Intel P965: Mid-Range Performance Sector Roundup
by Gary Key on October 20, 2006 9:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3: Feature Set
The Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 is one of the more value priced offerings in our mid-range lineup with a street price around $145. Unlike the other boards in our roundup it does not use the Intel ICH8R which means two additional SATA ports and RAID capabilities come from the JMicron JMB363 chipset that also serves as the IDE controller. The DS3 also does not come with Firewire capability which is a mistake in our opinion.
The BIOS is feature rich and is geared towards the enthusiast with a significant amount of voltage/memory timing options provided you remember to enter Ctrl-F1 while in the BIOS setup screen. Why Gigabyte continues to force the user to remember this keystroke sequence for additional BIOS options is beyond us. This motherboard is marketed to the performance crowd so why not let us have access to these commands without the secret code?
Gigabyte also includes a full suite of utilities for the board: EasyTune5, M.I.T. (Motherboard Intelligent Tweaker), Download Center, Xpress Install, @BIOS, Smart LAN, Smart Fan, and Virtual Dual BIOS. We found the @BIOS utility to be very handy for downloading and then updating the BIOS while in Windows. For those who are squeamish about updating their BIOS within Windows, Gigabyte has the Q-Flash utility built into the BIOS that allows updating from a floppy drive.
EasyTune5 is probably one of the most utilized utilities in the Gigabyte arsenal and allows for control of the FSB and certain voltages within Windows although a reboot is required for most voltage settings. We found the utility worked well for squeezing out those last few FSB increases but we still found ourselves tweaking the BIOS the majority of the time. The PC Health monitor provided basic readings of the system but for some odd reason our CPU temperature liked to blip under 20C when capturing our screenshots. Our actual idle temps at stock settings were 27C on this board. The Smart Fan utility allows control over the two fan headers.
Like our other boards in this roundup Gigabyte includes a dynamic overclocking capability dependent up system load or preset attributes. This capability can be located within the BIOS under the C.I.A.2 setting and is no way affiliated with the US government. The settings range from Cruise (5% increase) to Full Thrust (17% increase). We decided to see how well this motherboard performed at Full Thrust and were treated with a blank screen on reboot. After a quick CMOS clear event we backed down to the Turbo (15% increase) setting and were able to complete our benchmark testing. C.I.A.2 determined our Turbo settings would end at a final 7x308FSB providing a CPU speed of 2156MHz and our memory running at DDR2-924 with 5-5-5-15 settings. Just as predicted by C.I.A.2 an increase of over 15% in the FSB speed was realized.
| Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 | |
| Market Segment: | Mid-Range Performance |
| CPU Interface: | Socket T (Socket 775) |
| CPU Support: | LGA775-based Pentium 4, Celeron D, Pentium D, Pentium EE, Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Extreme |
| Chipset: | Intel P965 + ICH8 |
| Bus Speeds: | 100 to 600 in 1MHz Increments |
| Memory Ratios: | Auto, 2, 2.5, 3, 2.66, 3.33, 4 |
| PCIe Speeds: | Auto, 90MHz~150MHz in 1MHz Increments |
| PCI: | Fixed at 33.33MHz |
| Core Voltage: | Normal, 1.0250V to 1.6000V in 0.00625V increments, 1.80V, 2.0V |
| CPU Clock Multiplier: | Auto, 6x-11x in 1X increments if CPU is unlocked, downwards unlocked, Core 2 Duo |
| DRAM Voltage: | Normal, +.1V ~ +.7V in +.1V increments |
| DRAM Timing Control: | Normal, 9 DRAM Timing Options, Memory Performance Enhance Mode |
| FSB Termination Voltage: | Normal, +.1V ~ +.3V in +.1V increments |
| MCH Voltage: | Normal, +.1V ~ +.3V in +.1V increments |
| Memory Slots: | Four 240-pin DDR2 DIMM Slots Dual-Channel Configuration Regular Unbuffered Memory to 8GB Total |
| Expansion Slots: | 1 - PCIe X16 3 - PCIe X1 3 - PCI Slot 2.3 |
| Onboard SATA/RAID: | 6 SATA 3Gbps Ports - Intel ICH8 2 SATA 3Gbps Ports - (RAID 0,1,JBOD) - JMicron JMB363 |
| Onboard IDE: | 1 ATA133/100/66 Port (2 drives) - JMicron JMB363 |
| Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394: | 10 USB 2.0 Ports - 4 I/O Panel - 6 via Headers no firewire support |
| Onboard LAN: | Gigabit Ethernet Controller - PCI Express Interface Marvel 88E8053 |
| Onboard Audio: | Realtek ALC-883 8-channel High Definition Audio CODEC |
| Power Connectors: | ATX 24-pin, 4-pin EATX 12V |
| I/O Panel: | 1 x PS/2 Keyboard 1 x PS/2 Mouse 1 x Parallel Port 1 x S/PDIF Optical 1 x S/PDIF Coaxial 1 x Serial Port 1 x Audio Panel 1 x RJ45 4 x USB 2.0/1.1 |
| BIOS Revision: | Award F7 |
The Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 is one of the more value priced offerings in our mid-range lineup with a street price around $145. Unlike the other boards in our roundup it does not use the Intel ICH8R which means two additional SATA ports and RAID capabilities come from the JMicron JMB363 chipset that also serves as the IDE controller. The DS3 also does not come with Firewire capability which is a mistake in our opinion.
The BIOS is feature rich and is geared towards the enthusiast with a significant amount of voltage/memory timing options provided you remember to enter Ctrl-F1 while in the BIOS setup screen. Why Gigabyte continues to force the user to remember this keystroke sequence for additional BIOS options is beyond us. This motherboard is marketed to the performance crowd so why not let us have access to these commands without the secret code?
Gigabyte also includes a full suite of utilities for the board: EasyTune5, M.I.T. (Motherboard Intelligent Tweaker), Download Center, Xpress Install, @BIOS, Smart LAN, Smart Fan, and Virtual Dual BIOS. We found the @BIOS utility to be very handy for downloading and then updating the BIOS while in Windows. For those who are squeamish about updating their BIOS within Windows, Gigabyte has the Q-Flash utility built into the BIOS that allows updating from a floppy drive.
EasyTune5 is probably one of the most utilized utilities in the Gigabyte arsenal and allows for control of the FSB and certain voltages within Windows although a reboot is required for most voltage settings. We found the utility worked well for squeezing out those last few FSB increases but we still found ourselves tweaking the BIOS the majority of the time. The PC Health monitor provided basic readings of the system but for some odd reason our CPU temperature liked to blip under 20C when capturing our screenshots. Our actual idle temps at stock settings were 27C on this board. The Smart Fan utility allows control over the two fan headers.
Like our other boards in this roundup Gigabyte includes a dynamic overclocking capability dependent up system load or preset attributes. This capability can be located within the BIOS under the C.I.A.2 setting and is no way affiliated with the US government. The settings range from Cruise (5% increase) to Full Thrust (17% increase). We decided to see how well this motherboard performed at Full Thrust and were treated with a blank screen on reboot. After a quick CMOS clear event we backed down to the Turbo (15% increase) setting and were able to complete our benchmark testing. C.I.A.2 determined our Turbo settings would end at a final 7x308FSB providing a CPU speed of 2156MHz and our memory running at DDR2-924 with 5-5-5-15 settings. Just as predicted by C.I.A.2 an increase of over 15% in the FSB speed was realized.
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JarredWalton - Saturday, October 21, 2006 - link
Oh, trust me, Gary tested with a LOT of RAM types and manufacturers. However, for the *benchmarks* he settled on one specific set of DIMMs. I think he's trying to put together some information on how the various boards worked with other RAM (see above comment from Gary). Cheers!stmok - Saturday, October 21, 2006 - link
LOL...I think its more like: "What the hell were the Abit engineers thinking?!"Based on your experiences, do you know if the Analog Devices AD1988A HD Audio Codec works in Linux? I wouldn't mind going for the ASUS P5B-E at the end of the year.
And finally, is the rev 1.02G mobo available now? Or in a few months time?
Gary Key - Saturday, October 21, 2006 - link
The 1.09 ADI AD1988A drivers worked fine in SUSE 10.1. Realtek has better support at this time but ADI seems to be catching up. Believe it or not, but we booted every board with SUSE 10.1 just to make sure they went to the desktop. We might even do a once in a while look at Linux down the road.
xsilver - Saturday, October 21, 2006 - link
what is the range of overclocking possible with pc6400 ram?without dividers? with dividers?
Gary Key - Saturday, October 21, 2006 - link
Good question, depends on the PC2-6400 RAM. We are working on something right now to answer your question with a few different modules.xsilver - Sunday, October 22, 2006 - link
probably something standard like corsair VS or something priced very similar if there is better performance elsewherexsilver - Sunday, October 22, 2006 - link
also I would assume that 1gig vs. 2gig makes no difference but if it does, it would be good to know.Madellga - Saturday, October 21, 2006 - link
Excellent review Gary. I also look forward for the round 2 and also for a 975/ATI/Nvidia reviews.Please try to mention the Vmch used for the overclocking results, as this says a lot about the motherboads also.
Gary Key - Saturday, October 21, 2006 - link
I am setting up a overclocking settings table and will try to show some additional results with different memory types that we used in testing. I have no idea when this will be finished. ;-)Ryan Norton - Saturday, October 21, 2006 - link
This article is terrific-- now I just need to read the high-end part and I can finally put together a Core 2 Duo system.Will the DS4 be included in the high-end guide? I don't want a DQ-6 because the copper backplate under the processor socket would prevent installation of a Scythe Ninja heatsink.
Are the AHCI issues going to stay the way they are, with needing to load the drivers from a floppy disk during Windows install, or are there any P965 boards that don't require "an engineering degree and a day off" as you guys said?