Which Micro ATX board??

Neither the Gigabyte DS2R or S2 have external HDMI or S/PDIF (optical or coaxial) connectors. A prerequisite if you are going to use this as a media centre.
 
dbmzk1 said:
Better longevity , stability, reliability and overclocking potential. Plus they don't explode like normal ones can :p
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Better longevity - yes. The rest cannot be correct if you think about it. It's either a 20µF capacitor or it's not. Solid caps have no impact on stability or overclocking capability.

The exploding capacitors urban myth seems to have started after a bad batch of normal electrolytic capacitors were supplied by a Taiwanese factory to pretty much everyone in the industry and there was a spate of explosions (small pops really) and dead motherboards. Oskar Wu at Abit (I think) had specified a particular Japanese solid capacitor be used on their motherboards and they were not affected. Hence, when you see people making a fuss about solid capacitors, they tend to say Japanese solid capacitors. The D in DS stands for Durable. That's the only benefit. Durability.
 
Non solid caps dry out altering the dielectric constant and as a result their capacitance and frequency response changes, it's also one of the reasons PSUs maximum power output decreases with age.
 
Jokester said:
Non solid caps dry out altering the dielectric constant and as a result their capacitance and frequency response changes, it's also one of the reasons PSUs maximum power output decreases with age.
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OK, inside the 12 month warranty peiod of a Gigabyte S3 board, would you expect any better overclocking or stability with a Gigabyte DS3 board?
 
WJA96 said:
OK, inside the 12 month warranty peiod of a Gigabyte S3 board, would you expect any better overclocking or stability with a Gigabyte DS3 board?
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If you motherboard is what is limiting your overclock rather than your CPU, yes I could see a slight decrease in max stable overclock over 12months on a board not using solid caps. It will also continue to worsen with age and particularly if the capacitors are getting hot.
 
Jokester said:
If you motherboard is what is limiting your overclock rather than your CPU, yes I could see a slight decrease in max stable overclock over 12months on a board not using solid caps. It will also continue to worsen with age and particularly if the capacitors are getting hot.
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That's potentially quite worrying tbh. But you wouldn't expect to see any change in stock stability?

I only ask because my dear old dad (a 'proper' Electronics Engineer who started out with the Marconi company in the late 1940's and graduated from the Herriot-Watt (he can supposedly make his own valves:rolleyes:) and my little sister (First in Electronic Enginerering from a decent Uni, designs PCBs and electronic devices for a living) are pretty much violently disagreeing with you in terms of the real world ie. you are 100% on the theory, but you won't see a measureable change inside 12 months - certainly not enough to change a stable overclock. This is not my opinion, it's just I'm stuck with them for a family Sunday and I made the mistake of asking their advice.
 
Yeh ive been using the giga g33m-s2 and I'm really liking the board, I previusly had a Asus P5ld2 board and it was ok but this board has more capacity and far more stable :) ah only problem I found and cant find the bios option is in like dos I cant use usb, wheres the option to enable it? was deeply annoying when i was formatting c: to put windows back on and the keyboard wouldnt work lol
 
WJA96 said:
That's potentially quite worrying tbh. But you wouldn't expect to see any change in stock stability?

I only ask because my dear old dad (a 'proper' Electronics Engineer who started out with the Marconi company in the late 1940's and graduated from the Herriot-Watt (he can supposedly make his own valves:rolleyes:) and my little sister (First in Electronic Enginerering from a decent Uni, designs PCBs and electronic devices for a living) are pretty much violently disagreeing with you in terms of the real world ie. you are 100% on the theory, but you won't see a measureable change inside 12 months - certainly not enough to change a stable overclock. This is not my opinion, it's just I'm stuck with them for a family Sunday and I made the mistake of asking their advice.
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Then they aren't looking at it from a point of overclocking. It won't affect it at stock, because of the level of tolerance that's built into the system. But that's the whole point of overclocking, pushing the hardware to the limits of the tolerances. If after a year those tolerances have now changed slightly then it's not likely that the board will still be 100% stable.

Edit: It's also the reason why some of the top overclockers replace the original capacitors with higher spec capacitors to get higher FSBs.
 
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