Already now it has been over a month since Intel announced their new LGA775 Pentium 4 processors. In the same time we have seen DDR2 enter into production, PCI-Express capable chipsets and motherboards appear on the market, along with supportive graphics cards. It has also been a month since I reviewed the ASUS P5GD2 Premium motherboard boasting the 915P chipset. This particular review looked at all these new products as the motherboard supported LGA775 Pentium 4 processors, DDR2 and PCI-Express. This wide spread support for new technologies was all made possible by the 915P chipset from Intel.

The 915P will be the most widely adopted chipset for the same reasons that the 865PE was. Needless to say Gigabyte was quick in preparing their 915P board, as it was certainly one of the first to the market. There is a great deal of unique features built into the Gigabyte 8GPNXP Duo and the majority of them have the potential to be quite invaluable to the user. It appears that Gigabyte is updating their series. The 6-Dual Miracle theme that made their Pentium 4 Socket 478 motherboards so special has not been carried on. Instead the 8Ã (8 Sigma) series will be the new theme Gigabyte will use to carry their LGA775 Pentium 4 motherboards to glory.

Possibly the most impressive aspect of the ASUS P5GD2 Premium was its vast array of features; I imagine the same will be said about the 8GPNXP Duo. The board has the distinct ability to utilize either DDR or DDR2 memory modules. This is what the Duo suffix represents as the 8GPNXP Duo gives the user a much more flexible upgrade path. The DPS module has even been upgraded. The U-Plus DPS is a revolutionary eight-phase power circuit designed to withstand varying electrical current levels, ensuring future processor upgrades. These kind of features could play a vital roll in the stability and reliability of these new high speed Pentium 4 processors.

Currently Intels flagship processor is the Pentium 4 560, rated at 3.6GHz. There are also four other P4 processors that will use the new LGA775 Socket. These are the Pentium 4 550, 540, 530 and 520, all of which are based on the Prescotts 90-nm technology utilizing an 800MHz FSB, Hyper-Threading and SSE3. Of course the Celeron will also become available on this platform, running on a 533MHz FSB with clock speeds ranging from 2.53GHz through to 2.8GHz. While I have mentioned the 915P and 925X chipsets, there are actually four different versions. These are the 925X, 915G, 915P and 915GV, like previous generations the G represents integrated graphics and the V means there is no option for an upgrade to a discrete graphics solution. The P once again stands for performance and the X could mean extreme version, but more likely expensive version.

Gigabyte motherboards just keep getting better; however the boards themselves are not the only things getting better. For quite some time now Gigabyte has been leading the industry when it comes to the product bundle. Everyone knows this is really what makes a product exciting. While it is great to buy an excellent performing product at a bargain basement price, most people find much more pleasure in exploring all the gizmos and gadgets that come with the product. Well Gigabyte has obviously woken up to this fact, because they are now struggling to fit it all in a single box. Therefore the 8GPNXP Duo is being shipped in a rather unusual dual box design!