Naast de Abit KT7-RAID review heeft BXBoards vandaag ook een review van het Gigabyte GA-7ZM plankje gepost. Dit KT133 plankje heeft een weinig opwindende MicroATX layout met 3 PCI slots en 3 DIMM sockets. Afgezien van de droge specs voldoet de GA-7ZM aan de verwachtingen. Het plankje functioneerde zeer stabiel en kon zelfs tot 117MHz FSB overgeklokt worden:
While Gigabyte do not aim for the overclocking market (although recent boards show this policy may be changing), this board is stunningly stable when bus overclocking, coming very close in overclocked stability to the Abit K7T RAID board. The Duron 650 was more than happy to run stable at 6.5 x 117 on this mainboard, something other boards targeted towards the overclocking community have failed to do with stability. Gigabyte's previous SlotA Athlon board also exhibited excellent overclocked stability so while Gigabyte do not promote this feature, its clear that Gigabyte know "something" about obtaining bus overclocked stability that many of their manufacturing peers have so far failed to grasp.
With the excellent overclocked stability, and decent gaming performance the GA-7ZM appeals, but in its micro-ATX form factor is a real let down here. I'd love to see Gigabyte rework this design into a 6/1/1 PCI/ISA/AGP combo. In the meantime the GA-7ZM does a good job, but only really recommended for micro-ATX users.