Satisfactory performance, efficiency, great quality for low budget
Disadvantages:
Minor problems installing, problems recognising different RAM types
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
The Gigabyte GA-7VT880 is indubitably the fastest socket-A platform still available on the market. It was designed for Athlons mainly, but Semprons work with just as efficiently. It supports 400 MHz DDR-SDRAM sticks; with two identical 256 MB sticks working in Dual Channel, Windows XP runs smoothly with all the visual effects on. Since it is not a 64-bit platform, executing a large amount of applications at once can cause the system to freeze, but that is quite obvious anyway. The motherboard works very efficiently with IDE and SATA hard drives - copying 4.7 gigabytes from one drive to the other takes no more than 8 minutes - that is about 10 MB per second. The SATA RAID configuration has its own Graphical User Interface; therefore manipulating the drives' settings could not be easier. The AGP 8X slot is a budget gaming solution - the motherboard supports advanced graphic cards as well. Whether the user plans to play games or not, the GA-7VT880 is definitely an office solution as opposed to a gaming platform, still many games run smoothly on medium performance settings. Over clocking with the GA-7VT880 could not be easier - the BIOS offers an enormous amount of configurable preferences which, when modified properly, seriously speed up the system.
There are problems with hardware installation of the motherboard. First of all it is a big and heavy device so it is not so easy even to insert the board and fasten it in the tower properly. Secondly, the FSB preferences are very confusing - there is a switch which changes between 100 MHz and up to 400 MHz FSB; it does take a lot of time to figure out which setting is the most appropriate. Lastly, the devices release a lot of heat; with no over clocking at all and an opened tower plus an efficient 60mm fan the CPU runs at approximately 60 degrees C, the chipset almost burns when touched.
Overall, the GA-7VT880 is absolutely the best budget office solution. If the user is up for gaming, this would not be an appropriate choice however for home use at a low cost it indubitably is the best. I would rate the product 9/10 for its performance, value for money and versatility.
More details
Manufacturer Support
Excellent
Instruction manual
Very useful
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