DS3/S3/DS3P Differences

supernova9

supernova9

supernova9

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Joined
2 Apr 2007
Posts
291
Hey guys,

Just a quick one - thinking of a Gigabyte board for my new C2D rig as I'm not planning SLI. What are the differences (besides price!) with these boards?

Had a look at the specs but not really seeing a great deal of change... :confused:
 
S3 is a budget board has a 800mhz bus speed

DS3 is an older board, now superceded by the DS3P

DS3P same as DS3 but a new Rev, has 1333mhz bus speed, crossfire etc
 
Will_3rd said:
S3 is a budget board has a 800mhz bus speed

DS3 is an older board, now superceded by the DS3P

DS3P same as DS3 but a new Rev, has 1333mhz bus speed, crossfire etc
Click to expand...

The S3 bit is right but the DS3 and DS3P are two completely different motherboards and are both still being manufactured side by side. Both boards are on Rev 3.3 and both had their own Rev1.0 and 2.0. There was additionally a Rev 1.3 of the DS3.

The DS3P has two pci-e slots so that you can run crossfire, although one runs at just 4x. It has one less pci slot than the DS3. It also has firewire, 8x sata 2 ports, quad bios, ICH8R southbridge and a slightly different Marvell Lan controller.
 
And don't forget about the 6 phase VRM and better on board sound on the DS3P. The DS3P is exactly the same mobo as the DS4 but without the fancy heatpipe system.

The DS3 and DS3P are completely different boards by the way as pointed out above.
 
IAmATeaf said:
And don't forget about the 6 phase VRM and better on board sound on the DS3P. The DS3P is exactly the same mobo as the DS4 but without the fancy heatpipe system.
Click to expand...

Is that the only difference between the DS3P and DS4?

I was planning on getting a DS3P and a northbridge cooler but if the DS4 already comes with better cooling I might as well get that so I dont have to mess about changing the cooler!
 
There is another difference. Price. The DS3P can be had for as little as £75 which is what i paid for mine. The cooler on it is ok. It does get very warm to the touch when heavily overclocked but it does it's job. It's not hard to change though. It's only held on by two pins.
 
The fact that it is running hot is a sort of good sign in that it's making good contact with the NB and transferring the heat away from the NB. I just plopped a fan on it as I was placing an order for some RAM and adding the fan to order just meant I didn't have to pay any extra on postage costs.
 
Didn't want to start a new topic when this one covers everthing I wanted to know, just wanted to know 1 more thing though:

I'm planning on getting either the DS3 or DS3P with the E4300 and 2GB Geil Ultra C4, I want to get the best I can out of an overclock and wonder if the DS3 will do as good a job as the DS3P, that is my number 1 concern ;)
 
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