The GA-P35C-DS3R is GIGABYTE high performance platform based on the killer combination of the new Intel P35 chipset plus support for the latest multi-core processors up to FSB... more
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A review by Closeratio on Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R - motherboard - ATX - iP35 April 25th, 2008
Author's product rating:
Speed
Fast
Ease of Installation
Excellent - very quick and easy
Stability
Very stable
Value For Money
Good
Advantages:
Pretty intuitive BIOS, good overclocking facilities, very in - depth manual
Disadvantages:
Some people have had memory issues with this board
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
Besides the fact that this board used a good combination of the LGA-775 socket and the P35 chipset, the reason I purchased it to puy into my new computer was because it has DDR3 support. This makes the board slightly more future-proof as DDR3 prices and latencies are both starting to fall and with the brand new Intel chipset and socket coming out towards the end of this year (if i recall correctly), DDR3 prices will fall even more, as this new chipset will support DDR3 only.
Anyway, the board. It came in the normal white box with colourful letters as with all new gigabyte motherboards these days. It was packaged in anti-static wrapping (as are all boards) and was separated from the various manuals and booklets by a thinfabric which can also be used to rest the motherboard on when inserting all the components into it.
Not much to say about the installation process, everything whent fine and all the component fit in the way they should do. The 8 Sata ports came in useful as I am running two hard drives and a Sata DVD drive using these and will no doubt buy more Sata devices in the future so these extra ports allow more room for expansion. There is also an IDE socket for any older hard drives or optical drives.
The motherboard also came with numerous documents and stockers, as well as 8 sata cables, 1 IDE cable (with both a master and a slave slot if you wish to run two devices through this), an e-sata plate with a cable which plugs into one of tha sata ports on the motherboard if you wish to plug in any external devices using this facility, and of course the I/O plate which I must say fit into my case (Antec 900) pretty easily.
The manual that came with this motherboard was very thorough and described every part of the mothebroard and how to use it. About half of the manual is also dedicated to the BIOS and shows how to set the memory timings correctly and even how to overclock the processor or memory, should you want to. WHilst it wasn't actually in colour, it didn't really need to be as all the diagrams were pretty clear anyway.
As far as this board goes for standard use, it's great. Everything works as it should do and I had no problems with stability or memory compatibility. I did, however, have some issues with overclocking which were resolved when I read the BIOS more thoroughly.
See I currently have an E2180 in it with an aftermarket cooler running at 3.5Ghz (1400FSB, stock speed is 2Ghz), and it works fine now I've properly set the memory multiplier and the voltages. However when I first started overclocking it, the machine would not boot when the CPU clock speed was pushed anyhere over 2.5Ghz.
This carried on for a few hours until I realied that the 'Auto' setting on the memory multiplier was just staying at 4x, which effectively meant I was tryin to run my 800Mhz memory at 1400Mhz, which understanfably it didn't take very well to. So after adjustiung the multiplier and having my memory running at around 840Mhz, everything was stable again and I have had no problems since then.
To sum up the board, it's great value for money and the DDR3 support is also a useful feature to have even if you ever choose to put any in (not that this board *cannot* run DDR2 and DDR3 at the same time; it's either one or the other). The 1333FSB support is also useful if you choose to run any of the faster intel processors in there. If you're worried about memory issues, then go for one of the Asus boards with the P35 chipset i.e. the P5K or the P5K-E, but the memory issues with this board are pretty rare anyway.
A good, stable board which is great value for money
Hardware Monitoring: CPU core temperature, chassis temperature, CPU fan tachometer, chassis fan tachometer, system voltage, CPU overheating protection, power supply fan tachometer
The GA-P35C-DS3R is GIGABYTE high performance platform based on the killer combination of the new Intel P35 chipset plus support for the latest multi-core processors up to FSB 1333MHz, including the upcoming 45nm platform. In addition, the GA-P35C-DS3R ultimate scalability with both DDR2 and DDR3 memory support for running next generation applications with lower power consumption. The GA-P35C-DS3R is also part of the GIGABYTE Ultra Durable 2 Series of motherboards, featuring top quality electronic components which provide optimized power savings, ultra cooling and extended system durability.
Expansion / connectivity
Expansion Slot(s):
1 processor - LGA775 Socket
4 memory ( 1.8 V ) - DIMM 240-pin
2 memory ( 1.5 V )
1 PCI Express x16
3 PCI Express x1
3 PCI
Storage Interfaces:
Intel ICH9R : Serial ATA-300 - connector(s): 6 x 7pin Serial ATA - 6 Device(s) - RAID 0 / RAID 1 / RAID 10 / RAID 5
ATA-133 - connector(s): 1 x 40pin IDC - 2 Device(s)
Serial ATA-300 - connector(s): 2 x 7pin Serial ATA - 2 Device(s) - RAID 0 / RAID 1 / JBOD
I recently wrote a review for the Gigabyte GA-N650SLI-DS4L board. I wrote of how the board seemed excellent, but the two I used broke within a week, for no apparent reason.
This board is another storey. The installation was very easy, especially as... more
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