2.4B, Gigabyte 8SQ800 vs. Epox 4PEA+ Results

[deeznuts]

Well, I finally got the Gigabyte up and running. It's the 8SQ800 from newegg, non-ultra, without digital sound, raid, or SATA. The board itself looks nice, has a good layout, and has the usual gigabyte build quality. The northbridge is A0 stepping, not the newer B0, and revision is 1.0.

Issues I have had with the board:
This board, at least the one I have, is not too stable. It installs XP perfectly everytime, no problem. But once XP is installed, it is finnicky, and about 1 in every 6 reboots, refuses to load windows. Whenever it fails to load Windows, hitting the reset button will not work, as it hangs when detecting the IDE drives at post. A hard reboot (shutting down, then turning it back on) cures this, and it goes into windows.
Another issue, I don't know how major, is that when running Sandra tests, in the summary below the results, Sandra always says that the SMP test has run, and I'm only allowed to choose between SMP results. I think this is related to the Hyper THreading workaround that Gigabyte implemented into the A0 northbridge, which was not qualified to run Hyper Threading. I don't know if this is what's causing Windows to fail to load every once in a while, as the board is solid once it gets there.
Another issue is Vdimm, which only goes to 2.6. Because of this, I couldn't run 4:5 ratio when overclocking my 2.4B to 167 fsb. And even at DDR400, i had to back down the timings.
Another issue is for some reason, Windows takes forever to load, like it keeps hesitating when it should be flying through. the epox is much faster in this department.
The last major issue is resetting the CMOS. What a pain in the butt. There is no jumper, you must physically take out the battery for 30 seconds or so. I use a SCSI card, and must remove it just to get to the battery.

Test Setup (all tests done on SiS655 was dual channel)

Variables Common to Both Platforms - 2.4B C1 Pentium 4, Radeon 9700 (non-pro) at default speeds, Turtle Beach Santa Cruz, 2 x 256MB Twinmos DDR400 with winbond 5ns chips, Adaptec 2930U2 SCSI controller, 18GB Atlas 10KIII, Seagate Cuda IV 80GB, Lite-On 52x, Antec PP412X. Clean install of Windows XP.

-4PEA+ Specifics - Newest Intel INF's, and Intel Application Accelerator
-8SQ800 Specifics - SiS AGP Driver

Different Configurations
1. i845Pe, 2.4, 4:5 ratio
SPeed - 2411.6
Mem Freq - 334.9
Mem Timings - 2-2-2-5

2. i845PE, 3.0, 4:5 ratio
FSB Bios - 167
FSB CPUZ - 167
Speed - 3006.8
Mem Freq - 417.6
Mem Timings - 2-2-2-5

3. SiS655, 2.4, 1:1 ratio
FSB Bios - 133
FSB CPUZ - 133.9
Speed - 2410.2
Mem Freq - 266 (dual channel)
Mem Timings - 2-2-2-5

4. SiS655, 2.4, 4:5 ratio
FSB Bios - 133
FSB CPUZ - 133.9
Speed - 2410.2
Mem Freq - 333
Mem Timings - 2-2-2-5

5. SiS655, 3.0, 1:1 ratio
FSB Bios - 167
FSB CPUZ - 167
Speed - 3006.8
Mem Freq - 417.6
Mem Timings - 2-2-2-5

6. SiS655, 3.0, DDR400 (couldn't quite reach 4:5 ratio)
FSB Bios - 167
FSB CPUZ - 167
Speed 3006
Mem Frequ - 400
Mem Timings 2.5-3-3-6

Tests Ran - Sandra 2003 Mem bandwidth, Arithmetic, and Multimedia. 3dmark2001 (build 330, everything default), and TMPGEnc encoding of 9000 frames (about 5 minutes) at 2500 bitrate.
Not an exhaustive suite of benchmarks, I know, but I really don't have access to any more. That's all I have! I tried to run 3dmark2003, but the damn thing takes to long, so in the interests of my time, I stopped testing it.

Sandra 2003 Mem Bandwidth
Int 3820, Float 3818 - SiS655, 3.0, DDR400
Int 3770, Float 3772 - SiS655, 3.0, 1:1 ratio
Int 3311, Float 3308 - SiS655, 2.4, 4:5 ratio
Int 3189, Float 3187 - i845PE, 3.0, 4:5 ratio
Int 3090, FLoat 3094 - SiS655, 2.4, 1:1 ratio
Int 2550, Float 2548 - i845PE, 2.4, 4:5 ratio

Sandra 2003 Arithmetic
Dhrystone 8245, Whetstone 1716/3925 - SiS655, 3.0, 1:1 ratio
Dhrystone 8217, Whetstone 1716/3923 - SiS655, 3.0, DDR400
Dhrystone 7690, Whetstone 1741/3958 - i845Pe, 3.0, 4:5 ratio
Dhrystone 6718, Whetstone 1393/3171 - i845PE, 2.4, 4:5 ratio
Dhrystone 6705, Whetstone 1377/3150 - SiS655, 2.4, 4:5 ratio
Dhrystone 6689, Whetstone 1374/3139 - SiS655, 2.4, 1:1 ratio

Sandra 2003 MultiMedia
Int 11943, Float 15212 - i845PE, 3.0, 4:5 ratio
Int 11843, Float 15097 - SiS655, 3.0, 1:1 ratio
Int 11842, Float 15091 - SiS655, 3.0, DDR400
Int 9570, Float 12197 - i845PE, 2.4, 4:5 ratio
Int 9500, Float 12120 - SiS655, 2.4, 4:5 ratio
Int 9500, Float 12115 - SiS655, 2.4, 1:1 ratio

3dMark2001 Build 330
14356 - SiS655, 3.0, DDR400
14319 - i845PE, 3.0, 4:5 ratio
14315 - SiS655, 3.0, 1:1 ratio
13413 - SiS655, 2.4, 4:5 ratio
13091 - i845PE, 2.4, 4:5 ratio
13084 - SiS655, 2.4, 1:1 ratio

TMPGEnc - 9000 frames, ~5min, 2500 bitrate
5:06 - i845PE, 3.0, 4:5 ratio
5:12 - Sis655, 3.0, DDR400
5:13 - SiS655, 3.0, 1:1 ratio
6:20 - SiS655, 2.4, 4:5 ratio
6:26 - SiS655, 2.4, 1:1 ratio
6:35 - i845PE, 2.4, 4:5 ratio

Again, this is not meant to be an exhaustive test, nor even a perfect one. Are my scores off? I don't know, I don't benchmark often, so I don't know tweaks, or quirks, etc. Most of the reviews on the net show the SiS performing well when using the memory dividers, and not a 1:1 ratio. I still don't know why the dividers help, when theoretically they shouldn't, but they do. That being said, the i845PE performed quite well when overclocked at 4:5 ratio was held. Of course, if I could get my ram to run 4:5 on the sis, when overclocked, and at good timings, it should have increased scores. But a 3:4 ratio on the i845PE might still be there with them.

Anyways, that's my little tiny review, don't take everything literal. And let me know if you see mistakes.