Watchout ! fresh Gigabyte GA-K8NF-9 (nforce4) only HT 800

[Charon]

Hi
Guess im not the only one waiting for a nforce4 Mobo...
Somehow it has a bad smell when shops/Companys sell early Revisions
(so to say "Beta-state" Chips) like nforce4 chipset Revision 01 or 02 that
lake some features or capabilities.
This seems to be the case with Gigabyte GA-K8NF-9 Mobo´s that sell
atm. (23.12.2004).
I nearly bought it ,but luckily saw a comment that it seems only do HT 800 MHz
(HT 1600) as its build with Chiprevision 01/02 or/aswell as not nforce4/ultra
but plain nforce4.
I saw it for 95,24 € (so cheap ,it shure gives a hint ;> )

If you want to buy it..go ahead..i guess its stable HW...just not whit all
the "killer-stats" you might expect with nvidia showing its ultra-chips around
only everywhere .

 

[CMAN]

Hi
Guess im not the only one waiting for a nforce4 Mobo...
Somehow it has a bad smell when shops/Companys sell early Revisions
(so to say "Beta-state" Chips) like nforce4 chipset Revision 01 or 02 that
lake some features or capabilities.
This seems to be the case with Gigabyte GA-K8NF-9 Mobo´s that sell
atm. (23.12.2004).
I nearly bought it ,but luckily saw a comment that it seems only do HT 800 MHz
(HT 1600) as its build with Chiprevision 01/02 or/aswell as not nforce4/ultra
but plain nforce4.
I saw it for 95,24 € (so cheap ,it shure gives a hint ;> )

If you want to buy it..go ahead..i guess its stable HW...just not whit all
the "killer-stats" you might expect with nvidia showing its ultra-chips around
only everywhere .

800 HT doesn't make it slower,1000 is a bit of overkill. Besides if you overclock much you have to lower the HT to 4X anyway

 

[DB27]

The vanilla nforce4 chipset is designed to only do 800 HT. The Ultra and SLI versions are the ones with 1000 HT. The non-Ultra ones are also locked so that you can't overclock the FSB.

 

[CMAN]

The vanilla nforce4 chipset is designed to only do 800 HT. The Ultra and SLI versions are the ones with 1000 HT. The non-Ultra ones are also locked so that you can't overclock the FSB.

Direct from Gigabyte's site for the non ultra.



CPU HT / Multiplier / Vcore Voltage adjustable via BIOS

PCI-ExpessX16 Voltage / Clock adjustable via BIOS

DIMM Voltage / Clock adjustable via BIOS

 

[DB27]

Well, the reviews of the nforce4 chipset "family" on several sites (I can only think of Anandtech offhand) say that the non-ultra has a locked HT. I guess we'll have to wait and see. Maybe GB found a way around it.

*edit*
It may also be that you can adjust it down but not up.
On the nVidia site, you'll notice that the Ultra and SLI chipsets support nTune (an overclocking utility) but the nforce vanilla version does not mention it.

 

[CMAN]

Well, the reviews of the nforce4 chipset "family" on several sites (I can only think of Anandtech offhand) say that the non-ultra has a locked HT. I guess we'll have to wait and see. Maybe GB found a way around it.

*edit*
It may also be that you can adjust it down but not up.
On the nVidia site, you'll notice that the Ultra and SLI chipsets support nTune (an overclocking utility) but the nforce vanilla version does not mention it.

If you saw it ANANDTECH,consider the source.

 

[DB27]

That was one that I knew off the top of my head, but there were a few other sites saying the same. Also note the last bit which came off of nVidia's site.

 

[boardstrapd]

Taken from Chris Connolly of GamePCs review on 1/20/2k5:

"The board, by default, will run at 4x HyperTransport frequencies and is completely stabile. Like most Gigabyte motherboards, you can hit CTRL-F1 in the motherboard BIOS to access the Advanced Chipset Control settings. In this menu of the GA-K8NF-9, there is a HyperTransport Frequency control setting. We were able to move our HT Frequency up to 5x / 1000 MHz with this BIOS setting, and surprisingly, the board was completely stable throughout our benchmarking. As far as we can tell, the nForce4-4x is just as functional and performs just as well as the standard nForce4 chipset. Running the nForce4-4x chip with 5x HyperTransport speeds may be considered "overclocking with the nForce4-4x while it is not so on the standard nForce4/Ultra/SLI platforms.​

We should also throw in the fact that HyperTransport link speeds actually have very little to do with system performance at this time. Even today's top Athlon64 and Athlon64 FX processors do not appear to utilize the extra bandwidth which a full 2000 MHz HyperTransport link offers, and even with the HT Link speed at 4x / 800 MHz, our synthetic, gaming, and application benchmarks were all at the same level compared to our 5x / 1000 MHz speed benchmarks. In short, the nForce4-4x performs right on par with standard nForce4 platforms, even though it’s marked differently."​

and on page 4 of the review:

"While we weren’t expecting much, we were pleasantly surprised in the overclocking department. The board supports FSB speed alteration in 1 MHz increments along with the ability to control voltage levels of the CPU, the nForce4 chip, and the DDR memory modules. Granted, there isn’t much flexibility in these departments, but there is enough to allow for decent overclocks. The ability to control memory frequencies and timings is hidden in the BIOS by default, but hitting CTRL+F1 brings up the hidden memory control settings menu. Using these tools, we were able to overclock our 2.4 GHz Athlon64 4000+ processor to 2.6 GHz with relative ease, bringing it up to the same frequencies as the Athlon64 FX-55."​

Seems like this mobo might be the sleeper for the value/non-extreme oc'ers. I just bought this board along with a retail A64 3000 in a combo that included FarCry and Half-Life 2 for $295 shipped from monarch computers.