Jetway 939GT4-SLI: Gem with a New SLI Twist
by Wesley Fink on August 24, 2005 8:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Our Take
Surprises are one of the things that can turn the routine of testing computer components into a few moments of excitement. We confess that we were totally surprised to find the Jetway at least the equal of any enthusiast AMD 939 board that we have tested. Who would have even considered before this review that the Jetway 939GT4-SLI-G would benchmark in the same league as the top 939 boards that we have tested, and overclock in the same league as the legendary DFI LANParty nF4 SLI. But benchmarks are benchmarks and the Jetway equaled the best Socket 939 boards we have tested, and then went on to top performance in stock ratio overclocking and reduced ratio overclocking.There is a lot to like about the Jetway 939GT4-SLI, starting with a near ideal board layout. There is also the elegant simplicity of the 3 PCIe video slots with a dedicated x16 single video slot and an additional pair of x8 Dual/SLI video slots. The 3 slots are not overkill or a waste of board space, since even the most basic SLI board uses 3 slot spaces for the SLI video slots. The Jetway uses the same space, but the 3 dedicated slots do away with any need at all for paddles, jumpers, or switches for SLI. This simplicity probably contributes to the excellent performance that we found with the Jetway in these tests.
Add to this: processor voltages to 1.9V, memory voltage to 3.25V, a wide 200 to 400 range for CPU clock, and a complete range of memory adjustments and chipset/LDT voltages, and you have the legitimate makings of an AMD enthusiast board. The diagnostic LEDs and momentary switches are just the icing on the enthusiast cake. We've seen other boards all decked out with everything but performance, but that is certainly not the case with this Jetway - it performed as well in all our tests as we hoped that it would. Our only real complaint is that the tested BIOS did not implement the added memory ratios (433, 466, 500, 533) available with the Rev. E Athlon64 processors. However, we have asked Jetway for an updated BIOS to fix this oversight.
Some will be screaming and flaming with our recommendation here, but at a $129 web price, you should really include this Jetway on your short shopping list for Socket 939 AMD enthusiast motherboards. This Jetway delivers great value and performs very well, no matter how you measure the performance. It's nice to see a real surprise once in a while, and this Jetway will open the eyes of any buyer who approaches it with an open mind.
A great job, Jetway, and we hope that you can really get behind this board with the kind of support that it deserves. We highly recommend the 939GT4-SLI to both the non-overclocking AMD user and the AMD Enthusiast looking to reach new heights in overclocking with their new Athlon 64.
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KublaKhan - Sunday, September 11, 2005 - link
I bought this board recently from newegg but haven't tried it out yet. What is the purpose of the power connector immediately above the PCI-E x1 slot? I thought it might be used for extra power for the PCI-E cards but then with 24 pin moboard connectors and graphics cards with their own additional power connectors, isn't there enough power already? Also, nowhere in the documentation nor reviews of this board on other hardware sites do I see any indication that this board supports SATA-2. Wesley, where did this info come from?raildogg - Thursday, September 1, 2005 - link
guys, I've heard that they are the identical boards, however, some of their specs may not be. are they the exact same boards? not surecheck this out
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductCompare.asp?C...">link
kennyG - Sunday, September 4, 2005 - link
yeah ok..but the eVGA board doesn't have 3 PCI Express x16??At lease they dont state this infomation on the site(Newegg link you gave)..Now if the jetway bios updates the evga board to the same state then I think it could make a great buy..And yes they both(eVGA&jetway) need to make there colors a little make adult like.
Wesley Fink - Tuesday, September 6, 2005 - link
Look at the Newegg EVGA pictures. The EVGA board does have 3 x16 slots. The Newegg specs are not in agreement with the pictures. and the pictures match other EVGA pictures and specs we have seen. The EVGA and Jetway appear the same board with different BIOS. Many Forums are reporting success with flashing the EVGA with the Jetway BIOS.inkysowner - Wednesday, September 7, 2005 - link
Hi Wes,I have the evga board and the same memory 2x512 with 2 evga 7800gtx's(acs kits in the box), just want to verify this.
"Tests used OCZ PC3200 Platinum Rev. 2, which uses Samsung TCCD chips. All memory ran at 2-2-2-7 timing in all benchmarks."
So at 12 x 244 you were running 2-2-2-7 Command 1T and at what voltage.
I have a 4400+ that I am trying to get up near 2.7 and at the stock multi of 11 and those timings at 244 I should be in the sweet spot, I think the aquagate-mini should be able to cool the processor enough at those settings, esp based on the new inquirer article review of the coolermaster aquagate mini-120 which I have in a cm stacker.
Thanks in advance
Wesley Fink - Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - link
There are now several reports on the web of eVGA users successfully flashing with the latest Jetway BIOS. Users are also reporting that the Jetway BIOS offers more options and better overclocking that the eVGA which appears otherwise to be the same motherboard with a different, more subdued, color scheme.kennyG - Sunday, September 4, 2005 - link
do you have any links..I'd like to read what others are getting as far as overclocks ?Fozzik - Thursday, August 25, 2005 - link
I noticed that pretty much know I/O benchmarks were run...Do we know that this board doesn't have any glaring problems with onboard NIC, USB, etc? The new Sapphire boards based on ATI's Xpress 200 chipset look great, except for seeminly (an difficult to explain) lousy performance of their integrated divices on the PCI-Express bus. I know this isn't the same chipset, and that all Nforce 4 SLI Implimentations are probably similar...but I'm just wondering since none of those benchmarks were included in this review. Let's get right down to it... I'm paranoid about Jetway. ;) Usually when things look too good to be true, they are.
Wesley Fink - Sunday, August 28, 2005 - link
We have already tested I/O performance of all of the chips on the Jetway board, so we saw no valid reason to retest the IO performance. The Marvell PCIe PHY for Gigabit LAN is an excellent performer and is just a Physical Layer to the nF4 chipset Ethernet hooks. SATA 2, USB and IDE are controlled by the nForce4 SLI chip, there is no onboard firewire or additional SATA 2 controller, and the Realtek ALC850 audio codec is used by almost every nF4 motherboard.Fozzik - Sunday, August 28, 2005 - link
Thanks for the reply. =)