Gigabyte 8PE667 Ultra2 i845PE Based Mainboard

i845PE chipset

The board is almost identical to the 8PE667 Ultra and differs from its twin only in the onboard controllers.

Accessories:

Package of the standard design which is laminated with plastic with a some holographic effect;
Documentation: user manual, manual for IDE RAID, manual for SATA RAID, poster with brief installation steps - in English;
Cables: FDD, 3 SATA, 3 ATA66/100/133;
Bracket with SATA connectors (2 interface connector plus 1 cable with standard SATA and standard IDE);

Bracket with 4 USB ports;
Bracket with Rear, Center/Sub and S/PDIF-Out connectors (Coaxial and TosLink);
Bracket for the rear computer panel;
CD containing:

drivers;
DirectX 8.1;
Adobe Acrobat Reader;
Norton Internet Security 2002;
Gigabyte EasyTune 4;
Gigabyte IA Panel;
Gigabyte Face Wizard;
Gigabyte Windows Utility Manager;
Gigabyte Management Tools;
Gigabyte BIOS Writer.

Surely, such a highly integrated board has some shortcomings in the layout: audio-ins are in front of the PCI, and the IDE RAID are behind them, and when a video card is installed it's difficult to handle the memory modules. No switches or jumpers.

The 3-channel switching voltage regulator incorporates 10 capacitors of 1500 uF.

The following controllers are integrated:

audio controller based on the chipset's capabilities and Avance Logic ALC650 AC'97 codec supporting 5.1 audio systems and having connectors for front audio inputs/outputs and for SPDIF;
network controller based on the Intel Intel RC82540EM chip supporting 10BaseT/100BaseTX/1000BaseT (Gigabit Ethernet);
IDE RAID controller based on the Promise PDC20276 chip supporting RAID 0 and 1 on the protocols up to ATA133;
SATA RAID controller based on the Silicon Image Sil3112ACT144 chip supporting RAID 0 and 1 on the SATA150 protocol.

Thanks to the ITE IT8712F-A controller the board supports (and have connectors) a SmartCard Reader.

The board supports the DualBIOS technology (there is a backup Flash EEPROM chip with BIOS copy).

+2.5 V supplied to the memory modules is indicated with the LED. When a 3.3V card is inserted into the AGP slot you will see the LED going on which means that the card is incompatible.

Non-unsoldered connectors: serial port connector (it's used on the i845GE based board).

The system monitoring is supported by the ITE IT8712F-A chip. What is controlled:

processor voltage, 1.5, +3.3, +5 and +12 V;
speed of 3 fans;
temperatures of the processor (a built-in sensor).

There are 2 connectors for adjustable and 2 for unadjustable connection of fans (one of them is connected to a fan on the heatsink of the chipset's north bridge).

Brief characteristics of the board: memory slots - 3 DDR SDRAM; expansion slots - AGP/ 6 PCI/ CNR; I/O ports - 2 COM/ LPT/ 2 PS/2/ 6 USB 2.0; dimensions - 305x245 mm.

Adjustment can be carried out with:

BIOS based on Award 6.00PG	Setup of memory timings	+	CAS Latency, Active to Precharge, RAS to CAS Delay, RAS Precharge
	Setup of memory frequency	+	Auto, Host/DRAM = 2, 2,5
	Setup of AGP bus	-
	Setup of PCI bus	-
	Changeable scaler of AGP and PCI buses	+	AGP(PCIx2) = 66-100 MHz in 1MHz steps
	Manual assignment of interrupts	+
	Changeable FSB frequency	+	100-355 MHz in 1MHz steps
	Changeable CPU multiplier	+	x8-x50
	Changeable core voltage	+	1.5-1.75 in 0.025 V steps
	Changeable memory voltage	+	Normal, +0.1, +0.2 V
	Changeable chipset voltage	-
	Changeable AGP bus voltage	+	Normal, +0.1, +0.2, +0.3 V

We used the BIOS F2 as the latest available version.

Gigabit Ethernet and SATA RAID instead of 4 additional USB 2.0 ports and Flash Card Reader support looks like a beneficial replacement. The board thus looks more attractive than its predecessor 8PE667 Ultra, and it really is one of the brightest models on this chipset; besides, the speed of both Gigabyte's solutions is quite high.

Test results:

Intel 845PE and VIA P4X400 Based Mainboards Roundup

Dmitry Mayorov (destrax@ixbt.com)

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