GigaByte Ultra Durable 2 GA-P35-DS3R Desktop Motherboard - Intel P35 Express Chipset Chipset -...

By member: bdubslawman - Dec 1, 2007

Very Nice Board. I am a nit-picker so....

Strengths: Stable, Power is spot on. Installation pictures (of fans, case connections etc was great). Really simple Overclocking settings for V-core, DDRII, NB and a few others -Lots of BIOS Adjustments

Weakness: -No displaying of Voltages (only what incremental increases are available in BIOS). -Lack of detail on BIOS settings/Explanation -Didn't auto detect processor (BIOS V.F4)

-The board (Rev 1.0) came well packed and had a lot of extra cables. Nice feature if you buy OEM Hard Drives or DVD drives b/c they usually lack the cables.- -BIOS----------------------------------... -This board runs from Intermediate to Advanced in its features. While a beginner might be lucky and get a setup to work without any BIOS tweaking, it will likely not be optimized and would be a crap...

Read Full Review

Great Board

Strengths: -Installation is pretty easy -Easily overclockable -Includes nice software bundle, including an overclocking application -Very solid build, and came with more screws than I needed

Weakness: -Installation is fairly simple if you've done this before. Otherwise I would advise getting someone to help. The pictures in the manual are good, but don't tell the whole story.

Very good board so far. Using it with Vista Premium 32-bit and have had no problems thus far. Easy and straightforward overclocking features means this board is a must for anyone that does not want to wait for the coming of the overpriced X38 chipset. Using with Q6600, ddr2-800 ram and 8800GTS. Get it now!

Gigabyte P35 DS3R

Strengths: Everything works, easy to install, easy to tweak, can apply non-standard memory voltages

Weakness: HD Audio driver installation is weird

I bought this because it had great reviews on Newegg and had all of the features I needed.. I'm using an e6550 and 2 GB of Crucial ballistix 800 at 1.9V, 4-4-4-12. The only trouble I had was with installing the HD AUdio driver - My advice: do NOT install the Microsoft HD audio driver. It prevents you from installing the Realtek driver, which is the only one you actually need. Also, it supports...

Read Full Review

solid mainstream motherboard

Strengths: Price, quality components, 8 sata ports, matrix raid, compatibility with Penryn

Weakness: lack of firewire if you need it, single PCI-E x16

I've read many reviews before buying this board. I decided to go with this one because it had all the features that I wanted and the price was decent. Keep in mind that it lacks firewire port if you need it, and also doesn't support SLI or CrossFire. These are all features that I do not need, so I would rather pay a little less than have some features that I will never use. The board is good...

Read Full Review

Solid board, highly recommended

Strengths: Ultra Durable 2 = Very stable, 12 USB ports, very good upgradablity when DDR3 becomes cheaper

Weakness: BIOS confusing for overclocking memory

I bought this board as the base of my new computer. I went for a well-known board with lots a stability. In my opinion, stability will save you a lot a heartache in the long run. There is nothing worse than blue screens where you don't know what the problem is. A solid motherboard and really good memory make for a stable computer. This board has been tested by several computer magazines and...

Read Full Review

A great mobo for my first build

Strengths: Good price, very flexible and easy to set up, built in audio sounds great, memory capacity, will take 45nm chips when they come out.

Weakness: None so far.

This mobo was the heart of the first system I built, and I'm really glad I bought it. It's well thought-out, easy to work with, and very flexible. There are a ton of inputs and there's room for up to 8gb of memory. Onboard sound is excellent -- I bought a Creative Xgamer sound card but decided to take it back after hearing the board's onboard audio capabilities. I would buy this mobo again in a...

Read Full Review

A very good solid motherboard

Strengths: Solid Capacitors, Great overclocking, No fans, lower temps than Asus P35.

Weakness: IDE/SATA connectors are a bit low, this may lead to some annoying cabling around the graphics card. Audio connectors are far back near the audio ports which would be tricky for front audio.

This motherboard was specifically purchased due to a number of features that the Gigabyte P35 board has. One is Ultra-Durable 2 which combines solid capacitors, low rds mosfets, and ferrite core chokes. Another is the great layout of the board where all 8 sata connectors are easily available. Also there are no bulky heatpipe structures on the motherboard and no fans that block heatsink...

Read Full Review

Buyer Beware

Strengths: None: Bought two boards one DOA the other erratic performance.

Weakness: None: See above

I purchased two of these boards the first was DOA, the second would not go past the monochrome screen without shutting down. Very expensive experience (ps, mem, CPU change outs) still no joy. Took same parts and placed in ASUS P5KC works like a charm. Searched online and found the same experience on mulitple retail sites. I am attempting to RMA and purchase another ASUS board.

Very good, affordable overclocking motherboard

Strengths: Many features. Great for overclocking with options in the bios to change many settings, has e-sata bracket, ICH9R on the southbridge

Weakness: No firewire

After researching through a plethora of motherboards, i settled on the DS3R. It has worked great so far, overclocked the Q6600 with no issues. I really like the fact it came with the e-sata bracket which has 2 esata connections. It has ICH9R which will be perfect for 2 Raptors in the future.

GigaByte GA-P35-DS3R Motherboard

Strengths: Easy overclocking.

Weakness: FSB is limited to 400 MHz or less.

This motherboard has really good recovery features for overclockers. If you select a setting that fails, the motherboard will usually be able to recover after a couple reboots. Although this recovery is not always fool-proof it works remarkably well, and definitely helps out a lot. I was able to overclock my Q6600 to 3.55 GHz using this board. The only downside was its inability to cope with an...

Read Full Review