Gigabyte 8PE800 Ultra

Company: Gigabyte
Product: 8PE800 Ultra
Street Price: ~$145 USD
Date Reviewed: May 13, 2003
Reviewed By: Joey Chao
Overall Rating: (8.7/10)

Conclusions and Final Thoughts:

Price and Features - 9

The price tag on this motherboard is not very expensive. It comes with a lot of great features like Serial ATA, Giga RAID, Gigabit Ethernet, IEEE 1394 FireWire support, and 6-channel surround sound capabilities. Also since it does unofficially support the new Intel CPUs, its not a bad bargain at all. Some of the newer 875P boards can cost up to $280. The 8PE800 Ultra is a much cheaper solution providing 800 MHz FSB support and all the onboard goodies.

Performance - 8.5

The 8PE800 Ultra was nothing short of a good performer. It was neck and neck with our ABIT BH7. Also it did well even compared to the 875P motherboard. The 875P in dual channel mode scored higher in most tests, especially the memory dependent ones but the Gigabyte board was not far behind. The 875P board would score the same as the Gigabyte 8PE800 Ultra, if we had used it in a single channel configuration.

Stability - 10

We only tested the motherboard at 200 MHz FSB and higher. At 200 the board ran flawless. Since it officially supports 533/400 MHz FSB processors, it is safe to assume that it can easily run without a problem at lower bus speeds. We even ran Prime 95 overnight to see if the board really was stable at 200 and it was.

Support - 10

Gigabyte support is first-class. They have a website with all the support information located there. Drivers, BIOS, and manuals all can be easily accessed just by visiting their webpage. Also FAQs are provided for quick answers to common problems and questions. There is also a CPU supported list which shows all Gigabyte motherboards and what CPUs they can use. Users can always fill out their service form, found on the Gigabyte Technical Service Zone, for more specific help on a particular product. There is no need for searching the web for answers since all the information can be found either on there website or in the manuals included with the product.

Overclocking - 6

This board did overclock well with our P4 C. The chipset only supports 533/400 MHz FSB officially so running at 800 MHz is good. The voltage options are very low and might make overclocking difficult with processors or memory that require much more voltage to overclock. Even though we should not have needed more voltage to overclock our 800 MHz FSB processor, we still had issues going over 200 MHz. We were a little disappointed but not so much since we are running beyond the specifications of the chipset. Also note we had our BH7 running at 220 MHz FSB.

Overall - 8.7

The Gigabyte 8PE800 is a nice board. It is loaded with features and was able to work with our 800 MHz FSB CPU. The 845PE chipset has come to the end of the line but Gigabyte has done a great job of utilizing the chipset to its full potential. In the future we hope to see more good products from Gigabyte. It is easy to see why they are in the top three motherboard manufacturers. Their quality and service says it all.