Announcement

**sin0822** · 02-17-2011, 04:15 AM

Re: GIGABYTE G1 Assassin Physical Review*** In depth!

I took separate pictures of the connectors so that you can click and zoom in, on the left we have the external front panel audio connectors, as well as the Molex power for PCI-E, and a fan header. On the picture on the right (from left to right) we have two USB 3.0 external connectors, and two USB 2.0 connectors, as well as all your front panel case connectors as well as another fan connector.

Power Delivery:

Power delivery has turned out to be one of the most exciting subjects there is for normal motherboards. Of course for this board the most exciting are the Audio and LAN capabilities, but for right now we will focus on how every microchip gets its power. Obviously you cannot just plug straight 12v power from your power supply into the traces for the processor; the 12v voltage first needs to go to some capacitors (reduce ripple/fluctuation), then the power theoretically goes into MOSFETs (which will perform a DC/DC conversion), and then the power goes through chokes or inductors (to clean up the noise), and finally through another set of capacitors (to further reduce ripple/fluctuation).

(if you are not even going to try to understand what I am writing about in this section, just skip down the next one, its about how the Audio and LAN work, its is much easier to understand for those not technically astute, even though the next few paragraphs are beginner-intermediate for motherboard technology)

The PWM:

The DrMOS

While there are 12 of the DrMOS on the top-side of the motherboard, there are 4 on the underside. Right next to them are 4 low RDS (on) MOSFETs which are half of the VRM for the uncore part of the processors power supply. Yes there are two different power supplies for the processor, because there are two parts of the processor, the core and uncore. There you have it, that is what makes a VRM; the PWM, the drivers, the MOSFETs, and finally all the voltage tweakers (capacitors, inductors and resistors).
Lets move on to the Uncore power.

The UNCORE VRM:

The IOH VRM:

The RAM VRM:

Above in red in another ISL6322G two phase PWM with integrated drivers for the RAM. In the blue is the rest of the VRM, far away from its PWM. RAM also requires very little voltage, in fact a large portion of the power for DDR3 comes from the UNCORE part of the processor.

Peripheral VRMs

Now while you might think that the audio and LAN integrated onto this board might get power the same way the SATA ports get power, you would be right, except for the fact that these specialty chips need very clean and specific voltages to operate correctly. GIGABYTE has added and addition 3 separate VRMs. Two for the LAN and a single one for the Audio, instead of powering with a low dropout regulator like you see on other parts of the board.

Usually at this point we start going over the IOH and then ICH, but we are going to start with the LAN capabilities and then goto the Audio and then follow on through. Close to the end i will talk about the New SATA6G and USB 3.0 controllers.

LAN Capabilities:

In ORANGE we have the brain of the whole systems, the BIGFOOT Networks Killer E2100. This is one of the most advanced processors to hit the gaming market. Under the hood it is a Freestyle technologies Power QUICC II Pro/e300c3 core built on Power architecture that operates up to 400MHz. It not only has a built in DDR2 controller, it also has 16kb instruction cache and 16kb data cache. Its Gigabit Ethernet NIC is directly connected to the PCI-E 1x bus to figure out what it needs to do as quickly as possible. This processor is very efficient at optimizing LAN processing. It has special DNA rerouting features which can bypass the windows integrated network. It is also IEEE 1588 rev 2.0 time-synchronization enable it to work with extremely high precision network applications. I will talk more about it once I test it.

Next in RED we have two Samsung 512MB DDR2 chips, for a total of 1GB on-board DDR2 RAM just dedicated to the BIGFOOT Network Processing Unit (NPU).

In BLUE we have a Spansion 110nm page mode 64Mbit 8MB flash chip, this allows for driver and BIOS updates to the BIGFOOT NPU.

The Audio: Creative Sounder Blaster (20K2) with X-Fi Extreme Fidelity and EAX Advanced HD 5.0

Creative Sound Blaster Processor 20K2 along with X-Fi and EAX

(#1/Pink) We have the Creative CA20K2-2AG HF. It is a digital audio processor based on the 20K2 architecture. It features OpenAL 3d Audio, X-Fi Extreme, CMOS-3D, X-Fi Crystallizer, a RISC processor.
Most importantly it has a 24-bit Digital Audio I/O, 8 audio inputs and 8 audio output, up to 128 channels, and even up to 384 KHz sample rate! This audio processor is a beast.

(#2/purple)(#3/Red) Now a few things that an audio buff or anyone looking deeply into how these processors work is that they process digital audio, such as on your computer. Any buff knows that analog audio is a much more real sound. Analog sound is continuous, while digital is in bits and pieces. So audio sounds better in analog and is processed faster and better in digital. The chip marked by number 3 and outlined in red in the second picture is the Wolfson 96 KHz 4 channel I/P MUX 24-bit delta sigma analog to digital converter (ADC). It helps digitize home surround sound in Hi-Fi.

(#4/baby blue) This IC is a Texas Instruments LC245A Optical bus transceiver, with 3-state outputs. The optical S/PDIF output on the back panel comes from here, S/PDIF is actually a digital output, unlike the other outputs on this board, and there is not only the optical port, but also two coaxial S/PDIF outputs.

(#5/orange) This little chip is another analog to digital converter (ADC), the AKM 53588ET, actually made by Asahi Kasei Microsystems (AKM), it is a 96KHz 24-bit ADC, just like the Wolfson ADC. Most probably for the front panel header inputs.

**sin0822** · 02-17-2011, 04:16 AM

Re: GIGABYTE G1 Assassin Physical Review*** In depth!

#6s and #7 Audio Amplifiers!
Now you are probably wondering why there are 4 number 6 and 1 number 7.
The #6s are STMicroelectronics C4558 Dual high Speed Low-Noise Operational Amplifiers, which can drive up to 200 Ω loads. One these is actually hooked up to the line out in the front, the other three are as follows: Center/Subwoofer, Rear left/Right, and side surround left/right.

The #7 is New Japan Radio 4556A high current high output dual operational amplifier, the #7 is connected to the line out in the rear of the board. This bad boy is capable of driving 150 Ω loads.
Together #6 and #7 combine to cover every output. They are as important as the Audio processor, this means that every audio output on the back panel and front panel has high quality, high driving load amplifiers for the best sound possible. They provide crisp audio playback like you have never heard come out of a computer. Of course your headphone or speaker system has to be just as good.

#8 is not outlined anywhere because its much closer to the output ports, and for good reason. First we have gone over all the analog to digital converters, well what about converting all that digital into crisp clean analog for our headphones and speaker? Well this chip does all that. The Cirrus Logic CS4382ACOZ is an 8 channel 24-bit Digital to Analog (DAC) which can output 114dB along 8 channels at 192 KHz. This chip is on the output end of a great line of technology. Variants of this specific chip are the bottlenecks of any sounds card, because while the processor can processes at any rate and produce sound are high frequencies, if this chip can’t do it then the system can’t. You are well equipped here. The Cirrus Logic unit is below:

Here we have some really amazing capacitors. Specially designed for audio appliances you have to have these to. The green are 33uF 16v Nichicon MUSE ES series and the orange on the right are Nichicon 33uF 16v MW series which are much smaller in size. They are Bi-Polarized Electrolytic capacitor specially designed and constructed for audio equipment. Every channel’s audio has to go through these high quality capacitors before reaching your ears; this is almost the last line of electronic perfection. They provide the maximum resolution of sound for professional gamers. This is how GIGABYTE does motherboards, down to the detail, and even more than expected.
Here is a quick and dirty diagram of how the flow of data goes, hopefully if you read through everything this will help you tie everything together(or confuse you more):

Now we can start where we left off at the IOH

The X58 IOH:

Natively the X58 IOH provides 36 lanes for the PCI-E bandwidth. Not only do video cards operate off these lanes, but so does the integrated USB3, SATA6G controller, as well as many other peripherals. A brief history of the X58 chipset will reveal that there are three revisions of the chipset, the most recently being revision B3/13, before this revision the main one that hit markets was B2/12, it seems that revision B1/11 was never released to the public. Older boards that have rev12/B2 chipsets seem to have a hard time reaching high base clock frequencies, but base clock is only partially dependent on the chipset. The processors IMC and QPI drive strength have a lot to do with how high you can get the base clock (blck). Any board that is capable of 220blck is a winner, and after that most boards require you to enable QPI Slow Mode. There is a theoretical QPI block speed of 8.8ghz. To get around this base clock blocker, motherboard manufactures have implemented QPI Slow Mode. Normally the lowest multiplier available for QPI Link Speed is 36x, but with Slow Mode enabled it will take the QPI link speed of Bloomfield down to 24x, and on Gulftown 32x; like most functions that control the processor, this lower end multiplier limit is commanded by non-other than Intel. You also need high PCI-E frequency to break through base clock barriers, and this board will boot with 130 PCI-E frequency off the bat, it used to be a mod needed on the EX58 series, but gigabyte did it for you. While you can boot at 130mhz usually PCI-E video cards will not take this kind of torture and will not post, yes with a PCI card or low end PCI-E card you should be able to get up there, I am able to with my GT220.

PCI-E:

Here are some very interesting ICs that make the whole motherboard work. Clock generators generate a clock speed such as the base clock, which the processor uses to create the frequency. We will start in order, number 1 is the clock generator for the PCI-E express devices the ICS9DB403DGLF which provides a 100mhz clock, the standard clock. Number 2 is the ICS9LPRS914HKLF which provides the 133mhz clock for the CPU’s base clock(BLCK).

Number 3 is a bit more complicated, it’s one of the eight(8) PCI-E multiplexer(MUX)/demultiplexer(DEMUX).A multiplexer is able to take multiple signals and output one and a DEMUX does the opposite, but it’s a bit more complicated than that. A multiplexer and demultiplexer is able to allow a single device that needs one lane of PCI-E connectivity connect to that single PCI-E lane. We call these types of devices PCI-E switches. When a device such as an SATA controller or a GPU for instance wants to connect to the PCI-E lanes it needs a MUX/DEMUX to help it do so. Without a DEMUX/MUX all your devices would share all the PCI-E lanes all at the same time, creating huge problems.

Now we have 8 switches, and they are connected to two different PCI-E busses. On bus is from the X58 IOH and it was 36 lanes, these lanes are connected to all the PCI-E ports as well as the Marvell SATA6G control and the NEC USB 3.0 controller. There are 4 switches for those.

Then there are 4 more switches for the ICH (ICH10R) south bridge, two control the PCI-E 1x slots and the other two are connected to the LAN and the Audio devices. Above we have the ICH named the ICH10R. This is the traditional Southbridge and it controls the SATA3GB/s ports as well as the USB 2.0, the PCI port, BIOSes, and the hardware monitoring Super I/O chips.

Brand NEW ICs on the board:

There are many new ICs on this board that have not been released on any boards yet. They are probabaly going to first hit the market with the G1 Killer boards. I will have numbers for you all in the upcoming week. I am going to go over the new Winbond monitoring chip that is only new to GB, then I am going to talk about the new SATA6G chip and the USb 3.0 chip, so stay tuned.

Above is the trust iTE IT8720F Super I/O chip, which has pleased GIGABYTE X58 users for years and years with some of the most precise software voltage measurements I have ever seen. The iTE chip also provides us both the PS2 keyboard and mouse ports on the back panel. It also has support for I believe a single temperature sensor as well as a single smart fan controller (CPU).
Well GIGABYTE has further stepped up the game, by bringing in a second Super I/O chip the Winbond W83l789NG which is also a Super I/O HW monitoring chip. This chip allows for the 3 extra temperature sensors and the 4 extra controllable fan connectors. For those of you who have been asking, here you go!

Marvell SE9182 yes 9182 NOT 9128.

The Marvell SE9128 is a very famous SATA6GB/s controller. It was the only SATA6G controller available with RAID capabilities until the Intel PCH P67 chipset arrived. Well it seems Marvell is at it again, with a brand new SATA6G controller, this time without any BIOS chip! This is a pretty big deal, if they were able to get away without BIOS, or integrated it, who knows how much they improved performance upon the 88SE9128. I will test it out within the next few days to get to the bottom of it! Oh yea by the way instead of using just one PCI-E 1x lane, this bad boy can use 2x PCI-1X lanes!

USB 3.0 from Renesas NEC D720200AF1

Just because Intel doesn’t provide a chipset with native USB 3.0 doesn’t mean the rest of us have to suffer, so GIGABYTE has incorporated a NEC USB 3.0 chip. NEC/Renesas make the most widely available USB 3.0 controller, yet this one is not exactly released yet.

I believe it has a native 4 USB 3.0 ports, because we have two VLI hubs that double the number of ports, and we have the ability to hook up 8 USB 3.0 devices, what a chip. Of course that single chip can’t provide 8 USB 3.0 ports, but two high quality VLI810 hubs can take native 4 channels and turn them into 8.

Dual BIOS
We have dual 16Mbit BIOS chips, which are extremely capable. We also have BIOS with 3TB+ HDD capability.

The importance of dual BIOS is huge, because before companies started doing this, flashing your BIOS was a life and death situation, now it’s like child’s play…. Almost.

The heatsink.

Before I take a look at the heatsink, I think it might be beneficial for you guys to take a look at this:

While not everyone who buys this board might be gamers that like to shoot, many of you can appreciate the styling.
First let’s take a look at the main heatsink. It is the same material as the P67 board, but with much more design and custom molding. As you can see below, they even got L.E.D.s into the main heatsink. They are green and pretty bright. They add a little of that bling that comes with a board this featured.

I figure I can just show you a bunch of pictures so you can get a feel for what it looks like

Now when we turn it over we can see that they use thermal poste for the IOH, and thermal tape for everything else.

Let’s move over to something more specialized. This heatsink is held down onto the 2oz PCB board by 12 metal screws and springs with washers. That is very typical of the new GIGABYTE heatsink design, and honestly it’s a must. GIGABYTE has 12 screws for the main heatsink, and then for a minor heatsink for the Low RDS (on) MOSFETs for the uncore power; we have a very small heatsink, carried over from the X58 boards.

To finish off this section, let me show you the most awesome warning I have ever read:

I think this board is one of a gamers biggest weapons personally.

Conclusion:

When you research to purchase computer hardware, you have to choose what you want based on what you know. You should consider features, dimensions, compatibility, features once again, looks are very important if you have an open windowed case as many enthusiasts and gamers do. This board has everything and more, I am still surprised GIGABYTE added a second H/W monitor. I am even more surprised by the attention to detail and quality, from the power delivery of the LAN and Audio to the delivery of the final signal to the wires. I just hope you have good enough headphones/speakers and a fast enough internet connection to keep up. Honestly I have an X58A-UD5, it has about 20% of the features this motherboard has, and no doubt in my mind when I move my processor from my UD5 to this premium gaming motherboard that it will never go back unless a nice 990X hops in its place. This motherboard makes my processor look puny in comparison; a really nice combo would be this motherboard and a 990X hexacore processor.

Now there are a few things I should mention that I just found out today:

#1 these motherboards will be available online at Newegg and Microcenter only in the beginning, until they filter through to resellers.

#2 the G1 Assassin (this board) and the G1 Sniper will be released at the end of February. The G1 Guerrilla will be released in March.

#3 MSRP of these boards are as follows in USD$:

G1 Assassin: $529
G1 Sniper: $449
G1 Guerrilla: $349

#4 GIGABYTE will be at PAX EAST this year (gaming convention?) and they are giving away a free system with this motherboard included. There will also be many high-end gaming systems built on this technology for those at PAX EAST to try out and game on.

Now that you know the MSRP you are asking yourself what makes up the cost, and the answer to that question is that this is almost like the UD9 just without NF200 and with $200 worth of features, considering with GIGABYTE you pay for quality this board is really for Xtreme/Professional Gamers this isn’t meant to be an OC board, even though it should OC like a charm, we will find out. I hope you enjoyed being an amateur systems engineer with me today. Here I wanted to educate the general population on the hardware features and everything hardware about this board and I had about 3-4 days to do it (keep up with the crowd, which beat me to it by 4 hours and 2 days). If you find an error in my review, PLEASE PM ME! I always answer my PMs.

Also a huge thanks to those at GIGABYTE and their partners CREATIVE Labs and BIGFOOT Networks for making this review possible, none of this would be possible without you!

Announcement

GIGABYTE G1 Assassin Physical Review*** In depth!

GIGABYTE G1 Assassin Physical Review*** In depth!

Comment

Comment