| Gigabyte GA 965P DS3 Motherboard Review |
| Written by Maxit | |||||
Supplier: Fasktek UK Manufacturer: Gigabyte Upgrading to Conroe? Join us in the forums for the latest Conroe chat, performance comparisons and insider information to help you decide on your Conroe upgrade. First impressionsUpon inspection, the first thing you'll notice about the GA-965P-DS3 is that although it's a full size ATX board, it's somewhat smaller than most boards, measuring approximately 305 x 210 mm compared to the ATX standard of 305 x 244 mm. Another unique feature of this board is that it implements and all-solid capacitor design, which Gigabyte says improves stablity whilst overclocking. While we cannot be sure about these claims, we do know that solid capacitors are much more durable than electrolytic capacitors found on most other motherboards, and should extend the boards lifetime.  Click to enlarge Let's have a closer look at the specifications of the DS3: Processor
Chipset
Memory
Expansion Slots
Form Factor
Internal I/O Connectors
Rear Panel I/O
H/W Monitoring
Other Features
A Closer lookThe northbridge and southbridge are passively cooled. Initially, we thought that these heatsinks were made of copper, but on closer inspection found out that they are made of aluminium and coloured gold. Also, If you look around the LGA 775 socket, you will notice that this board only has 3 phase power reulation. While it will be enough for Core 2 Duo and the existing line of power hungry netburst based CPUs, it's questionable whether it will be able to cope with quad-core "Kentsfield" CPUs which are scheduled for Q4. It's worth mentioning that the motherboard comes with solid capacitors, which are more stable, last longer and although cost more, are more reliable than standard capacitors.  The bundle included was absolutely no-frills. 4 SATA cables, 1 IDE cable, 1 floppy cable, users' guide booklet, a quick installation guide, a leaflet with detailed instructions on installing a CPU and finally a I/O backplate. Restricting the bundle to include only the bare necessities should help in keeping costs down.  The BIOSThe BIOS has a host of features to keep the overclocker happy. It allows adjustment of the FSB from 100 to 600 MHz in 1 MHz increments. RAM can be run at DDR2 533/667/709/800/888/1067 MHz. It has options enabling you to change common RAM timings such as CAS latency, RAS to CAS delay, RAS precharge and cycle time (tRAS). Unfortunately, no matter how low you set the tRAS it never actually goes below 9, which is a shame. It's also worth mentioning that the RAM timings as well as a host of other BIOS options are hidden - you need to press Ctrl + F1 on the main BIOS page to make them accessible. The BIOS also has a wide range of voltage adjustments, however most of the default values are not listed which is strange. vCore can be adjusted form 0.5125v all the way upto 2.0v. This can be done in 0.00625v steps till 1.60v and then in 0.2 steps till 2.0v. Most of us will be staying well below 1.60v, so such fine adjustment of vCore is welcome. It allows you to overvolt your RAM by upto 0.6v in 0.1v steps. The default setting is not listed, but in reality we found this to be 1.8v. Therefore, in total you can pump 2.4v through your RAM. A slightly higher ceiling would be welcome though, especially for hardcore benchers. The FSB and MCH (northbridge) voltages can be increased independantly upto 0.3v above default settings in 0.1v increments. The PCI-e bus can be overvolted by 0.1v. Again, we hope that Gigabyte will list the default settings of all voltages, as well as fix the tRAS issue in a future BIOS release. OverclockingLet's get down to business and start overclocking. Our hardware consisted of the following:
Our CPU has a default clock speed of 1.86 GHz (266 x 7). However, we were able to push it all the way till an extremely impressive 450 x 7 resulting in a frequency of 3.15 GHz - an overclock of 1.29 GHz, almost a 70% over stock frequency. This setting was 100% prime stable, and we didn't have any problems cold-booting at 450 x 7 either. 
The stock vCore for our processor is 1.2875v, and to acheive this overclock, we had to set the vCore to 1.375v in the BIOS, however under load this dropped to 1.312v. Whille the vDroop isn't intolerable, it is a slightly too much for our liking. Also to enable this overclock, the MCH had to be overvolted by 0.3v, the maximum allowed in the BIOS. Playing with the FSB and PCI-e bus voltages didn't have any effect on overclockability. Even with the mutliplier dropped to 6x, we were not able to push the FSB any further without the system crashing during prime. None the less, 450 MHz absolutely rock stable is very impressive from a £100 board. Most boards costing 50% more can't match this. Final thoughtsWe were gobsmacked with the performance of the Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3. Despite it's price, this is one of, if not the best overclocking Core 2 Duo motherboards on the market. Although it may not support crossfire, it will make an excellent foundation for a system in which multiple GPUs aren't requred. Although there are a few niggles such as the problem setting the tRAS, unknown stock voltages and the 0.06v vDrop under load, it's upsides definitely outweigh it's minor problems. We heartily recommend this motherboard to those who don't intend to run a crossfire setup.PROS
CONS
 
Upgrading to Conroe? Join us in the forums for the latest Conroe chat, performance comparisons and insider information to help you decide on your Conroe upgrade.
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