Review: Gigabyte GA-8PENXP (Intel 865PE)

Dom · Jun 25, 2003, 05:32 PM

The new Intel 865PE chipset is really targeted at the mainstream market segment with its attractive pricing and its powerful features. Of course, if you compare it with the top-of-the-line Intel 875P chipset also recently launched not long, the 865PE would probably lag behind the former by a small margin. However, that's quite insignificant to users especially for those who don't really require that last extra ounce of performance. In fact, the Intel 865PE is quite on-par with the 875P if you put in a little more effort in optimizing the system with more aggressive memory timings and clock speeds. But that's a different ball game altogether.

Today, we'll look at Gigabyte's 865PE offering which is known as the GA-8PENXP. The GA-8PENXP is the most feature rich 865PE board that Gigabyte has to offer. Packed with a lot of on-board goodies, there's really not much you need to purchase with the board except for a good graphics card (a Gigabyte RADEON 9800PRO perhaps?) and definitely a good sound card to spice it up further. Other than those two items, Gigabyte has pretty much taken care of everything - from SATA RAID controllers all the way to IEEE 1394 support.

Read the review at HardwareZone.com

Jun 25, 2003, 05:32 PM	#1
Dom DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Jun 2002 Posts: 12,940 Rep Power: 0	Review: Gigabyte GA-8PENXP (Intel 865PE) The new Intel 865PE chipset is really targeted at the mainstream market segment with its attractive pricing and its powerful features. Of course, if you compare it with the top-of-the-line Intel 875P chipset also recently launched not long, the 865PE would probably lag behind the former by a small margin. However, that's quite insignificant to users especially for those who don't really require that last extra ounce of performance. In fact, the Intel 865PE is quite on-par with the 875P if you put in a little more effort in optimizing the system with more aggressive memory timings and clock speeds. But that's a different ball game altogether. Today, we'll look at Gigabyte's 865PE offering which is known as the GA-8PENXP. The GA-8PENXP is the most feature rich 865PE board that Gigabyte has to offer. Packed with a lot of on-board goodies, there's really not much you need to purchase with the board except for a good graphics card (a Gigabyte RADEON 9800PRO perhaps?) and definitely a good sound card to spice it up further. Other than those two items, Gigabyte has pretty much taken care of everything - from SATA RAID controllers all the way to IEEE 1394 support. Read the review at HardwareZone.com