GIGABYTE GA-73PVM-S2H LGA 775 NVIDIA GeForce 7100 HDMI Micro ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail

Excellent Board, as usual

Reviewed By: Rob on 9/21/2009

Tech Level: somewhat high - Ownership: 1 week to 1 month

This user purchased this item from Newegg

Pros: - excellent packing
- strong board (put a 3/4 lb heatsink on this microATX board
- no out of the box failures
- I love the extra utilites this mobo comes with
- easy install, wonderfull quality.

A++

Cons: havent' experienced any

Other Thoughts: It's not gigabyte's fault, but i can't fit the ram slot closest to the CPU can't be fit in, HOWEVER this is MY FAULT because I put a ridiculously oversized heatsink WITH extra side-fan on this teeny board..

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Flash before using

Reviewed By: Red on 9/20/2009

Tech Level: high - Ownership: 1 week to 1 month

This user purchased this item from Newegg

Pros: Good price for what you get
HDMI out
Mostly plug and play

Cons: Only three SATA ports (but I did know before buying)
BIOS revision didn't like my wireless adapter
No jumper on the BIOS reset leads? Really?

Other Thoughts: I replaced a premium board with this one so most of the shortfalls are not fair to compare; you get what you pay for feature wise.

However, using Linux I found wonky usb issues with the bios revision it shipped with. Just make sure you flash the bios to the latest revision and everything seems to work great now. (you'll note most of the updates were for usb device compatibility. PLUS, a usb drive is detected as a floppy so updating it was a pure breeze.

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Reviewed By: on 9/17/2009

Tech Level: high - Ownership: 1 month to 1 year

This user purchased this item from Newegg

Pros: Works great as a DAW for which it was purchased. Running Cubase 4.0 Studio with an Echo Audio PCI interface box, which if you know anything about DAWS, you know that PCI interfaces process typically up to 8 I/O streams of audio data simultaneously, in parallel, not like serial 1394 or USB. What this means is this mobo and the core2 2.8 CPU are delivering the goods with no hits, runs, or errors in recorded audio content. I don't use the onboard audio (who would even want to given that this mobo is supporting a DAW app) and I keep it isolated from the internet so I don't use the LAN interface; hence I can't talk to those aspects of this mobo. The dual head integrated video is fast and looks great and dual 21" LCD screens at max reso.

Cons: The installation instructions are a bit ambiguous. There were a few false starts concerning driver installation and setup as a consequence, but I managed to work through the probs over the course of a few days...

Other Thoughts: Works perfectly well with the high-end application for which it was purchased.

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