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- Date:
- Wednesday, September 18, 2002
- Author:
- Brent Justice
- Google +1
Gigabyte GA-8IHXP
The newest addition to Gigabyte's Pentium 4 family packs features with performance while keeping stability their number one priority.
Board Layout:
The board itself measures 12” in length and 9.5” in width. You should have no problem installing it, even in a small ATX case. Gigabyte decided to use a blue color PCB for this motherboard.
The Intel ICH4 which Gigabyte decided to use is another welcomed component. The advantages the ICH4 has are integrated Ethernet and USB 2.0, making these options available as standard fare without third party additions. The 8IHXP supports 16bit PC800 and PC1066 RAMBUS. You will also notice the ATX power connector is in a spot we prefer which keeps the power supply cord from having to wrap above the CPU. The ATX 12v connector however always seems to be tucked away in some hard to reach place. Such is the case with the 8IHXP. It lies between the PS2 ports and the CPU, which means the cable for it has to wrap above the CPU. It would have been nice to see this connector next to the main ATX connector. Still, the cable is slender so it should not be much of an issue.
The AGP locking device on the 8IHXP is not the regular push down clip we are use to seeing. Gigabyte is using a pin device which is much easier to reach and operate when a video card is installed. I sometimes come across video cards with very large HSFs on them, and this sometimes blocks my fingers from reaching the push down clip on the AGP slot when the motherboard is installed in a case. With this pin type of lock, I can reach it much easier when installed in a case. The i850E Northbridge is actively cooled on the 8IHXP, which should help the system run better in hot environments as well as possibly overclocking. The CPU area is pretty tight, as long as you have a HSF that fits within the mount zone everything will be fine. If it extends farther out, it may run into some capacitors. There are a couple of such heatsinks out there, but we have not found them for sale in the US.
Audio is supplied by a Creative CT5880 chip. Surprisingly, Gigabyte decided to use a Realtek 8100BL Ethernet chip instead of the ICH4’s integrated Ethernet. The orange port is the interface for Secure Digital Memory cards. The white port is for a Memory Stick Interface. This board fully supports MS/SC/SD (Memory Stick/Smart Card/Secure Digital Memory) devices. This board has a 6-pin Aux. power connector which provides additional current to meet the board’s +3.3VDC and +5VDC requirements. The ICH4 provides two ATA/100 IDE channels and a floppy header.
The GA-8IHXP supports Gigabyte’s DUAL BIOS feature. There are actually two BIOS chips on this motherboard, with one that acts as a backup in case you damage the main one. As you can see, the ports available are two PS2 ports. There's one for mouse and one for keyboard as well as two serial devices and one parallel. The game/MIDI port as well as line out/in and mic. jacks are also on the back. The two USB ports on the rear are full USB 2.0 ports and the Realtek RJ45 port. For even more USB 2.0 support, Gigabyte utilized NEC’s USB 2.0 chip for four more headers on the motherboard. This motherboard will support up to 10 USB 2.0 devices right out of the box.
There is also an onboard Promise PDC20276 ATA/133 RAID chip for additional IDE options. It does come with all the IDE cables you need to get started, all color coordinated too. There is a fold-out quick installation guide to show you the features of the board and get you off the ground quickly.
Extras include an ATX back plate, the SPDIF riser card, and two USB 2.0 rear expansion cards that provide 8 USB 2.0 ports. There is also another small reference guide to 8IHXP settings. A CD, full featured manual, and IDE RAID manual are also included.
BIOS:
I always like to see the initial POST screen as it indicates very basic settings about your computer at boot up. The main BIOS menu is a standard AMI BIOS interface you are probably familiar with. The Advanced Chipset features will be the menu you will probably spend the most time in. Unfortunately, there are no memory timing options. There is supposed to be a way to unlock them by holding down Ctrl-F1. However, using BIOS version F4 this did not seem to work. I even tried the Beta F6 BIOS and I still could not access the memory timings. I have read that this is a common problem with this mainboard.
FSB options allow us from 100FSB to a maximum of 156FSB speeds but not in 1MHz increments as shown here. Unfortunately, there is no way to lock AGP/PCI dividers at 33/66MHz like on the ABIT P4 boards. Vcore adjustments allow up to +0.200V which translates to 1.7V max. The AGP voltage however can be raised up to 1.8V. There is no way to manually select RIMM voltage, however. There's only an option to Enable or Disable Over RIMM Voltage.
Under Integrated Peripherals you will find your options to disable and enable the onboard SC and MS/SD interfaces as well as USB 2.0 chip, LAN, and audio chip. The BIOS hardware monitor is complete in the sense that it shows you all the relevant info you will need to know when overclocking or just to look at how your system is doing power wise. The last screenshot is of the DUAL BIOS Utility that you can access from within the BIOS. Through this menu you can easily set the computer to load the backup BIOS or save the current BIOS or set it to Auto Recovery in case you overclock just a little too high and can’t get your PC to POST.