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GIGABYTE was born 20 years ago, brought into the world by a handful of elite IT engineers. Since then, GIGABYTE has grown into one of the largest motherboard manufacturers, and more recently has focused on catering to the enthusiast PC market. Gigabytes GA-965P-DS3 comes to light, featuring the P965 chipset, All-Solid Capacitor Motherboard Design, and maybe most importantly, weighs in with a modest price-tag. Today, HardwareLogic is going to find out exactly what the GA-965P-DS3 is made of....come along and see for yourself....
Currenlty, there are handfull of relatively new Intel Chipsets available to consumers. With the recent introduction of Intel's Core 2 Duo procesors came an even newer breed of chipsets, the Intel P965. Intel Core 2 Duo processors require a new standard of power regulation be built into motherboards. While you might see motherboards with 975X chipsets, because 975 is a bigger number then 965 doesn't necessarily mean it's going to support Core 2 Duo. To support Core 2 Duo, 975X chipset must have the revised VRM11 CPU power regulation. Easily enough, all P965 motherboards support Core 2 Duo. Another quality that seperates P965 boards from the rest is the fact that Intels ICH8 South-Bridge eliminates PATA drive support entirely. When compared to the new revised 975X motherboards, about the only thing P965 can't do is support true ATI Crossfire because it lacks the true 8x 8x PCI-E graphics capabilities.
The GIGABYTE 965P-DS3 motherboard delivers high-performance with great tuning facilities for DIY and power users. The board's complete performance tuning facility enables power user to customize system performance according to their individual needs. Boasting solid capacitors, this platform is specifically designed for enhanced durability, ensuring a longer system operation life time and boosting system stability under extreme conditions." ~GIGABYTE
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| Chipset |
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| Memory |
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| Expansion Slots |
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| Form Factor |
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| Internal I/O Connectors |
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| Rear I/O Panel |
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| HW Monitoring |
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| Warranty |
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| Price |
Bundle
The GIGABYTE GA-965P-DS3 comes with everything you'll need to get your system built and up and running. Included are:
- Instruction and User Manual, Quick Start Guide
- Installation CD (w/ Drivers and monitoring software)
- (x1) IDE and (x1) FDD ribbon cables
- (x4) SATA cables(secure connect)
- Rear I/O shield
- Gigabyte Case Badge
The documentation and manuals included with the DS3 are what you would expect from a premium packaged motherboard. The Quick Start Hardware Installation guide is one of the better I have seen and gives a pictorial walk through of assembling the hardware into the motherboard. I also like it when companies include a case badge in the mix.
GIGABYTE includes all the cables needed to connect drives to the DS3. The orange SATA cables ARE NOT the cheap red ones commonly included with motehrboards. Instead, GIGAYBTE uses SATA cables that have little clips on the connectors which ensure a secure connection to drives, because as you may know, SATA cables are notorious for coming loose, which can cause serious problems such as data loss.
The DS3 color scheme could line up with a rainbow. While some other motherboards such as the P5B Vanilla are just drab brown, the DS3 is more like candy for the eyes. The blue PCB is custom to many GIGABYTE motherboards.
Sometimes motherboard manufacturers will pack the area surround the CPU socket with tall capacitors which can possibly get in the way of mounting aftermarket cooling solutions. Here is a pic of the GA-965P-DS3 CPU socket and surroundings so we can see.
As you can see there are no tall capacitors around the CPU socket and for the most part there should be adequite room for mounting aftermarket cooling. When mounting the XP-90C for testing, I found that the DS3 CPU area is well spaced out and the heatsink fit nicely. There will be enough room for even larger aftermarket coolers.
I found the location of the battery a bit hard to reach, located between PCI slots is not the best place it could be. It would be better served located near the edge of the PCB in the event it should need to be changed.
On the other hand, SATA ports are located in very close proximity of each other which makes routing SATA cables easy and neat. Some motherboard will have SATA ports spread out in two or three locations across the PCB which can make for a messy looking rats nest of wires. The 40-pin IDE connector is also close to the South Bridge and near the SATA ports, so in essence all of the HDD optical drive cables can be routed together into one place. All in all the layout is very clean and well planned out.
CPU Support
Here we see the Socket 775 which supports the latest Intel Core 2 Duo Processors. The P965 CPU socket is special because it has the revised VRM11 CPU power regulation, this is versus older Socket 775 motherboards which have VRM9 standard. Also notice the use of a 4-pin ATX CPU connector, and 4-pin is more than enough for Core 2 Duo because C2D requires low energy compared to previous Pentium D processors.
Memory Support
The P965 chipset is the first from Intel's mainstream line-up to officially support native DDR-800 memory. The DS3 is equiped with four 240-pin DIMM slots capable of holding a massive 8GB of DDR2 memory between them, though Windows XP will only recognize 3GB total. The DS3 also features the standard 24-pin ATX motherboard connector. Notice there is a 4-pin fan header between the floppy connector and 4th DIMM slot. This is an unusual placement for a fan header, not to mention that the standard is 3-pins.
P965 North Bridge Chipset
Strapped on top of the P965 chip is an oddly shaped gold painted heatsink. The heatsink is rather large, and does it's job of keeping the chipset cool. During testing this heatsink became burning hot to the touch, it would have been nice for Gigabyte to include an active cooler on the North Bridge. The P965 North Bridge held up well during our testing and I was able to crank the FSB up to 450MHZ, to boot. Overclockers will find this to be good news, because high FSB capabilities are necessary in order make up for the lower multipliers of Core 2 Duo processors.
ICH8 South Bridge & Storage
As of now the Intel ICH8 South Bridge is unique to P965 chipsets. ICH8 basically phases out ATA40-pin connectors and only one such connection is available through the JMicron controller. I was a bit suprised AND dissapointed at the fact that the DS3 does not offer RAID functions via the ICH8 controller. Instead GIGABYTE uses an OEM JMicron SATAII controller.
One problem that occured after setup of Windows XP was the optical drive attatched to the ICH8 controller was a bit sluggish and slow. Whenever the drive was loading and seeking, the entire PC became very sluggish. The Intel chipset drives included on the GIGABYTE disk obviously have an issue, and the problem was resolved by installing the latest drivers from Intel that can be downlaoded here.
One thing that was a bit different and not something I have ever seen before is, of the front panel connection pins, the RED pins are for a Power Switch and the BLUE pins are for HDD activity LEDs. This is not by any means standard, on every motherboard I can remember GREEN was for Power Switch and RED for HDD activity LEDs.
Expansion Slots
The DS3 is fitted with enough expansion slots to suite just about everyones needs. I believe the placement and organization of the PCI slots is about as good as it gets. Expansion card developers are a bit slow on releasing PCI-E x1 cards but rest assured when they become available the DS3 can accept them, three that is. It is a good idea to have a x1 slot positioned above the PCI-E x16 graphics slot because a dual slot PCI-E graphics card is going to eliminate atleast the first x1 slot under the card, if not both.
Audio, Ethernet and USB
The GIGABYTE GA-965P-DS3 uses an 8-CH audio Realtek ALC883 Azalia HD Audio Codec and supports Aux-In, CD-In, and S/PDIF-out. It also features Optical & Coaxial S/PDIF-out connectors on the rear panel.
For ethernet connection the DS3 is fitted with a single gigabit RJ-45 jack which has a power LED and activity LED. Many of todays motherboards have dual Gigabit ethernet jacks, however the DS3 does not fall into that category
USB ports are something that every motherboard must have. The DS3 features four USB 2.0 jacks on the rear I/O panel. I believe that four USB jacks is a minimum for any PC today considering the high availability of USB mouse and keyboards. Add in a digital camera, and a printer and all four jacks are full.... I would have liked to see GIGABYTE include a PCI expansion with atleast a pair of additional USB slots.
Additional Features
While not new or groundbreaking, the Gigabyte EasyTune really is a nice, and easy to use GUI (Graphical User Interface). This utility gives alot of information about the system, including CPU clock speed and system environment temperatures and fan speeds. CPU overclocking can also be done using EasyTune.
Upon loading the GIGABYTE Driver/Utility, under the Software tab is a handfull of very good utitlities including Norton Internet Security, which provides Antivirus, a Firewall, Privacy Control, AntiSpam and Parental Conrol. The free sub scri ption to Norton updates is valid for three months, and then to keep the update sub scri ption, Norton charges $49.99 for an additional year. Right underneath of the Norton install button is Kaspersky Antivirus. which is another great AV program, and it is FREE.
UPDATE! Over the past month Gigabyte Engineers have been hard at work improving the DS3 BIOS. The new bios is due to be publically released by mid-September. The most important thing that Gigabyte worked on is the Memory Timings, they can not be set manually. Now going in the BIOS under M.I.T is not going to show the Memory Timings. Instead, at the main bios screen hit> Ctrl + F1, then go to M.I.T and you will see a big long list of options, including Memory Timings, now that is what enthusiast want to see. Kudos to our Gigabyte contact for getting this BIOS in our hands...
MB Intelligent Tweaker(M.I.T)
I strongly recommend updating the bios to the latest available from GIGABYTE, and it can be found here. Further down we look at how to update your DS3 bios.
We are going to touch on the BIOS options that appeal to enthusiast
| MB Intelligent Tweaker |
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Let me caution our readers, that adjusting memory voltage can damage sensitive memory modules. Also, setting incorrect Memory timings CAN cause system instability.
@Bios
GIGABYTE offers @BIOS, an easy-to-use GUI bios updater which can be used within Windows. The DS3 bios may also be updated from the bios and running QFLASH by hitting F8, this requires that the new bios file be on a floppy disk.
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| Memory |
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| Video Card |
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| Hard Drive |
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| Power Supply |
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| Cooling |
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| Operating System |
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| Drivers |
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Sisoft Sandra 2005 CPU Arithmetic
SiSoft Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is a 32 and 64-bit Windows system analyser that includes benchmarking, testing and listing modules. For testing processors we use Sandra's CPU Arithmetic benchmark.
Sisoft Sandra 2005 CPU Multi-Media
SiSoft Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is a 32 and 64-bit Windows system analyser that includes benchmarking, testing and listing modules. For testing processors we use Sandra's CPU Multi-Media benchmark.
Everest Ultimate Edition 2006
EVEREST Ultimate Edition is system diagnostics and benchmarking solution for enthusiasts PC users, based on the award-winning EVEREST Technology. During system optimizations and tweaking it provides essential system and overclock information, advanced hardware monitoring and diagnostics capabilities to check the effects of the applied settings. For testing processors we use Everest's CPU Photoworxx benchmark.
Cinebench 2003
The tool is set to deliver accurate benchmarks by testing not only a computer's raw processing speed but also all other areas that affect system performance such as OpenGL, multithreading, multiprocessors and Intel's new HT Technology. CINEBENCH includes render tasks that test the performance of up to 16 multiprocessors on the same computer as well as software-only shading tests and OpenGL shading tests on huge numbers of animated polygons that will push any computer to its limits.
PCMark05
PCMark05 is everything you need to reliably and easily measure the performance of your PC and determine its strengths and weaknesses.
3DMark05
3DMark05 is best suited for the latest generation of DirectX 9.0 graphics cards. It is the first benchmark to require a DirectX9.0 compliant hardware with support for Pixel Shaders 2.0 or higher! By combining high quality 3D tests, CPU tests, feature tests, image quality tools, and much more, 3DMark05 is a premium benchmark for evaluating the latest generation of gaming hardware.
3DMark03
By combining full DirectX9.0a support with completely new tests and graphics, 3DMark03 Pro continues the legacy of being the industry standard benchmark. The high quality game tests, image quality tests, sound tests and others give you an extremely accurate overview of your system's current gaming performance.
Sisoft Sandra Memory Bandwidth
SiSoft Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant)is a 32 and 64-bit Windows system analyser that includes benchmarking, testing and listing modules. For testing memory we use Sandra's Memory Bandwidth benchmark.
Everest Ultimate Editon 2006
EVEREST Ultimate Edition is system diagnostics and benchmarking solution for enthusiasts PC users, based on the award-winning EVEREST Technology. During system optimizations and tweaking it provides essential system and overclock information, advanced hardware monitoring and diagnostics capabilities to check the effects of the applied settings. For testing memory we use Everest's Memory Read and Memory Write tests.
Super Pi Mod v1.5
Super Pi is a program used by enthusiasts to benchmark system performance. Owned and maintained by XtremeSystems.org, Super Pi is as much a competition as it is a benchmark, with many forums cataloging users times in the 1M and 32M calculations. For testing memory we use the 1M claculation.
Sciencemark 2.0
Science Mark 2.0 is an attempt to put the truth behind benchmarking. In an attempt to model real world demands and performance, SM2 is a suite of high-performance benchmarks that realistically stress system performance without architectural bias.For benchmarking memory, we use MemBench, an unbiased, synthetic benchmark that sweeps through more than 15 different, publicly available, memory copy algorithms to measure the peak memory performance of your CPUs caches and your memory subsystem.
3DMark05
3DMark05 is best suited for the latest generation of DirectX 9.0 graphics cards. It is the first benchmark to require a DirectX9.0 compliant hardware with support for Pixel Shaders 2.0 or higher! By combining high quality 3D tests, CPU tests, feature tests, image quality tools, and much more, 3DMark05 is a premium benchmark for evaluating the latest generation of gaming hardware.
3DMark03
By combining full DirectX 9.0a support with completely new tests and graphics, 3DMark03 Pro continues the legacy of being the industry standard benchmark. The high quality game tests, image quality tests, sound tests and others give you an extremely accurate overview of your system's current gaming performance.
Doom 3
Doom 3 is an "older" game that still is a good benchmarking tool as it highly stresses your entire system. For benchmarking we use TimeDemo1.
Far Cry
The HardwareOC FarCry Benchmark is an easy-to-use tool, that makes Far Cry video card benchmarking fast and easy.
In 2004 Far Cry earned the "Best Game of the Year" award because of its awesome graphics and gameplay. It was the first game with Pixel Shader 3 support, which later became a standard in many other games.
While the user interface is simple, you can actually change more details than you think. With its one-of-a-kind screenshot feature, you can make snaps from the same frame from different views. You can also use OpenGL instead of Direct3D, or turn on HDR and Geometry instancing.
F.E.A.R
F.E.A.R has been said to be a "Graphical Masterpiece". It's use of High-Dynamic-Range-Lighting (HDR), and shadows pushes visual effects to an entirely new level. F.E.A.R is sure to push any hardware to the limits.
In the past, GIGABYTE's Intel based motherboards haven't been considered very good overclockers, especially compared to enthusiast offerings from other companies. I'm happy to say that Gigabyte has addressed this issue...and then some. The DS3, when run with a Core 2 Duo will achieve FSB in excess of 400MHz without any voltage tweaking. I was able to push our DS3 to post beyond 450MHz stock MCH chipset voltage. **During heavy overclocking the North Bridge heatsink did become burning hot to the touch.
The Gigabytes GA-965P-DS3 ran our Intel E6400 (8x *266 = 2.13GHz stock) stable at 400MHz FSB, or 3.2GHz with no voltage adjustments to the MB, and only a .02v increase in CPU vcore. Again the CPU cooling was holding us back and I believe the DS3 will have no problems running 450MHz FSB stable (with proper cooling). The DS3 also outpaced the high-end Asus P5W DH 975X during my overclocking testing.
The DS3 is a wonderfull choice for enthusiast looking to overclock a Core 2 Duo processor. DS3 ability to hit FSB >450 allows users to turn a $275.00 Core 2 Duo into a powerhouse with minimal voltage adjustments.
| Section | Score | Comments |
| Layout | 9/10 |
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| Features | 18/20 |
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| Bundle | 3/5 |
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| UPDATED* BIOS | 10/10 |
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| Stock Performance | 19/20 |
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| Overclocking Performance | 20/20 |
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| Warranty and Support | 5/5 |
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| Price | 9/10 |
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Our Recommendation
The GIGABYTE GA-965-DS3 is a fine choice for enthusiast looking for a fast motherboard capable of running new Intel Core 2 Duo processors. While the DS3 came in behind the ASUS P5 W DH in most test, the difference was minimal. In fact the DS3 outpaced the more expensive ASUS P5 W DH in overclocking by a healthy margin.
Capable of reaching 450MHz FSB, any enthusiast or overclocker should consider the DS3. All in all the DS3 is very fast and for the price cannot be beat.
Other Reviews of Note
Its always nice to have more than one opinion on a component before you spend your hard earned money. For one, We may see something others missed, or vice versa. As with all reviews published at HardwareLogic, we'll not only give you our recommendation, but also point out some reviews from some other great sites around the web.