Gigabyte P35-DQ6 (Intel P35)
Overclocking and stability
Prior to moving to overclocking, let's look into the power converter. It uses a 12-phase(!) power scheme, in which there are four 330 mkF and twelve 561 mkF capacitors.
To facilitate the thermal mode of the power supply module, there are massive copper radiators (which reject heat off the chipset) on the power components.
Now on to the overclocking features.
First off, Gigabyte P35-DQ6 allows adjusting the system bus speed within 100 to 700 MHz in 1 MHz increments.
Of convenience is that you can enter the desired FSB value from the keyboard.
Secondly, Gigabyte P35-DQ6 allows adjusting the CPU voltage (Vcore) within a wide enough range: within 0.5 V to 2.35 V in 0.00625-0.05 V increments.
The advanced user can raise the Vmem by 1.55V (in 0.05V increments)!
The programmers at Gigabyte have implemented a multi-colored highlighting of values. Safe values are highlighted in customary yellow, with those relatively safe highlighted in pink. And voltage values which may result in a damage to the system components are colored red and are blinking.
We get a feature for raising voltage on the north bridge (by 0.375V in 0.025V increments).
Additionally, the user can raise the FSB voltage,
and on the PCI Express bus.
Both the parameters have similar ranges and allow for the minimum raise = 0.35 V in 0.05 V increments.
It is also possible to adjust the PCI Express bus speed within 90 MHz to 150 MHz:
Also, there is also a feature for adjusting the multiplier:
We now try the overclocking features in practice. So, Gigabyte P35-DQ6 has demonstrated superb results: a stable operation at FSB =520 MHz with a E6400 CPU.
Now a few words on the mode of dynamic overclocking (C.I.A. 2) which increases the CPU clock speed for the time of launching a "hard" application and reduces it to the nominal once the application is closed.
Our board offers the "Robust Graphics Booster" feature which should somehow boost the performance of the graphic subsystem.
But we didn't see any positive effect from enabling the feature in practice .
In conclusion, we note that overclocking fanciers can use the Windows utility EasyTune Center which offers features for raising the frequencies of the CPU and memory. However, the utility is of restricted functionality, therefore is of little interest for overclocking enthusiasts.
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