The Gigabyte P35-DS3R Motherboard Review

[Apoptosis]

The GA-P35-DS3 motherboard is the latest high performance platform based on the killer combination of the new Intel P35 chipset from Intel and Gigabyte. The GA-P35-DS3 is 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. Read on to see how it performs compared to other leading chipsets!



Article Title: The Gigabyte P35-DS3R Motherboard Review
Article URL: http://www.legitreviews.com/article/513/1/

[stopthekilling77]

good read! i guess we all were hoping for a big kaboom, but i'm just gonna sit and wait for the next P35 mobo review, i'm sure they'll up the ante!

[kenc51]

Good job JP

I'm now in the market for a new board and the P35 chipset looks sweet

[Apoptosis]

remember the highend X38 chipset is still to come and that will be take over the market share for the 975X Express

[kenc51]

remember the highend X38 chipset is still to come and that will be take over the market share for the 975X Express

Will it support DDR2??

[brites]

What about DFI??? Is there a mistake is the test setup info??? About the board.. it's good... but... for those SLI and now CFire fans lacks the 2nd PCIe x16 slot... to these guys there is the Gigabyte GA-P35-DQ6 with two PCIe x16 slots (one at x16 the other x4 when CrossFire enabled)... Non the less is a very nice Mobo....

[brites]

remember the highend X38 chipset is still to come and that will be take over the market share for the 975X Express

Will it support DDR2??

No... it's only DDR3... at least for now... and probably for ever

[Apoptosis]

What about DFI??? Is there a mistake is the test setup info???

good question it should be there... Jason is working on adding that board to the charts now... sorry about that

[brites]

No problem... waiting for the revision..

[pastorjay]

Ok guys, updated the graphs to include the DFI and an ASRock board that we will feature next week.... enjoy!

[brites]

Not a big deal but... on page 5 SiSoft; Sandra 2007 bench still doesn't show those two cards...

***disregard*** all is fine now...

[pastorjay]

Actually it does, go to that page and hit refresh

[brites]

These browsers... are all the same IE;FF always some glitch... all the other pages worked well without refresh... and I had browsed all of them...

[dkarko]

Great job!

One of its cons i believe is the lack of firewire.
Pros the lots of sata ports!
Actually the last one made me choose this one against P5K (only 4 ports? and 2 of them on jmicron? ) to finally change my mobo once prices settle down! Well not exactly this one, gigabyte has released so many variations of s3 board thats really tricky to remember names! There is another one just like this one but it also has 2xDDR3 slots extra (4x DDR2, 2x DDR3) and the difference in price is minimal.

[Kougar]

Y'all should try some different RAM in that board if possible, the RAM was limiting that overclock. With only a 2x multiplier 2x500FSB = 1GHz RAM, and from my experience with two 6400c4 kits that is the absolute OC limit of that ProMOS RAM.

[pastorjay]

Y'all should try some different RAM in that board if possible, the RAM was limiting that overclock. With only a 2x multiplier 2x500FSB = 1GHz RAM, and from my experience with two 6400c4 kits that is the absolute OC limit of that ProMOS RAM.

That was a editing error on my part. I have edited our setup to reflect that we lowered the timings to 5-5-5-18 and raised the vdimm to 2.4v on the p35 to make sure and take the ram out of the overclock. These modules have done very well for me, which is one reason I have held on to them for so long. They are able to push 1100+ddr easy. Sorry for the mistake. I also put my reaper in, but it made no difference.

[Kougar]

You have actually run that specific Corsair 6400c4 kit at over 1,100MHz? If so then it couldn't be the same ProMOS chips they currently ship with? And which motherboard did this, nForce6 boards?

I've run both the 6400 and 6400c4 kits in my 965P-DS3, any volts higher than 2.1v on both would generate errors, and the system would hit a brick wall just over 3.5GHz / 1GHz on the RAM with both kits at 5-5-5-15. Timings of 6-6-6-20 didn't budge it, and 2.2v would make them unstable. I've seen similar results elsewhere so I know I'm not the only one.

[pastorjay]

I only have had this one kit, so it would of had to be this kit. I will have to look in my notes at home to double check the actual overclock I got.

[ap90033]

Hey guys, I got the GA-P35-DS3L which is the same basic board minus a few SATA ports. I saw on extreme hardwares site a review of it and they blew it up overclocking a Quad Core Extreme CPU at 1.5 volts. They seemed to blame the 4 pin atx power and said it should have been 8 pin. They were using a 550 watt sunbeam power supply. What do you think? Will this board handle a Quad Core Overclocked? Is there a design flaw with this board? I ask here since the P35-DS3R has the same 4 pin and basically its the same board.

I went and used the Power Supply calculator pro and it suggest a minimum power supply of 578 watts if they are using 1.5 volts, a Q6700 extreme, (2) DVDRWs, (2) USB Devices... Seems like the power supply was a little to small for what they were doing?

[ibleet]

Holy thread revival batman!

Hey guys, I got the GA-P35-DS3L. What do you think? Will this board handle a Quad Core Overclocked?

The answer is a resounding Yes! I just build a rig around the DS3L and overclocked a Q6600 to 3.6Ghz (1.4v) stable using a Freezer 7 Pro and a Corsair 520HX PSU...stable is they come and plenty of power since it is such a high quality PSU.

Is there a design flaw with this board?

I have seen absolutely no evidence of a design flaw with this board. It has performed like a champ...highly recommended P35 budget board!

If you are worried about insufficient power, get a Corsair 620HX.