There are 5 parts to this review, please use the pulldown below to browse sections or simply hit "Next" at the bottom of each section to continue
Setup and Install
Now that you have seen what this Gigabyte7VAXP includes, let's see how easy
it is to set up and install the OS. The testbed platform we will use will include
the following components and peripherals.
- Lian Li PC65
- Enermax 430w whisper power supply
- Gigabyte 7VAXP version 1.1(F5 Bios)
- AMD XP2000 (1670 MHz) Unlocked
- Volcano 7+ Heatsink and fan
- Corsair PC3200 XMS cl2 Memory
- Western Digital 800jb HD
- IBM Deskstar 60GXP 60g HDx2 for raid test
- ATI Radeon 9700
- Onboard sound and Audigy Gamer
- Realtek onboard 10/100 Ethernet
- Samsung 900df Monitor
The bios on this motherboard were at first lacking in features by first appearance.
As I read further into the small details of the manual and not going by the
usual picture page found out that by pressing CTRL + F1 would bring up the advanced
bios features giving me all the tweaking options one could ask for. The bios
is very complete with the exception of multiplier. This is addressed by jumpers
on the motherboard itself.

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Another unique feature is the dual bios. This board has a true dual bios meaning
it has two EPROM chips on the board and can be set to boot from either bios.
This helps in the case of bios flash failure or degradation of the bios chip
itself. This is a very nice feature I would like to see on all motherboards.
The Vcore on this motherboard was at 1.85 instead of the normal 1.75 for the
AMD XP2000 CPU. This was the only abnormality that was noticed in the bios and
the Vcore is auto selected with adjustments for manual are only to supply more
as needed and not to be selected by user.
The OS install was simple and trouble free. The software install was likewise
as easy with out any problems. The tests that are run are done with Windows
XP Home and SP1. All the tests were ran with Top Performance enabled in the
bios, but no further tweaking in the advanced options. In the overclocking section
bios tweaks were made.
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