Product Listing

Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 (Intel P965)

By Zachary Chan - 21 Aug 2006

Conclusion

Conclusion

The GA-965P-DS3 is the mainstream offering from Gigabyte's new S-series Core 2 Duo ready motherboards featuring the Intel P965 chipset. Like MSI's P965 Neo, the board sets a compromise on features for a greatly reduced cost to target the mainstream market. This includes using the basic ICH8 Southbridge (that lacks SATA AHCI/NCQ and RAID capabilities), cheaper audio component and removing all 'extreme' features such as heat-pipe cooling. However, one must understand that even with a simple configuration, the Intel P965 chipset is no slouch.

Unlike the MSI P965 Neo, which was clearly intended for the mainstream/budget segment, the GA-965P-DS3 is more of a hybrid. Feature-wise, Gigabyte made sure that the DS3 is a more complete board compared to its competitors. S/PDIF, PCIe Gigabit LAN, better expansion capabilities and it even boasts an excellent overclocking BIOS from Gigabyte's high-end lineup. With additional features like the full solid capacitors, the GA-965P-DS3 should still be able to fulfill even the needs of the enthusiast, as long as you're not pining for a dual-GPU system yet.

From our benchmarking session, the performance variance between the GA-965P-DS3 and other P965 motherboards wasn't such a huge factor as well and unless you are die hard about the extra features, frills and additional PCIe x16 slot of the DQ6, the DS3 just about serves up the same performance with an equal configuration. However, the board really shines when overclocking. We were able to attain a maximum stable overclock of 480MHz base FSB with a Core 2 Duo E6300 through stock cooling and just a slight tweak in voltage settings. In fact, the road to overclocking was smoother on the DS3 than on its more expensive DQ6 brother.

However, we did notice that the simple heatsink cooling on the GA-965P-DS3 is barely sufficient to cool the P965 chipset. The board has been running stable for us even throughout benchmarking and overclocking stress tests, but we're sure the scalding hot operating temperatures aren't healthy for the chipset. The Silent-Pipe cooling on the DQ6 definitely gives better peace of mind in this regard.

The Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 deserves a near perfect of 4.5 stars.

Latest checks from online retailers reflect an average price of around US$155, nearly half that of big brother DQ6. Yes, the DS3 is more expensive than the average mainstream motherboard (including the MSI P965 Neo), but you haven't factored in the price difference of the all-solid capacitor design. If you were to opt for a cheaper board, the GA-965P-S3 has the same specifications as the GA-965P-DS3, but comes US$20 cheaper. At the end of the day, if you want peace of mind from possibly never having to experience leaking capacitors again, the GA-965P-DS3 is well worth the extra US$20 spent - all the more if you intend to overclock.

With its solid build, great out-of-the-box compatibility and ultimately its extreme overclocking bandwidth, the GA-965P-DS3 will probably be a shoo-in as a favorite budget Core 2 Duo motherboard for a long while.

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