Gigabyte GA-7VRXP: Run Windows XP with an AMD XP on the GA-7VRXP
Written: Jan 21 '03
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: Inexpensive, feature rich and stable.
Cons: None here. So far no problems.
The Bottom Line: Great board at a cheap price. Thinking of upgrading? This is a solid choice.
|
|
|
| rice75's Full Review: Gigabyte GA-7VRXP Motherboard |
I hesitated doing a review of a mother board. There are plenty of better places online to get information about motherboard performance. But I figured I could still be helpful by highlighting some of the features that were really useful for me and my research group (we got 3 of these puppies up and running) and my experience in its installation.
When choosing a motherboard, I like getting a name I recognize and one I've had experience with. Gigabyte has a good reputation for making good motherboards. I hadn’t personally used one prior to this upgrade, but I am happy we decided to go with a Gigabyte board. The particular board we choose was the Gigabyte GA-7VRXP. There were many reasons we went with this board. First off, we wanted a board that supported AMD’s Athlon™ XP chip (we installed 1600+ XP’s), one that we could have a RAID configuration, and we needed it to be fairly cheap. The Gigabyte GA-7VRXP fit the bill perfectly.
Our configuration consisted of an AMD Athlon™ XP 1600+, 256 MB PC2100 DDR (Corsair Memory), 80 GB Barricuda HDD (our backup system had three Barricudas, with two in a RAID configuration), Optowrite CD-RW and a 32 MB nVidia TNT2 video card (we do circuit layouts on these computers, not play Unreal Tournament!).
Installation: 10/10
Installing a motherboard on your own is risky business but very fulfilling. Having all the right tools is important (okay, you really only need a couple screwdrivers and a nut-driver) but most important is having patience and taking your time. Installing the Gigabyte GA-7VRXP was fairly straight forward. After securing the board in the case, I installed the processor and memory. Care should be taken to do this correctly. Before powering up, assure that the heatsink is installed properly and the processor fan is plugged in right. Processors heat up fast enough to fry themselves in a matter of seconds. Next I attached the power supply and finally the cables for the drives. Installation overall was nice and easy.
After everything is installed, I booted up the computer, no problem there, entered in the BIOS program and made sure all the drives were recognized and all the settings were how I wanted them. Once this is done, your system is clear to proceed.
Features: 10/10
The Gigabyte GA-7VRXP is chock full of features. More than you’ll probably need, but I want to highlight a few:
VIA KT333 / 8233A(CE) chipset: This is a workhorse chipset and I haven’t had any configuration problems yet.
Promise PDC20276 ATA 133 RAID controller supports RAID 0,1: This is a great feature, RAID was a big deal for us since one of our computers was going to be used as a backup computer. RAID was a little hairy at first to set up but it has been rock solid ever since.
Raeltek 8100BL Ethernet 10/100Mb LAN controller: You can’t live without a way to jack into the net, so this is a necessity. No problems here, either.
Creative CT5880 PCI sound controller: You won’t think you walked into Carnegie Hall when you listen to MP3’s but the sound is just fine for everyday use.
4 x UDMA ATA133/100/66 Bus Master IDE ports for RAID 0 and RAID 1: While only two HDDs can be used by RAID function, having four IDE ports gives you plenty of room to expand.
USB 1.1 and USB 2.0: With USB 2.0 peripherals coming out in droves, this is essential to a PC system.
System health status auto-detect and report by BIOS: An added level of safety to protect your fragile processor.
Overall: 10/10
While the Gigabyte GA-7VRXP is getting a little old, it is still a motherboard that can handle anything you throw at it. As I said earlier, we have three of these boards running in our network and we haven’t had any major problems yet. I would whole heartedly recommend this board for an upgrade to your computer. It has a nice mix of features and perfomance. You can't go wrong with it.
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
rice75
|
 - Top 500 |
|
Member: Tony Rice
Location: Columbus, OH
Reviews written: 73
Trusted by: 66 members
About Me:
Resident Evil 4 will own your soul. Do not resist.
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.