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)

BIOS Configuration:

The options available in the BIOS are pretty common on most motherboards. Gigabyte has again hidden the Advanced Chipset options. To get to this menu control + F1 must be pressed while in the BIOS. Then the user has access to this menu. In the Advanced Chipset Features, memory timings can be changed and the memory performance can be tweaked. Gigabyte locked this part of the BIOS because some users will not know how to adjust these settings properly and it could result is system failure or instability.

Another useful menu is the PC Health. This menu shows all the system vitals such as voltages, temperatures, and fan speeds. The menu also contains options to set CPU warning temperatures and various fan failure warnings. Also Gigabyte has provided software that can give the same information that the PC Health can but from inside of Windows.

Options for overclocking are present in the motherboard as well. Since the 845PE chipset does no officially support an 800 MHz FSB, these options will need to be used to fully utilize the new processors. Front Side Bus can be changed anywhere from 100 to 355. The adjustments can be keyed in individually, allowing for increments of 1 MHz. Also the necessary AGP/PCI ratios are available to keep the AGP/PCI bus within specification when overclocking.

The voltage options found in the BIOS are low for the overclockers. These low voltages do not allow for much overclocking but mild overclocks can be obtained. The DIMM voltages go from default to +0.2V in .1V increments. The CPU voltages go as high as 1.6V. We have seen much higher voltage options on other boards such as the ABIT BH7 but Gigabyte has never been known for its great overclocking capabilities. Their boards are based more on features, stock performance, and reliability.