Official Gigabyte DS3 Owners Thread

Duke · 23 Oct 2006 at 22:12

Round up of 965 chipset motherboards at AnandTech

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2860

Overall, the Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 performed the best in our benchmarks when not overclocked. This is a very good accomplishment and shows a level of consistency and fine tuning that was not matched by the other suppliers. However, the total margin of victory over the other P965 motherboards is less than one percent. It took several hundred hours of benchmarking to come to this conclusion and without those benchmarks it would have been impossible to tell the difference between any of the P965 motherboards tested today. Gigabyte has not solved their Micron D9 1GB module issue yet so they are stuck in the 450FSB range with our test components. So please guys, get this fixed. In the end we still congratulate Gigabyte on their accomplishment with the GA-965P-DS3. This board and a few others released this summer have restored our faith in Gigabyte.

Duke · 26 Oct 2006 at 12:56

VeNT said:
what does 2.3 work out as with those silly + ratings?

iirc its bas 1.8 but I'm not sure, so +0.5?

Yep.

Duke · 26 Oct 2006 at 19:13

Welcome

I have the same GSkill memory, except it's slightly quicker stuff, and it works fine.. and I've updated to every bios as it's been released!

It is always best to do a full reload of Windows when changing major components - i.e. motherboard - as it will have a fit when you boot up first time. I would backup everything you need to onto another HD and/or CD-R, install the new components, install new XP, install drivers, update BIOS to latest (use @BIOS tool on the motherboard CD), install all other programs / data and begin overclocking!!

If you need any other help, just ask

Duke · 26 Oct 2006 at 20:24

You only need to use a floppy like that if you are setting up RAID. Else, just boot off the Windows CD like normal to install.

The only things you need to do in the BIOS before installing Windows, would be to set the date/time and remove any components you don't need - i.e onboard audio, serial ports etc.

Duke · 26 Oct 2006 at 21:07

No problem - it's what this thread is for

If you check out the first page I put in some details there which may help.. you only really need to disable onboard audio in your case, but it won't do any harm turning off any other extras like serial/parallel ports if you don't need them.

Duke · 27 Oct 2006 at 18:48

dod said:
finally got my DS3 set up with an E6400 and Ballistix 6400. No issues whatsoever and sitting at a nice and easy 2.8GHz with everything at stock voltages (i.e. +0.4V for RAM.)

Keep going

Duke · 1 Nov 2006 at 21:33

ANDARIAL said:
the NB does indeed run HOT

They do indeed, but it is stable though. I would always recommend some air flow over the board/ram

Duke · 4 Nov 2006 at 21:38

FatRakoon said:
I mean... At 4.3Ghz ( 240x18 ) , this seems to a sweet spot for my P4. I got 30Sec 1MB SuperPI

If you go by SuperPI, my old Opteron 146 @ 3.0GHz did it in 29 sec and the Conroe 6600 I have now @ stock does it in 20 sec

..

Duke · 9 Nov 2006 at 21:05

It will be your memory - it will need either more voltage (e.g. +5) or relax the timings (e.g. try 5-5-5-15) to run at that speed.

Duke · 16 Nov 2006 at 20:18

No excuses :mad:

Duke · 20 Nov 2006 at 13:30

fat_wife said:
I read some of the posts here and im seriously put off buying DS3.

It will be my first build and my first overclock - cm'on guys, sell it to me! Help a noob out

There were a few problems with the early BIOS revisions but it's a brilliant board with the latest revision.

Duke · 20 Nov 2006 at 17:05

FatRakoon said:
Only issue I have had is that Creative cards have ben somewhat iffy on it, however, that said, I have not had such issues recently, and I had not yet pin-pointed it, but a BIOS setting or two has cured it.

I have an Audigy 4 which seems okay. Long as it's sorted now that's good

Duke · 27 Nov 2006 at 22:47

Good to hear

Duke · 3 Dec 2006 at 19:09

Is that running stock or overclocked? You may have to loosen the ram timings.

Duke · 4 Dec 2006 at 21:18

Best thing to do is to just up the basic voltages a touch and increase the FSB in stages...

Duke · 18 Dec 2006 at 17:34

Rangler said:
Just check ram specs and theyre stated as 4:4:4:12 1.9v - 2.3.
Im still running 1.9v on mine, would altering my timings make much difference to my overall performance.?

I would up the voltage to the rated 2.3v - it will help with overclocking & running better (lower) timings. You could go up a bit further but it could then shorten the life of the ram etc.

Duke · 18 Dec 2006 at 17:46

Why would you increase the CAS? (the first number on the timing). This is the one which makes the most difference. It would be better to run 4.0-5-5-10 then 5.0-4-4-10 for example

My Conroe is at stock at the moment and the ram is running @ 333mhz (4:5), 4.0-4-4-12

Duke · 19 Dec 2006 at 13:22

janesssssy said:
omg, why why why, even my 820 is overclocked Duke!
Its good to see that the DS3 is going strong, had a lot of help from this thread. keep it up guys.

It isn't stable - will have to aqquire another chip

Duke · 20 Dec 2006 at 13:15

If you're running the latest BIOS it should be fine

Duke · 21 Dec 2006 at 21:07

Just think of it this way; your ram is out of sync with the cpu.. you need to OC the cpu to get it back to 1:1