Wednesday, May 19, 1999

The performance tests results

All tests were all performed under Windows98.

The system setup was as following:

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-BX2000
CPU: Intel Pentium II 350mhz
Memory: 64mb PC100 SDram (LGS)
IDE first channel Primary port: Western Digital 4.3gig UDMA66
IDE second channel Primary port: Kenwood 52X True X
AGP slot: ATI Rage Fury 128GL
ISA slot number 2: Ensoniq Soundscape soundcard
ISA slot number 1: US Robotic 56k X2 modem
OS: Win98 4.10
DirectX 6.1

Winbench 99 CPUmark

This test reveals that the GA-BX2000 motherboard compares very well against the Abit BX 6 rev 2.0. As a fact both boards are almost on par with a very slight difference in favor of the GA-BX2000.

Winstone 99

Once again, we have a par on performance for both boards tested.

Winstone 98

A slight difference is favoring the BX6 rev 2.0 here once again on the Winstone 98 benchmark.

Video sub-system tests

As you can see, the video test has been doubled in order to also include an Overclocking test where the PII 350Mhz processor has been pushed to 400Mhz. Once again we see only very minor differences between both motherboards but we all an understand that the BX2000 is also able to work very well under Overclocked condtitions. However, I have not been able to make it work to 448Mhz (112Mhz X4) or 450Mhz (100Mhz X4.5) no matter what I tried but this may depend on the SDRAM memory that I am using at this moment.

Hard disk drive sub-system tests

The more the things are changing, the more they're the same as they say... an almost on par results here again...

The below evaluation table is showing the strong points and the weak points of the tested motherboard. No need to remember to you that we never buy a motherboard only for its performances. Most of today's motherboards are exhibiting performances very close to each others, so, we need additional information in order to help us distinguish what are the real advantages of a motherboard compared to the others and this is exactly where is coming into help this evaluation table.

The score obtained by this motherboard is 97 points out of 100 points. The Gigabyte GA-BX2000 has reached the highest score never observed on this site. No doubts that we really are in presence of a superbly well designed motherboard.

The strong points

The strong points of the GA-BX2000 are: its excellent Overclocking, its excellent expendability, its great performances and most of all the originality of its Dual BIOS design.

The weak points

Let me think here, hummm... sorry but I just can't see... ah, yeah, I found it, the only weakness of this motherboard in my opinion is that there is no processor core voltage adjustment !

Conclusions

Once again, even if they are not among the most popular motherboard manufacturers, Gigabyte has proven their expertise. The GA-BX2000 motherboard is not only a very original product wit its Dual BIOS design but it is also a very high performance motherboard. This motherboard really deserves all my warmest recommendations.

For any additional information, please visit Gigabyte's web site.