Hi all,
I work in a computer shop down here in New Zealand, and thought the Gigabyte 7VA-- series (7VA, 7VAX, 7VAXP, 7VAX1394) were great boards...a few bios issues, but got them fixed. Easy to install, stable. In our assembly of new systems we run memtestx86 v3.0 (among others) to test the ram. I didn't really pay much attention to it unless I got errors. However, I've recently been noticing the speeds that it reports for the ram, L1 and L2 cache. Something clicked (in my head) one day, from all the boards I'm tested with this program - the 7VA-- speeds were not up to scratch. We noramlly use Transcend DDR333 ram, which uses the samsung chips and can run at DDR400 happily. So I decided to do a bit of testing.
I've tried all these boards, using different bios versions. I noramlly use the optimal defaults for all boards, and change anything applicable around. With these boards for the memory settings, I've tried Auto, 266, 333 and 400. I do not know how accurate memtestx86 is with it's speeds, but that;s besides the point. What I have noticed is that it is consistent, whcih is what counts. Here's what I've found:
For the auto setting (which correctly sets it to 333) and 333: 607 Mb/s speed. The 266 setting was slightly less I think, and the 400 setting just plain crap...around 315 I think (didn't write these speeds down, sorry).
Other boards:
Asus P4PE (DDR333): 1055 Mb/s
Epox EP-3VCA (PC133): 321 Mb/s (as you'd expect this is lower than DDR)
Asus A7N266-VM (DDR266): 618 Mb/s
Gigabyte 8PE667 (DDR333): 1070 Mb/s
Asus P4S533-VM (DDR333): 1220ish Mb/s (didn't write this one down either)
I have not tried any other brands whcih use the KT400 chipset. What I want to know is why is the 7VA-- range so slow with their memory speeds (esp. compared to the intel 333 chipsets, notable the 845PE)? Is it just the way Gigabyte have done something, or is it the chipset not up to scratch? I was surprised that the SiS chipset acutally gave the highest numbers. Is memtestx86 doing something I'm overlooking here? As mentioned, I didn't touch any memory settings other than the optimal defaults (except where applicable say in the 7VA-- range to force it to a specific DDR speed). I've also tried generic DDR333 memory with the same results.
Comments/suggestions? Is there a better place to ask this?
Cheers,
Josh
I work in a computer shop down here in New Zealand, and thought the Gigabyte 7VA-- series (7VA, 7VAX, 7VAXP, 7VAX1394) were great boards...a few bios issues, but got them fixed. Easy to install, stable. In our assembly of new systems we run memtestx86 v3.0 (among others) to test the ram. I didn't really pay much attention to it unless I got errors. However, I've recently been noticing the speeds that it reports for the ram, L1 and L2 cache. Something clicked (in my head) one day, from all the boards I'm tested with this program - the 7VA-- speeds were not up to scratch. We noramlly use Transcend DDR333 ram, which uses the samsung chips and can run at DDR400 happily. So I decided to do a bit of testing.
I've tried all these boards, using different bios versions. I noramlly use the optimal defaults for all boards, and change anything applicable around. With these boards for the memory settings, I've tried Auto, 266, 333 and 400. I do not know how accurate memtestx86 is with it's speeds, but that;s besides the point. What I have noticed is that it is consistent, whcih is what counts. Here's what I've found:
For the auto setting (which correctly sets it to 333) and 333: 607 Mb/s speed. The 266 setting was slightly less I think, and the 400 setting just plain crap...around 315 I think (didn't write these speeds down, sorry).
Other boards:
Asus P4PE (DDR333): 1055 Mb/s
Epox EP-3VCA (PC133): 321 Mb/s (as you'd expect this is lower than DDR)
Asus A7N266-VM (DDR266): 618 Mb/s
Gigabyte 8PE667 (DDR333): 1070 Mb/s
Asus P4S533-VM (DDR333): 1220ish Mb/s (didn't write this one down either)
I have not tried any other brands whcih use the KT400 chipset. What I want to know is why is the 7VA-- range so slow with their memory speeds (esp. compared to the intel 333 chipsets, notable the 845PE)? Is it just the way Gigabyte have done something, or is it the chipset not up to scratch? I was surprised that the SiS chipset acutally gave the highest numbers. Is memtestx86 doing something I'm overlooking here? As mentioned, I didn't touch any memory settings other than the optimal defaults (except where applicable say in the 7VA-- range to force it to a specific DDR speed). I've also tried generic DDR333 memory with the same results.
Comments/suggestions? Is there a better place to ask this?
Cheers,
Josh
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