Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R/Good buy?

Gunni Parker · 23 Jan 2008 at 20:48

Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-086-GI&tool=3

Has anyone got one of these, is it a good buy? Does the q6600 overclock well o this board?

MeatLoaf · 23 Jan 2008 at 22:35

I have one, and my Q6600 is clocked at 3.2Ghz. I know it can do 3.6+ as thats what the previous owner had.

Im pleased with it and id say go for it

booyaka · 23 Jan 2008 at 23:29

same here - 3.15ghz easy - not really pushed it more than this.

yantorsen · 23 Jan 2008 at 23:37

a lot of them do have memory voltage problems, and mine doesn't seem to like my Akasa Zen front panel.

Gunni Parker · 24 Jan 2008 at 21:44

Cheers fellas! May consider it, it's defo in the run with the Abit ip35 pro

bimmerboii · 24 Jan 2008 at 21:48

i have one.. but the max FSB i can get is 450

bluesouljah · 24 Jan 2008 at 22:55

Got it when ift first came out, solid, reliable motherboard, unlike the rest I tried. I give it a thumbs up.

Jody · 27 Jan 2008 at 08:56

i have a rev 2.0 and all seems fine with it, im on f8 bios and getting 3.4 stable no probs on air

rubberduck · 27 Jan 2008 at 11:17

I have one of these... All in all quite a decent board with a good layout. The DDR 3 option is nice as well and it will be able to handle the 45nm processors too. They are very nicely priced as well!

One complaint however is that due to the massive Vdrop/Vdroop on this board it is not suitable for the extreme overclocker.

In my case I am unable to get anything above 1.47 volts through my processsor under full load. If I set the bios to 1.6V it idles at 1.53 but drops down to 1.47 in Prime. Unfortunately I can't set the voltage any higher in the bios an the next step up is 1.8V!!! It would be nice if there were smaller increments between 1.6 and 1.8 volts... If anyone knows of a solution to this I'd love to hear it.

Vimes · 27 Jan 2008 at 12:22

pre1twa said:
I have one of these... All in all quite a decent board with a good layout. The DDR 3 option is nice as well and it will be able to handle the 45nm processors too. They are very nicely priced as well!

One complaint however is that due to the massive Vdrop/Vdroop on this board it is not suitable for the extreme overclocker.

In my case I am unable to get anything above 1.47 volts through my processsor under full load. If I set the bios to 1.6V it idles at 1.53 but drops down to 1.47 in Prime. Unfortunately I can't set the voltage any higher in the bios an the next step up is 1.8V!!! It would be nice if there were smaller increments between 1.6 and 1.8 volts... If anyone knows of a solution to this I'd love to hear it.

I agree with what you have written. There is a forum here...

http://forums.tweaktown.com/forumdisplay.php?f=69

where that very issue gets mentioned now and again. Some Gigabyte motherboard have a 'loadline calibration' setting within their BIOS which is supposed to help with the above. It has been requested for the P35c DS3R and people had hoped that it would have been in the F10 release, but it wasn't.

EDIT: There is a board modification which involves some soldering skills but that is not for me..!!!

There is also an explanation here about Intel's design of the vdroop factor within the chipset...

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=3184&p=5

read this page in detail and it will help you to understand the potential for damage that could occur if there was no vdroop on the motherboard...

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=3184&p=6

a small quote...

So what happens when we remove both Voffset and Vdroop? The answer is simple - bad things. Although the difference between the maximum positive and negative peak overshoot are the same, severe violations to the CPU VID limit occur. If you're asking yourself what's the problem with this, consider the case of a CPU VID of 1.60000V - because the user feels this is the absolute maximum CPU voltage that they will allow. Just how high do you think CPU voltage will go after leaving a heavy load condition? We can't be sure without knowing more of the details, but we can certainly conclude that it will be well in excess of 1.6V. If you've ever run a benchmark only to have your system crash right as it finishes then you have experienced the consequences of this poor setup.

also a technical document...

http://www.thetechrepository.com/showthread.php?t=126

Jody · 27 Jan 2008 at 13:08

Great post Vimes, found it very helpfull

Vimes · 27 Jan 2008 at 13:29

Glad that is of use.

People need to consider...

Droop can help to reduce the output-voltage spike that results from fast load/current demand changes. The magnitude of the spike is proportional to the magnitude of the load swing.........<snip>

Even though the above documents are linked I do realise that not everyone will bother to read them in their entirety.

In my post above I noted that gigabyte, and Asus I believe, have added the option to use a loadline calibration setting within the BIOS to help with the vdroop 'problem.' If you read the third document that I linked in my first post it was concluded...

Suffice it to say, we found it better to leave Load Line Calibration disabled

With Load Line Calibration disabled in BIOS, setting a CPU Voltage VID of 1.38750 resulted in a no-load voltage of about 1.34V and a full-load value of 1.28V. Enabling this feature and lowering the VID to 1.35000V produced a constant CPU supply voltage, regardless of load (or so it seemed), of 1.33V. Setting a lower VID resulted in a blue screen during Windows boot. Idle voltage was relatively unchanged at about 1.33-1.34V but the full-load voltage required increased by 50mV with no benefit. As you might guess, we recommend you leave this option disabled.

Hopefully we've shown you enough to understand exactly why Voffset and Vdroop are important. Please give second thought to your actions if you're in the habit of defeating these essential system safeguards.

rubberduck · 28 Jan 2008 at 09:17

Yes, good post Vimes! Some really interesting information in there.

booyaka · 28 Jan 2008 at 11:53

agreed with all the above - good board but @ 1.5 vcore in bios it drooped to 1.436v in windows and the 1.392 under full load. (still does 3.33ghz prime stable at that but temps get a bit over 65).

Also the ram voltage is a bit iffy - got it on plus 0.4 volts but still only shows as 1.98v in everest and speed fan for voltage via memory (ballistix)