GigaByte GA-X38-DS4

Bouncer · 5 Jan 2008 at 12:36

Hi

I like the look of this board for a high end graphics workstation/bit-of-gaming build i'm planning, but can't find any reviews on it. It seems to be really well spec'd and it's cheaper than some P35 boards.

What is the advantage of X38 over P35? I'm looking to overclock the q6600 to about 3GHz (no more really as i don't want to go overboard on fans/cooling etc - 3GHz Quad is plenty!) Is this chipset/board good for doing this?

Advice appreciated!

easyrider · 5 Jan 2008 at 12:57

Unless you need extreme clocking and dual GFX a P35 is all you need,

Asus P5K

londonbairn · 5 Jan 2008 at 13:09

I would get it. I have a DQ6 and it's very well built compared to the P5Ks I had before.

Also, the X38 supports 1600Mhz FSB natively so if you were to change to the newer CPus due out...

Bouncer · 5 Jan 2008 at 13:46

cheers. I'm building around the q6600 and not looking to run x-fire/dual graphics, and, like i said, only plan on overclocking to about 3GHz

I'll go for a P35 board. Asus P5K are well reviewed, but the Wifi model i want has been out of stock on OC.co.uk for sometime. I like the colour scheme of the gigabyte boards!!

VeNT · 9 Jan 2008 at 13:27

whats the best bios for the DS4 now?

reflux · 11 Jan 2008 at 02:42

Sorry to partially threadjack, but has anyone managed to find any reviews of this board since the OP? And is there any reason to pay another £17 for the DS5 instead? I'm considering ditching my P5K Deluxe, grabbing another HD3870 and CrossFiring

A 4x slot isn't good enough for me.

EDIT: As an update, I went and bought a DS4 and two 3870s, and I'm pretty impressed so far with the whole setup. As far as I can tell, the only difference between the DS4 and the DS5 is a lack of a heatpipe between the north and south bridges, but that doesn't really matter as the northbridge heatsink is beefy. There is quite a lot of space round the socket for CPU cooler installation - my Tuniq Tower went in fine. As for the BIOS, I prefer Asus' offerings but this one isn't bad, just a bit different from what I'm used to. The PCI-E slots are nicely spaced, and with the two ATi cards installed I still have one PCI slot available which I am using for my X-Fi. Only benched OCCT for half an hour at my old OC settings but the PC seems stable.