Intel P35 / X38 Motherboards Roundup
Gigabyte P35-DQ6 (Intel P35; DDR2)
The most powerful and multifunctional motherboard based on the Intel P35 chipset that Gigabyte offers in its assortment is the P35-DQ6 model. In creating it, the engineers at Gigabyte leveraged all the previous developments and partly even used the PCB design of the previous motherboard 965P-DQ6 based on P965.
The new motherboard stands out with a very powerful cooling system, wide expansion options and quite efficient overclocking tools.
First, let's list the expansion options: the board supports 12 USB 2.0 ports, 6 SerialATA II links, one Gigabit LAN controller, and 8-channel integrated audio (with ALC889A chip used as the codec). Besides, the board uses a chip that offers support for the Firewire (3 ports), and an additional SerialATA II/ParallelATA RAID JMB363 controller.
The configuration of expansion slots: two PCI Express x16 slots, three PCI Express x1, and two regular PCI slots.
The board's rear panel has the following configuration:
Note that instead of one of the COM ports, there is an optical and coaxial SP-DIF outputs brought over to the rear panel.
The BIOS of Gigabyte P35-DQ6 is based on the Award BIOS Phoenix version.
The memory settings are gathered in the overclocking section and become visible only upon pressing the "Ctrl+F1" key combination in the BIOS main menu.
As regards the system monitoring, the board displays the current temperature values of the CPU and the system, as well as the rotational speeds of the four fans. Besides, the CPU cooler is able adjusting the rotational speed depending on the CPU temperature.
Let's list the overclocking tools: FSB adjustable within 100 to 700 MHz, raise of voltage on the CPU to 2.35 V, on the memory - to +1.55 V, on the north bridge - by 0.375 V, and on the south bridge - by +0.35 V.
The actual overclocking results are perfect: stable FSB speed = 558 MHz.
Pros:
- High stability and good performance level;
- 12-phase power scheme;
- Two PCI Express x16 slots;
- Support for SerialATA II/RAID ( 8 lines; ICH8R + JMB363);
- Support for one P-ATA link (JMB363);
- Integrated 8-channel audio and (Gigabit Ethernet) LAN controller;
- Support for USB2.0 (12 ports) and IEEE-1394 (Firewire, 3 ports);
- Rich selection of Gigabyte's proprietary technologies (DualBIOS, C.I.A2, EasyTune Center, FaceWizard, @BIOS, etc.);
- Passive system for cooling the chipset and the power supply module;
Cons:
The board's specific features:
- Excellent results of overclocking the processor and memory;
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