Besides its interesting name, the board is curious for its new Intel i845E chipset, which officially supports 533MHz FSB.

i845E chipset.
As you probably know, on the 6th of May (rather long ago), Intel issued new Pentium 4 2.26 GHz and 2.4B GHz, which are designed for working with 533MHz FSB (later Pentium 4 2.53GHz was issued).

I'd like to say a few words about labeling. In order to distinguish new processors, letter B is used (e. g. Pentium4 2.4B). Pentium 4 2.26 and 2.53 do not have analogs, which work with 400MHz FSB and thus do not have an auxiliary letter in their name.
New processors were issued in order to increase total system performance by means of higher memory bandwidth. However performance will grow only if memory bandwidth grows with FSB clock increase. In other words, if a processor became faster, memory must work faster as well. By the way, I was reviewing similar situation in my Epox 8K3A review. In particular, I was performing tests with a processor working at 133MHz and 166MHz FSB clocks.

At the same time Intel issued chipsets, which support new processors. These are the new revision of i850(E) (it works with dual-channel RDRAM memory) and i845(E) chipsets.

So let's see how i845E chipset differs from its predecessor i845D.I start from the main point: i845E supports 533MHz FSB but unfortunately doesn't officially support PC2700 memory. That is why the use of new processors increases system performance only slightly. This happens because FSB bandwidth grows from 3.2Gb/s up to 4.3Gb/s. But memory bandwidth remains at 2.1Gb/s.

PC2700 support appears only from i845PE chipset. However i845E supports PC2700 unofficially but this mode can be used only by few overclocking enthusiasts.

There is one more difference between i845E and i845D. It's the use of new ICH (I/O Controller Hub). i845E incorporates ICH4, which supports 6 USB 2.0 ports. Also ICH4 has enhanced sound subsystem: now it supports 6-channel sound. Other characteristics remained the same since ICH2: these are support of 6 PCI devices and support of 4 ATA100 devices.

Also a bus for bridges connection was modernized. i845E uses Hub Link v1.1 (versus 1.0 used by previous models). Actually its bandwidth remained the same - 266Mb/s.

i845E specifications:
· Pentium 4 processor support
· Socket-478
· Bridge bus: Intel Hub Architecture v1.1, 266Mb/s
· Maximal RAM capacity: 2Gb
· AGP 2.0 support including 4x mode
· 100/133MHz (166MHz unofficially) memory clock support
· 400/533MHz FSB clock support
· 6 PCI slots
· 33/66/100 IDE modes
· Six USB1.1/2.0 ports
· Six-channel AC'97 sound
· 10/100Mbit LAN
· AMR/CNR extension slots
Now let's remember Celeron processors with Willamette core. It is not profitable to buy Intel 845E boards for them. Firstly, these boards will cost much more than ones made on other chipsets (Intel chipsets have not ever been characterized with low cost). And, secondly, Intel 845G chipset with built-in video core looks attractive.

Gigabyte GA-8IE Specifications

CPU

• Intel Pentium 4 (Willamette/Northwood) with 400/533MHz FSB clock
• Intel Celeron (Willamette) with 400MHz FSB clock, Socket 478

i845E chipset

• Intel® 82645E north bridge, Memory Controller Hub (MCH)
• Intel® 82801DB south bridge, Enhanced I/O Controller Hub (ICH4)

System memory

• Three 184-pin slots for DDR SDRAM DIMM

Graphics

• AGP slot, 4x mode support

Extension slots

• Five 32-bit PCI Bus Master slots

Overclocking possibilities

• FSB variation in the range from 100 up to 200 MHz with 1MHz step increment

Disk subsystem

• 2 UltraDMA/100/66/33 channels
• Bus Master IDE (with 4 ATAPI devices support)
• LS-120 / ZIP / ATAPI CD-ROM support
  

Sound

• Onboard AC'97 v2.2

BIOS

• 2MBit Flash ROM
• Award BIOS v.6.00PG with Enhanced ACPI, DMI, Green, PnP Features and Trend Chip Away Virus support
  

Accessories

• One FDD port
• Two serial ports and one parallel port
• PS/2 mouse and keyboard ports
• Power supply LED indicator
• STR (Suspend to RAM)
  

Monitoring

• Case security control.
  

USB support

• Six USB 2.0 ports (2 built-in + 4 auxiliary)
  

Power management

• ACPI/APM - Wake-on mouse/keyboard/USB
  

Power supply

• Standard 20-pin ATX power connector (ATX-PW)
• Auxiliary 4-pin power connector
  

Dimensions

• ATX form-factor, 200mm õ 293mm (7.86" x 11.52")

Box contents
· Motherboard;
· CD with drivers and software;
· ATA-100 cable, FDD cable;
· User manual and brief installation manual;
· Extra bracket with USB2.0 ports;
· Sticker with jumpers' description.

I received the board in OEM package again ("again" because my previous Gigabyte GA-8SRX board was in plastic bag as well). It is either Gigabyte has run out of boxes, or this is a next step of Gigabyte to cheapen its cost of transportation to Russia. Unfortunately, long transportation will hardly benefit the board.
Also they decided to save money on user manual. The user manual doesn't have anything valuable except specification and layout (the latter one is of bad quality). BIOS description section does not present at all. Actually there is a couple of pages with description of BIOS setup items and "Save and Exit " procedure description. For especially curious ones there is a comment that the complete version of the manual can be downloaded from http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/. OK, let's download this PDF manual. We have an exact copy of the paper manual: no BIOS settings description, but there is a comment referring us back to the site. It is funny that there is a smiling face drawn near these comments.
Actually it worth noting that manual quality varies from one model to another. GA8SRX manual is like Bible compared to our manual (there is even a separate section in Russian). In case of Gigabyte 8IE we have 38 pages in English and 36 pages in Chinese.
The brief manual also look quite familiar. This is a big re-doubled sheet of A2 format (I have measured myself) on which all the steps of installation procedure are described. A qualitative picture follows each step.
CD contents is specific for Gigabyte products. Besides standard drivers (IAA - Intel Application Accelerator & USB2.0, AC'97) there are many utilities written on the CD: Intel LANDesk Client Manager v6.10, Gigabyte System Information Viewer (ordinary monitoring system), @BIOS Writer, Motherboard DMI Viewer, Windows Utility Manager, Face Wizard v1.0 (boot-up splash changing program) and finally Easy Tune III program (for overclocking from windows). Also, there is a set of auxiliary software including Norton Antivirus 2002 and Firewall 2002.