Overall I'd say ATi did a good job with the Radeon 9100 IGP chipset considering it
is their first foray into core logic. More competition in that arena is
certainly not a bad thing, and with another major player on the market it
will surely drive down prices for you and I.
Gigabyte has been a partner with ATi for a long time
now, so it was only natural for them to incorporate a Radeon 9100 IGP based motherboard
into their product line. In the end Gigabyte has produced a pretty solid
little motherboard in the GA-8TRS300M.
In terms of features, the board
includes an onboard Radeon 9200 class VPU that is second to none in the integrated world. Rounding things
out is a fairly concise list of features, including; 10/100 LAN and 5.1 channel
audio.
If that's not
enough for you, the 8x AGP slot and three PCI slots will be able
to keep most basic expansion needs satisfied. The board layouts is very good, unfortunately it seems you'll have
to buy the necessary brackets should you decide to take advantage of the headers
onboard...
The GA-8TRS300M was not the fastest board we've ever
tested, but it was hardly a slouch compared to the high end i875P based Albatron
PX875P Pro. If you're mainly working with 2D applications you won't notice the
difference between this board or an i875P equipped motherboard. If you're a casual 3D
gamer, the onboard Radeon 9100 IGP should be able to keep you quite
happy. Overall performance is pretty solid considering the heart of the mobo is a relative newbie. If you're
looking to build an office word processing system the GA-8TRS300M will suite your needs
quite nicely.
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