Gigabyte P4 Titan GA-8TRX330-L Motherboard Review

In terms of features, the board is average; offering the same features as the competition. The one thing that makes this board interesting is the ATI chipset, which fails to impress at the performance level. The Pentium 4 processor craves memory bandwidth, and this chipset bottlenecks the power of the Pentium 4 processor, requiring its highest overclock to achieve the performance of an Intel chipset.

Conclusion

ATI’s newest chipset offers the same features as Intel’s 865PE and 875P, but Intel’s chipsets have had more time to mature. Previous testing has shown us that even Intel’s chips sometimes had performance issues when first introduced.

Newer drivers over the years have stabilized the systems, and we expect the same from ATI. It would be nice if there was more control at the BIOS level over the system’s capabilities, but right now they are very weak, achieving a maximum overclock of 232 FSB. The limited options can be a boon for the average user, as one can overclock with no fear of system damage.

Overlooking the overclock issue, the memory performance still does not match the average 865PE or 875P chipsets. This review will be updated if newer drivers yeild any performance change, but even if new drivers increase memory bandwidth beyond Intel’s performance, the system can only be overclocked slightly.

The current performance can only afford this product a below average 6 out of 10. We will be watching the RX330, but right now motherboards with Intel chipsets offer more performance and more overclocking options for around the same price.

Pros

• Alternative chipset for Pentium 4
• very stable

Cons

• Poor overclocking options
• Immature drivers yeilds below average memory performance
• Average motherboard features