Gigabyte GA-9ITDW (E7525), Continued
Gigabyte allows for monitoring both processor's temperature as well as the values of the 6700PXH and both the SCSI and LAN chips. We set a threshold of 75°C for the Nocona processors, yet the motherboard did not notify us in any way after crossing this line. At 105°C, the processors would shut down the system themselves anyways, but there should be a way to notify the user before that critical temperature is reached.
The BIOS offers lots of features that ambitious users will appreciate.
Pressing CTRL+F1 will open a hidden BIOS menu that allows for altering CPU multiplier, memory parameters and Front Side Bus adjustment.
Broadcom's GbE chip is attached via PCI Express.
A look at Gigabyte's I/O backplane. Gigabyte does not provide the second COM port.
Gigabyte bundles lots of useful accessories.
Using a Gigabyte Beta BIOS in order to enable the fan control mechanism, the system suddenly worked considerably slower. As a result, we switched back to the F1E version.
Our test at high CPU load caused the processors to shut down the system at 105°C CPU temperature. Unfortunately, the motherboard would not warn the user before reaching the threshold.
