Gigabyte P35 Motherboard Thread

[Kougar]

You need to hit Ctrl+F1 to reveal all the overclocking/RAM settings.

The "Performance Enhance" setting that controls memory settings does not function yet on the DDR2 P35-DQ6 using the F4 BIOS. I have set it to Standard, Turbo, and Extreme settings but Mbench results and Memset settings are identical between all three of them. According to Anandtech this setting had a impact on the DDR3 P35T-DQ6, so there is still plenty of feature adding / bug killing left on the DQ6 boards. There is still only the F4 shipping BIOS available, and the last beta F5G BIOS I've seen tested still has this same issue.

 

[firewolfsm]

As Kougar said, performance should still go up as they tweak all the sub-timings and the chipset latencies and timings.

 

[Gsai2912]

Does none of the Gigabye P35 mobos come with eSATA? If any does, which ones? I think the GA-P35T-DQ6 does but I'm not sure of any others?

 

[bloodugly]

Originally posted by: Gsai2912
Does none of the Gigabye P35 mobos come with eSATA? If any does, which ones? I think the GA-P35T-DQ6 does but I'm not sure of any others?

P35-DS3R comes with a bracket for eSata. They give you a data and power cable with it too.

 

[firewolfsm]

I just got the DS3R but I'm waiting on the price drops for C2Ds so I can't test it...

It looks nice though. The only problem I see is the IDE placement which is a little further than usual. If my graphics card leaves room, I might change out the little southbridge heatsink (it's supposed to run a lot hotter than the northbridge for this chipset) for my old Zalman northbridge heatsink, it's a little sad that we need northbridge coolers from the last generation on today's southbridges.

 

[bloodugly]

Originally posted by: firewolfsm
I just got the DS3R but I'm waiting on the price drops for C2Ds so I can't test it...

It looks nice though. The only problem I see is the IDE placement which is a little further than usual. If my graphics card leaves room, I might change out the little southbridge heatsink (it's supposed to run a lot hotter than the northbridge for this chipset) for my old Zalman northbridge heatsink, it's a little sad that we need northbridge coolers from the last generation on today's southbridges.

The southbridge heatsink on my DS3R doesn't seem very warm at all....and I'm running the Orthos blend test right. Not sure if that'd affect the temp much, but I just thought I'd add that. I don't see any reason why someone would need to put a larger heatsink on it. It doesn't get warmer than the northbridge, its not even close.....at least thats how it is on the board I got. The IDE placement pretty much sucks, thats my only complaint so far about this board.

 

[Gsai2912]

Originally posted by: bloodugly

Originally posted by: firewolfsm
I just got the DS3R but I'm waiting on the price drops for C2Ds so I can't test it...

It looks nice though. The only problem I see is the IDE placement which is a little further than usual. If my graphics card leaves room, I might change out the little southbridge heatsink (it's supposed to run a lot hotter than the northbridge for this chipset) for my old Zalman northbridge heatsink, it's a little sad that we need northbridge coolers from the last generation on today's southbridges.

The southbridge heatsink on my DS3R doesn't seem very warm at all....and I'm running the Orthos blend test right. Not sure if that'd affect the temp much, but I just thought I'd add that. I don't see any reason why someone would need to put a larger heatsink on it. It doesn't get warmer than the northbridge, its not even close.....at least thats how it is on the board I got. The IDE placement pretty much sucks, thats my only complaint so far about this board.

If I don't plan on using any IDE devices, is the placement still bad? What does it interfere with exactly? Also thanks for the info about the eSATA.

 

[bryanW1995]

Originally posted by: DasFox
Where are some GA-P35-DS3R reviews?

ALOHA

http://www.vr-zone.com/?i=4966&s=9

 

[bryanW1995]

Originally posted by: bloodugly

Originally posted by: firewolfsm
I just got the DS3R but I'm waiting on the price drops for C2Ds so I can't test it...

It looks nice though. The only problem I see is the IDE placement which is a little further than usual. If my graphics card leaves room, I might change out the little southbridge heatsink (it's supposed to run a lot hotter than the northbridge for this chipset) for my old Zalman northbridge heatsink, it's a little sad that we need northbridge coolers from the last generation on today's southbridges.

The southbridge heatsink on my DS3R doesn't seem very warm at all....and I'm running the Orthos blend test right. Not sure if that'd affect the temp much, but I just thought I'd add that. I don't see any reason why someone would need to put a larger heatsink on it. It doesn't get warmer than the northbridge, its not even close.....at least thats how it is on the board I got. The IDE placement pretty much sucks, thats my only complaint so far about this board.

Keep us posted! I am thinking about the DS3R, though I am waiting until the G0 stepping on Q6600 and jul22 price cuts, so I might sneak into an x38 board...

 

[bloodugly]

Originally posted by: Gsai2912

Originally posted by: bloodugly

Originally posted by: firewolfsm
I just got the DS3R but I'm waiting on the price drops for C2Ds so I can't test it...

It looks nice though. The only problem I see is the IDE placement which is a little further than usual. If my graphics card leaves room, I might change out the little southbridge heatsink (it's supposed to run a lot hotter than the northbridge for this chipset) for my old Zalman northbridge heatsink, it's a little sad that we need northbridge coolers from the last generation on today's southbridges.

The southbridge heatsink on my DS3R doesn't seem very warm at all....and I'm running the Orthos blend test right. Not sure if that'd affect the temp much, but I just thought I'd add that. I don't see any reason why someone would need to put a larger heatsink on it. It doesn't get warmer than the northbridge, its not even close.....at least thats how it is on the board I got. The IDE placement pretty much sucks, thats my only complaint so far about this board.

If I don't plan on using any IDE devices, is the placement still bad? What does it interfere with exactly? Also thanks for the info about the eSATA.

If you don't use IDE devices, I don't see any reason why the placement should cause a problem. If you do end up using an IDE burner at the top of your case, just be sure you have a long enough cable.....the IDE port is about an inch or so from the bottom of the board in the lower right corner. I'd recommend using a round cable, since the SATA ports are just above the IDE and a flat cable would kinda get in the way.

 

[Gsai2912]

Originally posted by: bloodugly

Originally posted by: Gsai2912

Originally posted by: bloodugly

Originally posted by: firewolfsm
I just got the DS3R but I'm waiting on the price drops for C2Ds so I can't test it...

It looks nice though. The only problem I see is the IDE placement which is a little further than usual. If my graphics card leaves room, I might change out the little southbridge heatsink (it's supposed to run a lot hotter than the northbridge for this chipset) for my old Zalman northbridge heatsink, it's a little sad that we need northbridge coolers from the last generation on today's southbridges.

The southbridge heatsink on my DS3R doesn't seem very warm at all....and I'm running the Orthos blend test right. Not sure if that'd affect the temp much, but I just thought I'd add that. I don't see any reason why someone would need to put a larger heatsink on it. It doesn't get warmer than the northbridge, its not even close.....at least thats how it is on the board I got. The IDE placement pretty much sucks, thats my only complaint so far about this board.

If I don't plan on using any IDE devices, is the placement still bad? What does it interfere with exactly? Also thanks for the info about the eSATA.

If you don't use IDE devices, I don't see any reason why the placement should cause a problem. If you do end up using an IDE burner at the top of your case, just be sure you have a long enough cable.....the IDE port is about an inch or so from the bottom of the board in the lower right corner. I'd recommend using a round cable, since the SATA ports are just above the IDE and a flat cable would kinda get in the way.

Thanks

 

[Kougar]

Originally posted by: Gsai2912
Does none of the Gigabye P35 mobos come with eSATA? If any does, which ones? I think the GA-P35T-DQ6 does but I'm not sure of any others?

The DQ6 comes with two PCI slot brackets for "Quad eSATA" support. They are piped into internal SATA ports however... but with 8 internal ports it is not much of an issue.

 

[markus46]

Hello all. My first post...
I am the proud owner of P35-DS3P.

Is there an idiots guide to overclocking these things? There are so many parameters I don't know where to start! I guess there wont be a HOWTO specifically for the P35 series this soon after release, but any modern guide that discusses the myriad of options available would be a big help.

Is the windows-based overclocking utility (EasyTune) worth while?

I have a Core 2 Duo E6600 and 2GB of DDR2-800 Kingston RAM. I'm not a gamer. My main application is video editing and I want to spead up the rendering and encoding process.

The E6600 clock is rated at 2.6GHz. What should I be aiming at with a stock-standard intel CPU fan? Don't want to go OTT with cooling solutions.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Kougar]

I would suggest that you use the BIOS to overclock, Easytune doesn't overclock the FSB very far before freezing the system and other setting changes require a reboot which defeats the point.

For using a stock HSF cooling on a Core 2 Duo I would suggest not going past 3GHz, especially if you run the computer in a warm enviroment. It should be fairly easy to just increase the FSB and then adjust the memory multilpier to keep the RAM at 800MHz, you should not need to do anything else for a 3Ghz overclock. Do make sure that the RAM is set to the correct timings though as well, and to ensure the system is stable once at 3GHz.

 

[markus46]

Thanks Kougar!

I couldn't get EasyTune to run anyway so I'll be tweaking the BIOS.
I'll let you know how I get on.

Cheers!

 

[bramdo]

Hi Markus,

I have the same mainboard (but the c version) and the bios auto overclock setting (cia2) works terrific since it's adjusting the settings on demand (for example high cpu intensive apps).

Bram

 

[ccbrix]

Hey xsilver, this is Colin from GIGABYTE in Taipei. According to Tom's review, "Eight P35-DDR2 Motherboards Compared" The GA-P35-DQ6 and GA-P35C-DS3R were the overclocking leaders of all the boards tested. We are also working hard to improve memory performance as well as including strap change options in BIOS (at least for the higher-end P35 mobos). Hopefully beta will be out this week. Keep posted!

 

[markus46]

Got my DS3P up to 2.8+GHz without a problem at all. I don't have a lot of time to play with overclocking at the moment but will report any future attempts.

And a correction to my 1st post. The E6600 is rated at 2.4GHz - not 2.6 as I said. So i'm getting (what I think is) a healthy 17% speed boost for nothing.

And ccbrix - I keep checking the web site every day for an updated BIOS! It's been well over a month since F4.

Regards

 

[Rebel50]

I got my P35 DS3 last week, along with an E4400 and 2 gigs of Corsair DDR2-800 RAM. So far the setup seems very stable and I have overclocked the E4400 up to 3150 @ 1.39 volts.

The only issue I have found with my setup is that when I started overclocking I found that when the computer was started from a cold boot - the fans would start for a second, then stop and 2-3 seconds later it would boot up. This only occurred when the computer was switched off at the power point - if the computer was shut down and restarted via Windows, it would boot straight away.

I have heard of cold-boot problems with Gigabyte 965 chipsets - not sure about the P35's.

Originally I suspected my powersupply (SuperFlower 600 Watt) but even at overclocks as low as 2.2 Ghz the cold boot problem was still there.

After some (a lot ) of bios tweaking with every setting I could find, I discovered that if I use a RAM divider of 3.33 or 4 - the cold boot issue disappeared. Trouble is that getting to 3 Ghz with a 3.33 divider means my ram runs to 900+Mhz.

So.... anyone else having this kind of problem with these boards - or is this considered "normal" when overclocking Intel chipsets (ex AMD person here).

Currently running my E4400 at 2.8Ghz - which is still very fast compared with my old AMD system.

Oh yes one more thing, the motherboard came with an F2 bios, which I have not upgraded, but something tells me that wont fix the problem.

Cheers

 

[Kougar]

Gigabyte has a newly launched setup... you can get RSS feeds on BIOS, driver, manual, and utility updates for your specific board. The links are on the Gigabyte page for your particular board.

Gigabyte seems to either be trying to cram alot of stuff into the F5 release, or is working on ironing some issue they can't pin down as they are halfway through the alphabet on their F5 beta BIOS releases...

Rebel, I suggest you DL the latest BIOS anyway. You should also give the Option 2 setting a try for your RAM in the BIOS. Your coldboot issue has been experienced by others, but it's not typical behavior... usually it's your choice of RAM that the board isn't agreeing with. I use the 1:1 ratio and even at a 100% overclock I have zero boot issues or BIOS recovery issues.

 

[desolate]

I'm extremely happy with my purchase of Gigabyte's GA-P35-DS3R board, but was wondering if it was worth updating my bios from F3 to F4?

 

[Rebel50]

Thanks for the info Kougar - I did have some suspicions about the RAM - turns out that the Corsair Ram I have actually uses ProMos 667 Mhz chips that overclock to 800 Mhz, so they sell them as PC6400 chips. Mine work OK at 900 Mhz 5 5 5 18 at 2.1V.

I hear that DDR2 RAM prices are going up again soon, so I might invest in some better quality DDR2 800 sticks.

I will update the bios as well, just to see if that helps.

Cheers

 

[Burner27]

I am torn between the GA-P35-DQ6 and GA-P35-DS3P and i was wondering if someone could answer a couple of questions for me to help me decide.

I do not OC and never will but i currently use aftermarket cooling (Thermaright XP90c) because the room my PC is in gets warm sometimes (80F +) My case has good airflow (Gigabyte 3D Aurora 570)

If I buy the DQ6, I can't use my XP90c because the crazy cool heatsink on the backside of the mobo prevents me from using the backplate for the XP90c. Yes i know you can remove the backplate, but I am someone who believes that things were put on mobos for a reason and should be left there. This would force me to use the stock HSF that came with my e6600 which I have not ever used. Is this cooling sufficient since I won't be OCing? I mean Intel included it so it should be fine right?

If I buy the DS3P, I can use the XP90c but the extra cooling on the MOSFETs isn't there and I was wondering how much of an effect it would have on the lifespan of the board?

I was looking at the other aspects between the two and other than the exotic cooling, you get 2 more eSATA ports and the "QuadBios" vs "DualBIOS +"


I would appreciate any advice.

Thanks

 

[StopSign]

Why do you even need something like the DQ6 if you're never going to overclock? All boards are the same if you just run at stock speeds.

 

[Burner27]

Originally posted by: StopSign
Why do you even need something like the DQ6 if you're never going to overclock? All boards are the same if you just run at stock speeds.

Because i am concerned about heat.