GA-M51GM-S2G

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/...e=GA-M51GM-S2G

Thinking about getting one of these boards and have heard of a few problems
with the nforce4 controller.

I am currently using an Abit NF7-S, (nforce2), and haven't been particularly
satisfied with it.

Is there a concensus on nforce 4 controllers?
I am aware nforce5 is about so is nforce4 past its use by date?

Cheers.

"JK" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 22 Jun 2006 19:07:06 +0800, "dobey" wrote:

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/...e=GA-M51GM-S2G

Thinking about getting one of these boards and have heard of a few
problems
with the nforce4 controller.


I don't understand what you mean with NF4 controller. NF4 chipset ?

Sorry, yes I meant chipset. I have heard of data corruption using SATA
drives on some boards with nforce chipsets.
This seems to correlate with my experience, but I just thought I got a dodgy
board (see below).



I am currently using an Abit NF7-S, (nforce2), and haven't been
particularly
satisfied with it.

Is there a concensus on nforce 4 controllers?
I am aware nforce5 is about so is nforce4 past its use by date?


Nforce5 ? not heard of that.

http://www.trustedreviews.com/article.aspx?art=2915
More like it on google.


The chipset of current board is Nforce430. So it is NF4 generation.

It is a good idea to use an AM2 board with DDR2 ram for an integrated
graphics board. Better graphics performance than with s939. Take care
to use 2 ram sticks, - this is essential for performance of onboard
graphics when one has dual ram band.


Is this specifically for the graphics chipset, or are you refering to dual
channel memory?

With s939 and DDR1 I have had performance like geforce 6200 with
onboard graphics. This is only modest gamer level ! It should not be
much better with DDR2, but maybe a little better.

Such micro-atx boards normally don't have a bios suitable for
overclocking.

An expection is this board:
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/917...eam/index.html

It is not possible to find any review of the GA-M51GM-S2G yet !

I was looking, but couldn't find one. Only reviews were some AM2 boards
using nforce5 chipsets.

The GA-M51GM-S2G has pretty well all I want, DDR2, onboard VGA, so I will be
able to upgrade my VGA later and I don't need to fork out all at once. Being
the latest CPU socket, I *hope* to be able to upgrade my CPU within the life
of the mobo
Many of the nforce4 board reviews were september 2005, which is why I was
thinking it might be long in the tooth, (not that it means it is a bad
chipset).

It seems like a well priced option currently available to me.
Probably paired with a 4400 CPU


Maybe you are better off with a real ATX board with overclocker
options, like your NF7-S.


I'm not much into overclocking, as generally I find there is always some
program that won't run properly when overclocked, hell, even some games
won't run properly with AGP 8x enabled and no overclock.

It seems to me if I am going to spend that much time money and effort
getting something to work faster, I may as well save my money, work that
extra time, and just buy the faster product in the first place. ;-)

While I like to fiddle with my PC as much as the next guy, there comes a
point where I actually want to use it! Then I don't want it to crash, or
have to be pulling the cover off due to overheating etc ;-)

My NF7-S has been flaky, RAID never worked properly, I am always having to
run check disk, and often get "filesystem is unusable" messages in event
viewer (legal copy of XP). No matter which HDD I have used. I've run chkdsk
/r over the disks many times, or used them in other PCs no problem.

The board even stopped working altogether once, so I sent it back but when
they tested, it booted on their setup, so they reckoned it was fine. Nothing
like that happened on any other PC I built, and all of the parts worked fine
in the ASUS A7V 880 I replaced it with.

Anyway I resurrected the NF7 to give it another go,(using it now), and that
is what has prompted me to upgrade ;-)

Then I would go for a MSI AM2 board.


Why?

Cheers.

"JK" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 23 Jun 2006 18:29:01 +0800, "dobey" wrote:



I was looking, but couldn't find one. Only reviews were some AM2 boards
using nforce5 chipsets.

Well, I found some they call nforce 500 chipset:

http://www.hardocp.com/

from foxconn

best regards


I was refering to reviews of the GA-M51GM-S2G motherboard, which has an
nforce 4 chipset, I thought that was clear in context, and the fact I
mentioned nforce5 in the sentence, and also mentioned review in the same
sentence...

On Fri, 23 Jun 2006 18:29:01 +0800, "dobey" wrote:


Nforce5 ? not heard of that.

http://www.trustedreviews.com/article.aspx?art=2915
More like it on google.


Sorry, nice article though !

The sata problems with nvidia drivers in the beginning with nforce4
should be history now (also a problem with nforce3), but I am no sure.
I have heard of that the medicine was not to install the nvidia
drivers but keep the microsoft drivers (one are asked for choice).

If the problem exists nowadays also, I don't know for sure.

On my nforce3 ultra board I use the silicon image controller, since
this is locked to pci fsb.

I also use a nforce4 board with onboard graphics (6100) but I use a
IDE harddisk on it.

best regards

John