Page 3 - Features Described

Let's walk trough the most important features.

The Gigabyte GA-8IPE1000 Pro2-W supports the newer 800MHz FSB Intel Pentium 4 class C Processors with Hyper-Threading Technology, it supports all 3GHz+ P4 CPUs on 800MHz FSB and even the new Pentium 4 labeled under Prescott, and yes of course it supports Hyper-Threading Technology. Next to that an important feature is the Dual Channel DDR 400 Memory Architecture. If you buy this mainboard then be sure to do this: combine the mainboard equipped a Pentium 4C series processor ( 800 MHz Front Side Bus) and equip that mainboard with Dual Channel DDR400 memory. This combination is extremely powerful. With double the bandwidth of your system memory and you would boost the system performance. The GA-8IPE1000 Pro2-W allows you to handle memory-intensive tasks with ease. The processor's (Pentium4 C generation) with 800MHz FSB offers a theoretical total of 6.4 GB/s of memory bandwidth. 

Remember this when buying memory: two sticks of 256MB rated DDR400 will outperform one stick of 512MB DDR400).  In short, these are the requirements for using dual-channel DDR:

1. Both sticks of memory must be the same size.

2. Both sticks of memory must have the same type of memory chips.

3. Both sticks of memory must have the same speed/latency.

4. Single-sided and double-sided memory sticks can not be mixed.

Basically determine what amount of memory you want in your rig, 512 or 1 GB and buy 2x256 or 2x512 identical memory sticks from the same manufacturer. Several manufacturers also offer you guaranteed the same memory stick and sell it as Dual Channel DDR memory packages.

Of course any latest rig should be equipped with an AGP 8X Graphics Interface, although AGP8X will be replaced the upcoming year with the new PCI-eXpress slot this VGA interface enables enhanced graphics performance with high bandwidth speeds up to 2.12GB/s. With a bus of 533MHz, AGP8X is twice as fast as AGP4X. You gotta love the Dual BIOS - As all Gigabyte mainboards do this one also includes dual BIOS technology.  If you crash, flunk or do something very stupid to your BIOS the second one can take over and will allow you to flash that BIOS back into the broken one. It will save the manufacturer quite a few RMA's and the end user a lot of trouble. Every mainboard should have this at standard, that still is not the case though. For many this rule applies: Dual bios is not 100% needed and comes to the expense of the consumer since they are paying for it, it raises the mainboards price.

I do not agree, a motherboard's worst nightmare is it's BIOS. I have read somewhere once that at one point in time more then 60% of motherboards that are returned simply have a BIOS problem. If you short out for whatever reason, the chance is high that the BIOS on that motherboard is the buffer section to which all power will be diverted. The Dual Bios technology prevents the need for sending back your highly needed motherboard. And hey ... in the future when you flash your bios, you won't have to cross your thumbs anymore, you know that you are safe with the 2nd BIOS installed.

Integrated Wireless LAN -  The wireless part of the mainboard is handled through a IEEE 802.11b compliant and Wi-Fi compatible GN-WBZB-M USB wireless LAN card, You hook up the little add-on towards an internal USB connector, install some software and bam .. 11 Mbit/s Wireless now belong to your options. As it is an USB add-on you can buy the product as a kit also, look on Gigabyte's website for GN-WBZB-M. File transfer speed was exactly what you would expect from a USB 1.1 device. As the product is based on 802.11b you have a theoretical 11Mbit/sec at your disposal. You'll never get that 11 Mbit though. Usually 4 Mbit is more realistic. Also with WEP enabled you will lose more bandwidth.

After installation our tests show that access time was trouble free at less then 1ms in an acceptable range. Effective throughput on the device was roughly 3-4 Mbit/sec and about 1.5-2 MBit/sec with a 64-bit encryption activated. For small and simple applications or internet sharing throughout the house this is sufficient but it's a pretty thin line for sure.

The software that Gigabyte provides is Gigabyte's own wireless LAN monitor suite, which is fairly easy to setup and use.

BTW you know what the best way is to measure wireless or LAN performance ? Setup an FTP server and a client on the other PC and start uploading. Below are a few FTP examples with WEP 64 enabled, look how consistant the transfer rates are.

• finished uploading 'WebCamGoPlusDrvsV1_04.EXE' in 'D:download2' - (00:00:05 - 941.287 KB - 188.257 KBytes/s).
• finished uploading 'wme-catalyst-7-962-031202m1-012924c.exe' in 'D:download2' - (00:02:06 - 23661.491 KB - 187.790 KBytes/s).
• finished uploading 'dev-x2a.r15' in 'D:download2' - (00:01:18 - 14648.438 KB - 187.800 KBytes/s).

Once setup, you of course MUST enable at least a 64-bit WEP key protection on your wireless surrounding. If you don't, hey your geeky neighbor will get on your system or use your previous internet bandwidth within seconds time.