The GigaByte GA-7IX is a jumpless motherboard powered by the AMD 750 chipset. This is one of the first few motherboards to hit the market when Athlon was launched. It auto-detects the Athlon processor, but if you want to overclock, maybe you should try getting another motherboard. ^_^ Take note that when you're buying the casing, get at least a 300W ATX casing. The Athlon is one power hungry user. The following is the summary of features:
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This motherboard is one of the most troublesome motherboard I have encountered. This motherboard is also nick-named the zero-support motherboard. The BIOS itself has many problems. Only the version F3 and above bios is quite stable. The AMD Drivers that came with the motherboard were a disaster (at the time the motherboard was just released). I'm not too sure if they have changed the driver CD that comes with the motherboard. I recommend that you go to AMD website to download the latest drivers.
Now for the components... Depending on your luck, not all the 3 memory slots can be used. So far, I've only seen 1 case where someone successfully used the 3 memory slots. Usually, the middle memory slot somehow cannot be used.
The motherboard manual also says that it supports AGP/66 but so far, I've seen nothing that suggests that.
Sometimes, the motherboard will give out a loud beeping sound, which sounds like an ambulance siren. If I'm not wrong, the siren sound is the result of overheating of the CPU...
The only thing I like about the motherboard is the BIOS. The memory adjustments could increase the speed of your memory, thus improving overall system performance. Hmm, I think that's the only thing I liked about the bios. Having the option to enable/disable the system and video bios caching is also a plus. I've also heard that this motherboard supports the Thunderbird processors. So far, I've read about the board running a 750MHZ Thunderbird without any problems. But still, it's hard to find a SlotA Thunderbird.
Overall, the performance of the system is... ... OK. I do not have any more motherboards to test it with but so far, I'm satisfied with the speed. Lastly, I recommend you NOT to get this troublesome motherboard. If you're not a technical person, you might end up breaking the motherboard into half. I've only seen 1 motherboard that gives me a bigger headache. That is the DFI K6BV3+.