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: Board Layout and Features
Gigabyte has provided us with a well engineered board with a very good layout, though we would say the color combination does not have a central theme and lacks cohesiveness. We just feel if a manufacturer is going to take the time to add colors to a motherboard then at least do it with a graphics artist nearby. However, the board was a breeze to install in our case and all connections were easily reached. The board features a three-phase voltage regulator system that provided excellent stability throughout our testing. Gigabyte has recently switched their upper end boards to 100% use of Conductive Polymer Aluminum Solid Capacitors instead of the typical Electrolytic Capacitor. The purpose for this is to improve system durability and to provide for added stability under heavy load operations such as overclocking. With the latest BIOS release this board is also ready for the new Intel Core 2 Extreme Quad-Core (Kentsfield) processors.
The DIMM module slots' color coordination is once again correct for dual channel setup based upon the premise of installing DIMMs in the same colored slots for dual-channel operation. The memory modules are slightly difficult to install with a full size video card placed in the PCI Express x16 slot. The 24-pin ATX power connector and black floppy drive connector are located along the edge of the board and behind the DIMM slots. The board only comes with two fan headers with the CPU fan header being located to the right of the first DIMM slot.
The four Intel ICH8 SATA ports are color coded yellow and the two JMicron JMB363 SATA ports are in a wonderful shade of lavender next to the green IDE connector. We found the positioning of the SATA ports to be excellent when utilizing the PCI 2.3 slots although we still prefer the IDE connector on the edge of the board to facilitate better cable management. The ICH8 is passively cooled with a gold colored low-rise heatsink and remained fairly cool to the touch throughout testing.
The chassis panel is located at the bottom left corner of the board. The clear CMOS jumper is located in between the battery and ICH8 chipset. This is a two pin configuration and requires the use of a pen to reach and is blocked if a card is installed in the first PCI slot. It seems to be a trend lately of the various manufacturers to place this jumper in the most inconvenient locations. Until the BIOS recovery programs work 100% of the time it would be nice to have this jumper out in the open, or even better go with the "button" design that we've seen used by a few manufacturers.
The board comes with (1) physical PCI Express x16 connector, (3) PCI Express x1 connectors, and (3) PCI 2.3 connectors. The layout of this design offers a very good balance of expansion slots for a mainstream performance board while providing excellent clearance space for graphics card utilization. The second PCI Express x1 slot will be blocked by a dual slot graphics card but considering the dearth of PCI Express peripherals this is fully acceptable. The first PCI Express x1 slot is a tight fit as a card installed in this slot will have minimal clearance between the MCH heatsink and video card.
Upon entering the CPU socket area, we find an ample amount of room for the majority of cooling solutions. We utilized the stock heatsink/fan in our base testing but also verified several of the larger Socket-775 cooling solutions would fit in this area during our overclocking tests. The 4-pin ATX power connector is placed on the far right side of the board and did not interfere with our various cooling units.
The Intel P965 MCH chipset is passively cooled with a mid-rise heatsink unit that did not interfere with any installed peripherals. Unfortunately, this heatsink is not very good at keeping the MCH cool during heavy overclocking. Gigabyte has used this design for the past year but has generally shipped a small fan that attaches to it for additional cooling. This heatsink needs it when running the system above 400FSB. However, even if it were included this board only has two fan headers which is not representative of a performance oriented board.
The rear panel contains the standard PS/2 mouse and keyboard ports along with serial and parallel ports for those who still require legacy peripherals. The panel also includes a LAN port, 4 USB ports, and two S/PDIF (optical out/coaxial out) ports. The LAN (RJ-45) port has two LED indicators representing Activity and Speed of the connection through the Marvell 88E8053 Gigabit PCI-E chipset. The audio panel consists of 6 ports that can be configured for 2, 4, 6, and 8-channel audio connections for the Realtek ALC 883 HD codec. The only item missing from our wish list would be a Firewire port if the board supported it.
 |
| Click to enlarge |
Gigabyte has provided us with a well engineered board with a very good layout, though we would say the color combination does not have a central theme and lacks cohesiveness. We just feel if a manufacturer is going to take the time to add colors to a motherboard then at least do it with a graphics artist nearby. However, the board was a breeze to install in our case and all connections were easily reached. The board features a three-phase voltage regulator system that provided excellent stability throughout our testing. Gigabyte has recently switched their upper end boards to 100% use of Conductive Polymer Aluminum Solid Capacitors instead of the typical Electrolytic Capacitor. The purpose for this is to improve system durability and to provide for added stability under heavy load operations such as overclocking. With the latest BIOS release this board is also ready for the new Intel Core 2 Extreme Quad-Core (Kentsfield) processors.
The DIMM module slots' color coordination is once again correct for dual channel setup based upon the premise of installing DIMMs in the same colored slots for dual-channel operation. The memory modules are slightly difficult to install with a full size video card placed in the PCI Express x16 slot. The 24-pin ATX power connector and black floppy drive connector are located along the edge of the board and behind the DIMM slots. The board only comes with two fan headers with the CPU fan header being located to the right of the first DIMM slot.
The four Intel ICH8 SATA ports are color coded yellow and the two JMicron JMB363 SATA ports are in a wonderful shade of lavender next to the green IDE connector. We found the positioning of the SATA ports to be excellent when utilizing the PCI 2.3 slots although we still prefer the IDE connector on the edge of the board to facilitate better cable management. The ICH8 is passively cooled with a gold colored low-rise heatsink and remained fairly cool to the touch throughout testing.
The chassis panel is located at the bottom left corner of the board. The clear CMOS jumper is located in between the battery and ICH8 chipset. This is a two pin configuration and requires the use of a pen to reach and is blocked if a card is installed in the first PCI slot. It seems to be a trend lately of the various manufacturers to place this jumper in the most inconvenient locations. Until the BIOS recovery programs work 100% of the time it would be nice to have this jumper out in the open, or even better go with the "button" design that we've seen used by a few manufacturers.
The board comes with (1) physical PCI Express x16 connector, (3) PCI Express x1 connectors, and (3) PCI 2.3 connectors. The layout of this design offers a very good balance of expansion slots for a mainstream performance board while providing excellent clearance space for graphics card utilization. The second PCI Express x1 slot will be blocked by a dual slot graphics card but considering the dearth of PCI Express peripherals this is fully acceptable. The first PCI Express x1 slot is a tight fit as a card installed in this slot will have minimal clearance between the MCH heatsink and video card.
 |
| Click to enlarge |
Upon entering the CPU socket area, we find an ample amount of room for the majority of cooling solutions. We utilized the stock heatsink/fan in our base testing but also verified several of the larger Socket-775 cooling solutions would fit in this area during our overclocking tests. The 4-pin ATX power connector is placed on the far right side of the board and did not interfere with our various cooling units.
The Intel P965 MCH chipset is passively cooled with a mid-rise heatsink unit that did not interfere with any installed peripherals. Unfortunately, this heatsink is not very good at keeping the MCH cool during heavy overclocking. Gigabyte has used this design for the past year but has generally shipped a small fan that attaches to it for additional cooling. This heatsink needs it when running the system above 400FSB. However, even if it were included this board only has two fan headers which is not representative of a performance oriented board.
The rear panel contains the standard PS/2 mouse and keyboard ports along with serial and parallel ports for those who still require legacy peripherals. The panel also includes a LAN port, 4 USB ports, and two S/PDIF (optical out/coaxial out) ports. The LAN (RJ-45) port has two LED indicators representing Activity and Speed of the connection through the Marvell 88E8053 Gigabit PCI-E chipset. The audio panel consists of 6 ports that can be configured for 2, 4, 6, and 8-channel audio connections for the Realtek ALC 883 HD codec. The only item missing from our wish list would be a Firewire port if the board supported it.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
62 Comments
View All Comments
Gary Key - Saturday, October 21, 2006 - link
The DS4 will be reviewed. Gigabyte has stated they will not bring it into the US but we are still trying to convince them (really more like begging and calling our marketing rep at home on the weekends to beg some more) to release it in the States. The copper backplate can be removed off the DQ6 and I really did not see any benefit with it on in testing. It makes for a good rebate with the price of copper today. ;-)The AHCI issues stay the way they are at this time. It is frustrating to say the least. I was being a bit sarcastic in my statement but it is a little harder than it should be to enable AHCI on the ICH8R.
Ryan Norton - Sunday, October 22, 2006 - link
I'm in Taiwan, so the DS4 is all over the place :)Capt Caveman - Saturday, October 21, 2006 - link
Not sure if you live in the US or not but Gigabyte is not bringing/selling the DS4 to the US.Also, the copper backplate for the DQ-6, can be removed with a tworx(sp?) screwdriver. At XS, many just went to Home Depot and got longer screws for their HSF.
lopri - Saturday, October 21, 2006 - link
Excellent review that'll help potential buyers enormously. A couple things:1. Error in the chart (page 14): There is a discrepency between the chart (3-4-3) and the commentary (3-4-4) :)
2. In memory review Wesley always put tRP ahead of tRCD, while Gary does the opposite. It'd be nice to have a consistency for less experienced users!
3. Gary, did you test the P5W-DH with wirless module installed or without? I recently found out the wirless module could skew CPU/memory-sensitive benchmarks on this board big time. I'm not sure if my finding is true in general, but if it is, then the comparison between a board with such feature and a board without it can be unfair.
4. Can Sandra Unbuffered be really an indication of general performace? @400FSB, setting memory ratio 4:5 (DDR2-1000/4-4-3) boosted the score by a whooping 400~500 MB/s from the ratio 1:1 (DDR2-800/3-3-3), which never realized for other tests in a meaningful way. Oh this is about my own testing. :D
Thanks for the great review.
Gary Key - Saturday, October 21, 2006 - link
Thanks for the comments.1. The timing error is corrected. Jarred and I were editing at the same and we found out after the article went live that our saves to the final copy would overwrite each other. Bad timing for several other mistakes that have been cleared up now.
2. Wes is wrong. Just kidding, we will get on the same page. :)
3. I turned off the WiFi on the PSW-DH. The scores were even worse with it on. Not that they are bad but the board runs a little looser timings in order to overclock at the high end. DFI also does this with their boards targeted for the overclocking market.
4. Sandra Unbuffered can be an indication of performance in apps that are memory sensitive. This is not always the case but it is one of the better yardsticks available at this time.
Lothar - Saturday, October 21, 2006 - link
Do you plan on comparing the Gigabyte DS3 vs the S3 version for us to know if there are performance/overclocking issues with the S3?The only difference so far between the DS3 and S3 is "All Solid Capacitors".
Are there any other difference I'm missing?
The S3 is $110, and the DS3 is $150.
I have a hard time to justify paying an extra $40 for only "all solid capacitors"
The term is nothing but marketing to me so far.
I haven't seen any proof of a performance/overclocking issue between the two boards.
If you or anyone else plan on testing the differences or can provide something(Ex: any review link) stating otherwise, that would be great.
Nakazato - Monday, October 23, 2006 - link
In theory, cleaner power.... but aside from the theory, the onboard sound does start flaking out the higher you go. This has been true on 2/2 boards I've tried it on. So an add-in card is needed for the higher overclocks... 460+ish.goinginstyle - Monday, October 23, 2006 - link
No issue here with the Biostar board at 500FSB and the Realtek ALC-883. It sounds fine but a X-FI is still the way to go for gaming.Gary Key - Saturday, October 21, 2006 - link
Yes, the S3 will be in part two. :)
Lothar - Saturday, October 21, 2006 - link
The only other differences I found were RAID support and 2 extra USB ports...It's not worth the $40 price difference if performance and overclocking results are the same IMO.