A quick 1st look: GA-G33M-DS2R, mATX P35 mobo (pic heavy)

[oohms]

Has anyone tried using a modded bios with 1:1 yet?

[ziddey]

from what I understand, the newest 8mbit flashes can't be saved using modbin6

[ISS]

Hmmm... I was considering an Abit F-I90HD mATX mobo, but now I'm at the very least intrigued with it...

A couple of questions, though:
1) What kind of price are we talking about? Since it's already on sale in Singapore, can any of you tell us its price? Preferably in USD or €. Oh, for the DS2R version, of course. I'm sick and tired of not having RAID-enabled mATX boards...
2) Were those tests performed with the onboard graphics or without? I'm building an HTPC with onboard graphics, so I'd need to know that... If they are not with the IGP enabled, can you show us the limits with the IGP enabled?
3) Are lower than 1:1 timings available?
4) Is there any HDMI and/or DVI interface?
5) Can anyone tell me the differences between the G33 and G35 chipsets? I'm totally lost on that, and I don't seem to be able to find ANY information about it... I am wondering about DX10 (not that much, it's still an IGP...) and video decoding (read: HD decoding), since right now only the G965 and X1250 chipsets support it (damn oh-so-appealing ConRoe945G-DVI ASRock mobo... lol)

Thanks a lot.

Cheers.

Miguel

This board cost around $245-250 in Singapore. Thus thats around USD160.

There are no HDMI/DVI outputs. Only the standard analog VGA.

I personally do not know the exact differences between G33 and G35 but based on this short article abt G35

http://sg.vr-zone.com/?i=4333

I think the main difference is that G35 supports HDMI while G33 does not.

[ISS]

Btw, if you are going to use onboard graphics for your HTPC you are better off getting the 690G board. ATI is known to be much better for video playback.

[__Miguel_]

USD160? Somewhere around the lines of current G965 cards from Asus (at least here in Portugal, that's the approximate price of the P5B-VM). Not that bad, considering it has all the bels, whisles and whatnots (only the kitchen sink missing, really... ).

That is still almost €30 more expensive than the F-I90HD, which is reaching the €100 mark (€110, actually, but its price has tanked in the last two months...), so it will be a tough call. Since anything over 4x333MHz is a little bit too extreme for me, that won't matter much on the OC front, but I'll have to double check on that.

Oh, ISS, I almost forgot. Thank you for the info. In the meanwhile, I downloaded the board's manual. I think there is an optional add-on card with DVI interface (ADD2 card, I think they call it; very common in Intel-based ASRock mATX mobos). At least that's what I think that was referring to...

Cheers.

Miguel

[pengizzle]

yes, bad news, Wildgunmans ram died and he reported some problems with saving the bios and stuff, so the waiting for a better bios continues..

[hot_fifty]

Was it with stock bios are modified bios? Damn

[pengizzle]

on this blurry image u can see what he achieved so far.
http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/7651/img00038hp6.jpg

[__Miguel_]

Please take a look at the first image on this page, on Anandtech's today's article on the Bearlake architecture.

If I understand memory dividers correctly, what this image says is that 1:1 is available with both the 800 and 1066MHz FSB configurations, either with DDR2 or DDR3 memory on the G33 and P35 chipsets. Probably mobo manufacturers will add 1:1 in 1333MHz FSB configurations, depending of "market needs" .

What it also says is that Gigabyte might have some problems in this ares in this particular motherboard/chipset (since it seems the P35 mobo that Anandtech reviewed has 1:1 dividers) or they simply forgot that setting...

That is, unless of course I'm missing something or I've got something erribly wrong...

Cheers.

Miguel


P.S.: We can post links and info from external review sites, can't we?

[hot_fifty]

on this blurry image u can see what he achieved so far.
http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/7651/img00038hp6.jpg

why only 100FSB?

[pengizzle]

i dunno, but thats not the point ;p

[hot_fifty]

yes it is. Maybe at very low FSB the divider will be available

[pengizzle]

logic? afaik different dividers become available with different memory (667, 800 etc.)

[ziddey]

dividers aren't dictated by memory at all. I see what hot_fifty is trying to say. Maybe at a low enough fsb, the board will switch to another strap, which has a different set of dividers.

That said, I know for a fact p35 has 1:1 in at least 266strap (of course 333 too). However, I can't say the same for g33 at the moment, although I wouldn't be surprised if it's just something gigabyte is working on

[__Miguel_]

dividers aren't dictated by memory at all. I see what hot_fifty is trying to say. Maybe at a low enough fsb, the board will switch to another strap, which has a different set of dividers.

That said, I know for a fact p35 has 1:1 in at least 266strap (of course 333 too). However, I can't say the same for g33 at the moment, although I wouldn't be surprised if it's just something gigabyte is working on

Totally agree on the first part.

I do have to add, though, that according to Anandtech, the G33 also has 1:1 in 266 and 333 straps. It seems that, for some odd reason, Gigabyte didn't implement it...

Cheers.

Miguel

[ziddey]

I agree with the 333strap part, but I'm not entirely sure about the 266strap. Even the p5k which uses the p35 doesn't have 1:1 in 266strap. Hence if spd programming only has 533, it won't even post. However, once you hit 293fsb, you get more dividers to choose from, which assumingly means that it can switch to the 333strap. That said, it makes sense what we're seeing with this g33 board. However, it seems that gigabyte didn't implement the same 333strap switch. And unfortunately, it looks like bsel manipulation to force 333strap won't work on this board.

[BulldogPO]

I ordered one from Primustronix.de pretty good price 106EUR
I´m going to build 1080p HTPC with that mobo after Q6600 price goes down, then I swap E6600 to this mATX.
Now I need to find cheap Antec Fusion case....

[__Miguel_]

€106? Wow! Very nice price indeed... And it's even the DS2R version, not the S2 one! Hope it's about that price when it finally comes here to Portugal...

Btw, anyone has benches of the IGP, comparing to the G965 and the X1250?

Cheers.

Miguel

[pengizzle]

we received an answer to the question bout dividers from Thomas Bohlken (GIGABYTE-Team germany) sayin that since the board is mATX and not meant for xtreme overclocking Gigaybte does not plan on adding more dividers.

So I guess that a mod bios is the only chance to get 1:1 in the near future...or i will just have to spend some more money on 500Mhz Ram :-(

[ziddey]

if someone wants to fiddle with this idea, remove the microcode part of the bios and flash it. hopefully, it'll still boot and worst case good scenario, say unknown cpu. true worst case would be microcode mismatch and no post situation, and since gigabyte is now not socketed, it'd be more or less bricked

[stragulus]

If I get the dividers correctly, leaving the setting on AUTO will use a 4:5 divider for CPU's with a default FSB of 200 (E21xx, E4xxx), or 266 (E6xxx) ?

So, with an E2160, which defaults to 9x200, the memory would run at 250Mhz (PC4000). To run it at 3Ghz, it would require a CPU FSB of 333, and 416Mhz memory.. that is not so bad, is it? Won't most PC6400 sticks run at this speed with a little vDimm bump?

I'm considering one of these, as they're only 114 euro here locally, and of course because it's mATX. I don't need killer speeds, 3Ghz is enough So if that will work with PC6400, it doesn't sound so bad.

[pengizzle]

There are two dividers for 200MHz CPUs afaik. One is 3:5 which @266MHz FSB would require 886MHz Memory Frequence. Other one is 1:2 and a resulting 1066MHz Memory Frequency. So one should be fine with 3:5 and some slightly occable DDR2-800 up to 266MHz FSB. Not enough for me though :-(

[tam2]

Maybe u guys wanna try other board?
http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1...90&modelmenu=2
But only ICH9 not ICH9R, so thats suckkk

-tam2-

[stragulus]

That board does not exist here yet

Can't find *anything* on it either sadly

[stragulus]

There are two dividers for 200MHz CPUs afaik. One is 3:5 which @266MHz FSB would require 886MHz Memory Frequence. Other one is 1:2 and a resulting 1066MHz Memory Frequency. So one should be fine with 3:5 and some slightly occable DDR2-800 up to 266MHz FSB. Not enough for me though :-(

Are those the two dividers you can choose other than AUTO? Ogling the screenshots so far it seems that AUTO implies 4:5 with a 1066Mhz CPU. What does AUTO do on a 200Mhz FSB CPU? Maybe I don't understand what AUTO means, to me it seems like it's just another divider, but perhaps I'm wrong.