0, 1, and 0-1
ITE GigaRAID IDE controller which does raid 0,1, 0-1.

If your worried about OC'ing,

I'm running my P4 2.53GHz@2.95GHz DDR @ 385 Using 3200LL XMS corsair mem.

Personally, I think anyone who waste their money on the overpriced, underdeveloped P4C800 is simply mad, there are just to many better boards, that use better quality components, and offer more features and actually are worth their $200+ asking price, Gigabyte GA-8KNXP, Abit IC7-G,MSI NEO FSIR2, all come to mind, heck, the MSI NEO-FSIR2 which actually has the most OC'ing features I've seen of any of the canterwood boards, comes with CSA, SiliImage controller, and ICH5R South Bridge, and New Egg is selling it for $191.

trias10 · 05-03-2003, 04:42 PM

Cool thanks for the update Acadia. I'm really looking forward to the Giga-byte 8KNXP. It is interesting that you have XMS PC3200LL. Isn't everyone saying that this memory does not work well with the Canterwood chipset? How much of it do you have?

*zapionics<alt>* · 05-05-2003, 06:27 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by JoeBar
The only prob i have encountered is random beeps from pc speaker. I'm looking for a solution but for now i have unplugged it.

Sure that isn't the Bios enumerating the USB devices at startup?

05-02-2003, 02:25 PM	#1
JoeBar Bite me if u can... Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Athens Posts: 5,889	Gigabyte's canterwood finally arrived! After a long wait i recieved my brand new gigabyte IK1100 mobo along with a pair of WD Raptors. I'm going to install them over the weekend and keep of course everyone informed. Benchs will follow. The only downside is that i'm still waiting for my corsair pc3500 to arrive (i believe that they will be here early next week), so i'll be using 2 Kingston PC2700 for starters. Stay tuned... __________________ Asus P5WDG2 Premium rev. 1.02G Intel Pentium D 920 SL94S Malay @ 4.31GHz cooled by Thermaltake Big Water 745 GeCube Radeon X1900XT combined with LG 1980Q (8ms) 19' TFT monitor 2 x 1GB Transcend DDR2-533 @ 770mhz 2 x 36.7GB Western Digital Raptors Raid 0 \| 300GB Western Digital Caviar SE SATA Creative Soundblaster X-Fi Xtrememusic combined with Cambridge Soundworks Megaworks 550 THX Asus E616P3 DVD \| Asus 1608-P DVD-RW Thermaltake Kandalf black super tower with 4 x 120mm and 2 x 90mm blue led fans \| Chieftec 550W Triple 12V rails - 120mm fan
(Offline)

05-02-2003, 02:31 PM	#2
SupDawg Registered User Join Date: Jun 2002 Posts: 7,090	keep us posted!! __________________ The views expressed in this electronic dialogue are mine alone. "All physics are belong to me. " Kongo
(Offline)

05-02-2003, 02:32 PM	#3
ShoNuff_abx Registered User Join Date: May 2001 Location: Thousand Oaks, CA Posts: 350	Hey Joe, I am really looking forward to your review. What processor are you going to use with this setup? I'm also real curious about the performance of the Raptors as well.
(Offline)

05-02-2003, 02:36 PM	#4
JoeBar Bite me if u can... Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Athens Posts: 5,889	ShoNuff i'll be using my trusted 2.66ghz for now but i'm waiting the computer store i'm dealing with to get the new 3.00C. SupDawg i sure will! __________________ Asus P5WDG2 Premium rev. 1.02G Intel Pentium D 920 SL94S Malay @ 4.31GHz cooled by Thermaltake Big Water 745 GeCube Radeon X1900XT combined with LG 1980Q (8ms) 19' TFT monitor 2 x 1GB Transcend DDR2-533 @ 770mhz 2 x 36.7GB Western Digital Raptors Raid 0 \| 300GB Western Digital Caviar SE SATA Creative Soundblaster X-Fi Xtrememusic combined with Cambridge Soundworks Megaworks 550 THX Asus E616P3 DVD \| Asus 1608-P DVD-RW Thermaltake Kandalf black super tower with 4 x 120mm and 2 x 90mm blue led fans \| Chieftec 550W Triple 12V rails - 120mm fan
(Offline)

05-03-2003, 01:13 PM	#5
JoeBar Bite me if u can... Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Athens Posts: 5,889	Gigabyte 8IK1100 impressions: After a long time with asus i had forgotten that a mobo could have colour! This gigabyte in my opinion looks quite nice. The layout is very good with all the connectors in the right places (ide, sata, atx), however i don't like the placement of the 12v connector. If your psu hasn't got long enough cable then it may run over your psu fan. One more minor thing is that i would have liked the floppy connector to be under the ide ones cause normally the floppy (if u have one ) is placed bellow cd-roms. Agp doesn't get in the way of mem slots. All in all a very positive first impression. Lastly the NB heatsink isn't too close to the cpu as with other canterwood boards) and from what i know Thermalright SLK-900 fits. Installation went without a hitch, just as supposed to be on an Intel based board. The board came with F4 bios and i've updated it to F5. No performance differences between them, nor stability issues. Talking about stability, i haven't experienced a single prob with my Radeon 9700p and 875p with agp8x fastwrites enabled. I haven't done any heavy gaming but 3dmark is running ok and i haven't experienced any 640*480 drops as with granite bay. Vagp is set to normal (1.5v). I'm talking about volts and guess what crossed my mind? OC'ing My 2.66ghz p4 has a max oc of 3.26ghz (163mhz fsb) on air. This was tested with both P4PE and P4G8X. The situation hasn't change in IK1100. However something has. At 3.20ghz with the asus boards i needed 1.65v to have a stable system. With IK1100 i run with 1.60v! That's i believe is the answer to everyone out there supporting the infamous asus overvoltin@idle, undervolting@full load prob. With the same psu P4G8X with 1.65v set in bios it fluctuated between 1.73v and 1.61v in mbm. However 1.60v set in IK1100's bios give 1.63v idle and 1.61v under load. The advantage is that the gigabyte board runs my cpu 3-4 'C cooler when idle. The only prob i have encountered is random beeps from pc speaker. I'm looking for a solution but for now i have unplugged it. I'm not posting sandra and 3dmark benchs cause i haven't yet recieved by corsair pc3500 modules. If u want however a taste pls let me know. Update: Gigabyte has released F6 bios but haven't had time to test it. Grab it here __________________ Asus P5WDG2 Premium rev. 1.02G Intel Pentium D 920 SL94S Malay @ 4.31GHz cooled by Thermaltake Big Water 745 GeCube Radeon X1900XT combined with LG 1980Q (8ms) 19' TFT monitor 2 x 1GB Transcend DDR2-533 @ 770mhz 2 x 36.7GB Western Digital Raptors Raid 0 \| 300GB Western Digital Caviar SE SATA Creative Soundblaster X-Fi Xtrememusic combined with Cambridge Soundworks Megaworks 550 THX Asus E616P3 DVD \| Asus 1608-P DVD-RW Thermaltake Kandalf black super tower with 4 x 120mm and 2 x 90mm blue led fans \| Chieftec 550W Triple 12V rails - 120mm fan
(Offline)

05-03-2003, 01:32 PM	#6
JoeBar Bite me if u can... Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Athens Posts: 5,889	WD Raptors impressions: The drivers seems feel well made and have a feeling a quality. They are backed with a 5 year warranty and have an MTBF of 1.200.000 hours! The first positive is that they do have a molex connector so no need for a power adapter. The second is the sata cable themselves! Very neat! Even the rounded ide ones seem big and ugly! But the most pleasing is the time to format (or the lack of it ). For a full format it took less than a minute! The endless wait is over my friends... One last thing is the drive's noise. They do sound like a jet fighter! I don't care about noise but i would like to mention that despite the fact that they are quite loud (i can hear them with all the fans i'm using) their sound is very pleasant. Intel raid bios is very simple and it gives u the ability to alter stripe size between (4, 8, 16, 32, 64 and 128kb). I choose FAT32 with a 32kb stipe size. Win xp installation went without probs. The drives do feel faster and more responsive than my previous setup (2 WD 40gb SE raid0). Benchs follow: __________________ Asus P5WDG2 Premium rev. 1.02G Intel Pentium D 920 SL94S Malay @ 4.31GHz cooled by Thermaltake Big Water 745 GeCube Radeon X1900XT combined with LG 1980Q (8ms) 19' TFT monitor 2 x 1GB Transcend DDR2-533 @ 770mhz 2 x 36.7GB Western Digital Raptors Raid 0 \| 300GB Western Digital Caviar SE SATA Creative Soundblaster X-Fi Xtrememusic combined with Cambridge Soundworks Megaworks 550 THX Asus E616P3 DVD \| Asus 1608-P DVD-RW Thermaltake Kandalf black super tower with 4 x 120mm and 2 x 90mm blue led fans \| Chieftec 550W Triple 12V rails - 120mm fan
(Offline)

05-03-2003, 01:35 PM	#7
trias10 Registered User Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Chicago Posts: 135	Sounds like really good stuff. I'm leaning (almost fallen) towards getting the Giga-byte 8KNXP non-ultra. I love ASUS, but I want colors! That and CSA (I know its useless, but we all have to overcompensate for something). I do have one question, what is the max FSB speed you can set with your board? The P4C800 is rumored to go up to 400MHZ in the FSB clock (Which is riduculous as that would give you a 1.6 GHZ FSB). Everything about the Giga-byte sounds good except for OC'ing potential. Gotta do more research. Thanks in advance. __________________ That which does not kill us makes us stranger.
(Offline)

05-03-2003, 04:42 PM	#14
trias10 Registered User Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Chicago Posts: 135	Cool thanks for the update Acadia. I'm really looking forward to the Giga-byte 8KNXP. It is interesting that you have XMS PC3200LL. Isn't everyone saying that this memory does not work well with the Canterwood chipset? How much of it do you have? __________________ That which does not kill us makes us stranger.
(Offline)

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