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Gigabyte P35-DQ6 (Intel P35)Author: Aleksandr MitrofanovDate: 18/06/2007
Gigabyte has renewed its assortment of motherboards and included new models based on the Intel P35 chipset. The most powerful and multifunctional board based on the new chipset is P35-DQ6. In creating it, the engineers at Gigabyte used all the previous developments and partly even the PCB design of the previous motherboard 965P-DQ6 based on P965. It is amusing to see that Gigabyte started presenting products built on Intel's new chipsets as early as a month before their official announcements. They might have hurried up once and announced one motherboard for a hype, but during May two press releases with an announcement of three motherboards came! They (Gigabyte) have not kept the promise before Intel. Not only they, by the way. There were enough companies in May ready to announce new products based on ?35. Some were stopped... Let's come back to the hero of today's review. The new motherboard stands out with a very powerful cooling system, wide expansion options and quite efficient overclocking tools. However, let's not run ahead and examine all in sequence.
Gigabyte P35-DQ6 Specifications
PackageThe motherboard Gigabyte P35-DQ6 is packed within a huge box equipped with a handle to carry it around.
One page tips up, and the user can get a brief idea of all Gigabyte's proprietary technologies, as well as watch the board through a transparent window.
Package bundle:
The package bundle includes both standard and nonstandard components. Among the former are SerialATA cables, connectors, and documentation.
We note here that there is a user's guide written in Chinese (there is one more written in English). Of mention, there are two plates for four USB2.0 ports. These items will be in demand considering that the motherboard supports 12 of these ports.
Among the nonstandard items, we note plates for SATA ports with which the user can plug in external devices:
Author: Aleksandr Mitrofanov
Gigabyte P35-DQ6 Layout and FeaturesThis motherboard stands out with its most massive cooling system we have ever seen. That affected the convenience of assembly: it's a problem to plug in an additional power supply cable.
There may rise issues in installation of some expansion cards into the first PCI Express x1 slot. Another issue is blocking the DIMM slots by the first PCI Express vide card.
We note the additional Molex power connector onboard. It can be activated if two video cards in the Crossfire mode are used.
Near the CPU socket, there is a 4-pin CPU_FAN connector for a matching cooler.
Besides it, there are three 3-pin connectors: PWR_FAN - near the DIMM slots, SYS_FAN1 - in the right-hand corner of the board, and NB_FAN near the north bridge, as well as the 4-pin SYS_FAN2 connector in the left-hand corner of the board. Note that on the reverse side of the board there is a massive CrazyCool radiator which serves to reject heat off the CPU.
There are also small radiators under the south and north bridges. The board offers a passive system for cooling the chipset and a power supply module. On the north and south bridges as well as on the power components there are massive radiators; they are all linked with heat pipes, with the largest radiator on the north bridge.
Under the north bridge, there are four 240-pin DIMM slots for DDR2 memory modules. They are partitioned into two groups, each having two slots. The first two slots refer to the first controller channel, with the other two to the second controller.
Note that due to an extended set of multipliers the board supports DDR2-533/640/667/800/888/1066 memory, with overall capacity making 8GB. There are two PCI Express x16 slots onboard (both with latches) which are meant for video cards.
As we can see, 16 bus lines (served by the north bridge) are allocated to the first slot. To implement the second slot, the developers have enabled 4 PCI Express lines from the south bridge. If we look inside the second port, we can see that as much as half of the pins are missing.
This can be demonstrated schematically:
As you can see, the lines are allocated only if PCI Express x1 slots are not used. Switching between the lines is done with two special chips (a PCI Express switch):
Therefore, engineers at Gigabyte created a potential for running two video cards following the NVIDIA SLI or AMD Crossfire technologies (currently, only the Crossfire is supported). Besides the above listed slots, Gigabyte P35-DQ6 uses two more "regular" PCI slots as well as three PCI Express x1 slots.
Expansion options
Gigabyte P35-DQ6 uses the south bridge ICH9R with a radiator. Therefore, the board supports six SerialATA II ports (yellow connectors) and allows merging hard disks into RAID arrays of levels 0,1,5, and 10 (MatrixRAID).
Besides, two more SerialATA II devices can be plugged in to the Gigabyte SATA2 controller (a JMB363 chip made by JMicron). The same chip provides support for an additional ParallelATA line.
matching connectors colored lilac
Therefore, as many as 10 hard disks (8 SATA + 2 PATA) altogether can be plugged in to Gigabyte P35-DQ6. Then, there are twelve USB2.0 ports onboard. Four ports of them are on the rear panel, with 8 more plugged in with brackets (the board comes bundled with 2 brackets for 4 ports). Besides, Gigabyte P35-DQ6 supports the IEEE1394 ("Firewire"). For that, there is a Texas Instruments' TSB43AB23 controller onboard.
Therefore, the board offers support for 3 Firewire ports: one positioned on the rear panel, with the other two plugged in with brackets (missing in the package bundle). Then, Gigabyte P35-DQ6 offers 8-channel Intel High Definition Audio, with ALC889A used as the codec.
A few words on the network support: there is a high-speed LAN controller - Realtek RTL8111B (Gigabit Ethernet):
The board's rear panel is of customary configuration.
Note that instead of one of the COM ports there are the following ports brought over to the rear panel: optical and coaxial SP-DIF outputs.
Traditionally, a jumpers layout diagram:
Gigabyte P35-DQ6 completely lacks any jumpers, and to reset the CMOS settings a 2-pin CLR_CMOS connector positioned near the battery is used. Now on to the BIOS settings.
BIOSThe BIOS of Gigabyte P35-DQ6 is based on the Award BIOS Phoenix version.
Memory configuration settings are gathered in the overclocking section and become visible only upon pressing the "Ctrl+F1" key combination in the BIOS main menu.
There is also the parameter in charge of setting memory operating frequency.
For memory modules running at frequencies over 1000 MHz, Gigabyte recommends to use one of the "DLL Settings" modes thus increasing stability and performance of the memory subsystem.
Now move on to the section to do with the system monitoring.
The board displays the current temperature values of the CPU and the system, as well as the rotational speed of the four fans. Besides, the CPU cooler is able adjusting the rotational speed depending on the CPU temperature.
Besides, you can trace the system monitoring readings from within Windows as well. For that, the new Gigabyte EasyTune Center utility is used.
 This program includes all Gigabyte's developments at motherboards and is some sort of a system control center. In particular, one of the sections includes the @BIOS utility which is meant to update the BIOS.
 One more - for information only: :
By the way, the board has no customary BIOS chips (in cradles). According to the documentation, these chips do the BIOS functions (the one to the right is main, with the left-hand one being backup).
Overclocking and stabilityPrior 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.
PerformanceWhen determining the starting FSB speed, it turned out that the board overstated it by 0.7 MHz.
In our test setup, we used the following hardware:
First, let's look at the results of synthetic tests (other motherboards are based on the following chipsets: ASUS Striker (NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI), MSI P35 Platinum (Intel P35), and MSI P965 Neo2 (Intel P965)).
Tests in games.
Final WordsGigabyte P35-DQ6 is one of the best products based on the P35 chipset and will be a strong competitor both in the middle-end and high-end sectors of the market. Due to the new chipset, the board supports the 1333 MHz bus, as well as 12 USB 2.0 ports. The new software (Gigabyte EasyTune Center) which facilitates system tuning and configuration merits a separate mention. Among the pros of the board, we note two PCI Express x16 slots (running following the 16+4 scheme), a serious (12-phase) power supply module, and noiseless operation of the main components. The cooling system offers massive radiators on the reverse side of the board. A thorough approach to development of the power supply module and overclocking tools has brought outstanding results. In particular, the board has shown one of the best values and joined the "500 MHz club". In fact, the board has no shortcomings. The only point to note is the board would be better if there were a second Gigabit LAN controller.
ConclusionPros:
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