Gigabyte GA-D525TUD Motherboard Review

[ShMaunder]

I normally only contribute spam to this forum; so today I will attempt a mini review and my experiences of the Gigabyte GA-D525TUD motherboard in a server setup. I may still change parts of this as I remember what I?ve forgotten to include. Any feedback is appreciated. Future: I will try to add some disk benchmarks soon - i can't do any graphics stuff though as the server doesn't have a monitor, keyboard or mouse attached directly to it.

Some Background

I?ll start by saying that originally I was in need of a new server that could host Active Directory, DNS/DHCP, File Server, Print Server, PS3 Media Server and Squid. My previous server was a Pentium 4 2.4GHz, 1GB RAM, single 80GB Hard Drive running Windows Server 2003. As you could probably guess; running these services on that specification was slow in addition to only a single 80GB hard drive resulted in no redundancy with very little space.

Choosing a new server motherboard

This part was very difficult; I wanted a motherboard/processor combination that is very power efficient with enough power to run all these services whilst being cheap to purchase. I was torn apart between the Atom and Celeron Dual-Core processors. One of the biggest features that I wanted from a motherboard was a RAID option (I?m not a fan of an operating system doing the RAID). Obviously, opting with a non-integrated processor meant that I could choose any motherboard for that socket ? which there is loads of options for RAID etc.

I then came across the Gigabyte GA-525TUD with the following basic specification (full specification can be found here http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3549#sp):

CPU: Intel? Dual-core Atom? D525 processor (1.8 GHz) with 1M L2 cache

Memory: 2 x 1.5V DDR3 DIMM sockets supporting up to 4 GB of system memory

LAN: Realtek RTL8111E chip (10/100/1000 Mbit)

Expansion Slots: 1 x PCI slot

Storage:

(Original chipset SATA) 2 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors supporting up to 2 SATA 3Gb/s devices

1 x IDE connector supporting ATA-133/100/66/33 and up to 2 IDE devices

(Gigabyte SATA) 2 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors supporting up to 2 SATA 3Gb/s devices

Support for SATA RAID 0, RAID 1, and JBOD

BIOS

Form: Mini-ITX Form Factor; 17.0cm x 17.0cm

Price at time: ?65 (looks to be ~$95)

This motherboard seemed to have everything I was looking for, though I was still wary of the integrated Atom?s performance in addition to the reliability of the ?Gigabyte SATA2? RAID controller. So I then dug a bit harder and found some benchmarks on the D525 processor comparing it against a Pentium 4. I can?t remember the link directly; however it said that in some circumstances the Atom performs better than a P4 3.4GHz with HT. I then found out that the ?Gigabyte SATA2? controller is just a rebranded JMicron JMB363. I took the dive and purchased it along with 2 Western Digital 1.5TB Green Hard Drives and Corsair 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1600MHz/PC3-12800 XMS3 memory. I already had an ATA DVD Drive, 80+ 350W PSU and mATX case.

Putting it together and Installing

Only if somebody here finds it useful will I take and upload pictures of the hardware ? just reply and ask. It all arrived and the first thing I noticed was just how small a Mini-ITX board actually is ? they?re tiny! Anyway, I opened the box and found that Gigabyte includes a single SATA cable, IDE cable, ATX back plate, DVD driver disk, manual and motherboard. The packaging seemed adequate and was generally very pleased on first sight.

The motherboard has a single fan cooling the integrated CPU ? though I?ve read that this can be disconnected as it doesn?t get too hot. Though do note that there is no HDMI ? only a D-SUB VGA connector; so I guess that it?s not perfect for a media center unless you can connect using the D-SUB or add a PCI graphics card to it.

Putting it together in the mATX case was simple and I won?t bore you with the detail. I wasn?t able to connect the front USB though as the cable wouldn?t reach ? this is the cases? fault more than the motherboard. The first attempt in turning it on failed as I didn?t realise that there were screw mounts on the case underneath the motherboard (from removal of old motherboard) which was shorting it out.

On first boot, I noticed the CPU fan was a little on the noisy side ? but this server is located in a small bedroom and therefore all noise can be easily heard. In most environments it wouldn?t be a problem at all; in fact my laptop is by far louder than the server. I also noticed the vast range of BIOS options such as overclocking and lots of power and storage options.

I used the manual to guide me through setting up the RAID array ? this was very simple as it is with any other RAID controller. There is 3 modes for RAID; RAID0, RAID1 and JBOD. I used a mirrored RAID 1 array for redundancy. I then went on to testing the server using Ubuntu 10.10 Server ? I wasn?t impressed with the stability of the file system. I successfully uploaded a 20GB directory though when I tried to delete it, the directory became inaccessible and I wasn?t able to delete it even after trying to change the permissions. I guess the Linux drivers for the RAID controller aren?t quite up to par yet. Therefore, I reformatted and installed Windows Server 2008 64bit. Another quark came up where the ATA DVD drive would disappear as soon as I installed the RAID drivers within the installation ? apparently this is a common problem with the JMicron controller and the workaround is to install Windows from a USB drive. Anyway, once I got Server 2008 installed, I tested it overnight copying files to and from the array. Not only was it surprisingly quick, but also there was no sign of any file system problems as experienced in Ubuntu.

I was then happy to start transferring the services from my old server to the new server. I did notice though that after promoting it to domain controller, the write caching disabled across the entire array instead of the volume the AD database was located on. I guess that could be another limitation of the JMicron controller ? anyway, I?m taking the risk of enabling disk caching across the array every time it starts even though its not recommend by Microsoft.

Performance and Power Consumption

The D525 processor is a dual core with hyperthreading, therefore the operating system displays it as 4 threads. The memory was automatically underclocked which considering the speed of the processor, isn't a big deal.

I monitored the server for another couple of days in terms of performance and even when there were 4 active client connected including a PS3 media client, the CPU wasn?t maxing out and the array was keeping up quite well. So I decided to take another plunge and virtualise Ubuntu on top using VMWare Server. I wasn?t expecting it to work well due to the CPU?s lack of virtualisation instructions. Though, I was overwhelmed with how well it coped and decided to install Squid, Dansguardian content filtering, SSH server and Apache into the virtual machine. All these services work very well and don?t appear to stress the CPU at all.

The image below show system information and task manager - at this time, the virtual machine was running in the background with 2 connected clients - the CPU didn't get above ~3%.

The power consumption is about 37W when idle and 40W with stress. This shouldn?t cost too much to run 24/7 depending on your electricity supplier and could be better if used with a laptop style power supply instead.

Verdict

If you are looking for a server that doesn?t require much processing power, has storage redundancy, low power consumption then this product is right for you. I would rate this product 9/10 so far considering features, performance and price.

Pros

? Low power consumption

? Atom processor performs very well in server 2008

? RAID controller

? There are a lot of BIOS options (look at the manual online for examples)

? DDR3 memory up to 4GB

? Good packaging and manual

? Cheap

Cons

? The RAID controller has a few issues ? though doesn?t show after installation of server 2008

? Included fan on motherboard is the nosiest component in my setup ? though this can be disconnected according to other user reviews without causing damage

? No official Linux drivers

? No virtualisation instructions

? Lack of HDMI for media center

[chconline Veteran]

I think you're a little confused as to what is software RAID and hardware RAID. You are running software RAID on your system with the controller chip. All this means it processes the load at the CPU level rather than with a separate, dedicated processor. It's not a big deal for what you're doing, but it's not hardware RAID.

[ShMaunder]

I think you're a little confused as to what is software RAID and hardware RAID. You are running software RAID on your system with the controller chip. All this means it processes the load at the CPU level rather than with a separate, dedicated processor. It's not a big deal for what you're doing, but it's not hardware RAID.

Yea thanks, i was slightly confused :). I was trying to say that it was abstracted away from the operating system. I didn't know that it must have a dedicated RAID processor to be called hardware RAID.

I've been meaning to update this for the last week or so with this, pictures and benchmarks.

[TwoScoops]

Thanks very much for the review - I'm about to bite and buy this motherboard along with some other bits to make a server too.

Just wanted to let you know that (can't remember where now but it's worth Googling) I've read a whole test review that basically says that the RAID setup that you can prepare from within Windows (from the Disk Management utility) results in: Less CPU overhead, slightly more performance (debateable) but significantly, if the RAID array fails - the contents are readable - unlike many of these BIOS enabled RAID features.

see here: http://kmwoley.com/blog/?p=429