Has anybody tried the Gigabyte ds5?

[claud3]

Has anybody tried the gigabyte ds5 it boasts the same specs as a dq6 but it has a 1600mhz fsb!

[Azurael]

It's not identical. It uses the same PCB but has half the power regulation components, cheaper caps and it only has 1 ethernet controller to name a few differences.

 

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2007/11/0...te_ga-x38-ds5/1

 

Anyway, 1600FSB 'support' is a myth. No Intel chipset officially supports it yet, that won't happen 'till X48 (which is really just a new stepping of X38) but I've never met a P965 board, let alone P35 or X38 that wouldn't run at 400MHz just fine anyway, so don't buy a board just because of that.

 

Unless you've got dual graphics cards or intend to have them (bad idea), you may as well just buy one of the cheap Gigabyte P35 boards, like the DS3R or DS4 if you need Firewire. They overclock just as well, and have lower memory latency than X38 at the same clocks, despite Intel's claimed advancements in X38's memory controller (no idea why...)

[claud3]

so the ds3r is as good a motherboard as say, a pw5dh deluxe or a bad axe 2?

[Azurael]

For all intents and purposes, yes. One of the best Intel overclocking boards for a long time was the 965P-DS3, not any of it's more expensive counterparts, in spite of inferior voltage regulation, etc. I'm not sure if that is true of their ranges based on more modern chipsets, but most expensive boards sell on the basis of a need for features (i.e. Crossfire/SLi) or purely the fact that people believe if they're paying more for their boards somehow miraculously makes them much better. An example of this is the 10 or 12-phase power regulation on on high-end boards. It's ridiculous, uses twice a many components, wastes more power at idle and doesn't seem to help overclocking versus the 6-phase power regulators now common on mid-range boards, even with really high-power CPUs. Sure, you get a flashy heatpipe cooler on a modern high-end board, but in the reality, having decent case ventilation will ensure that the chipset runs cool on just about any board.

 

Sure, you're not going to get brilliant overclocks on a really cheapo board, like an ASRock or ECS, and there are features on the high-end boards you might find useful, like crossfire, and firewire (although I'm guessing a PCI firewire card is cheaper than the cost difference between say a DS3R and a DS3P.) But if you don't need or want any of those, usually, the mid-range boards are perfectly fine.

 

I'd urge you to do your own research, but it certainly looks to me like boards such as the DS3R (important to get the 'R' for OS X even if you don't need raid, as AHCI can be a pain on vanilla ICH8/ICH9) and it's competitors are the best value boards on the market for the average user who likes to overclock (and for those who don't care to overclock, even cheaper boards like the ASRocks would be great - they're very stable!) The Bad Axe 2 was a good board when it was released, but it's days are over now. It's too expensive, 975X doesn't overclock as well as P965, let alone P35 - especially with quad core CPUs, and anybody who needs Crossfire support should be looking at X38, not P35, these days. However, I'd definitely say you may as well choose boards based on the much cheaper P35 chipset if you're not going to run dual graphics cards. It's just as fast and overclocks just as well.

[claud3]

thanks for your help azureal. im going to need raid since im gonna dual boot osx and xp. im gonna raid the xp part with 2 raptors for gaming and use a good drive for leopard looks like i might aswell order the ds3r. will the revision of the board make any difference?

[Azurael]

Rev.2 forgoes the legacy (USB/Serial) ports on the back for extra USB ports. A good move, IMHO, and I don't think there's any other differences between the revisions.