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

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...
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-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 shoot. ...So you have to ready to dig into the BIOS.-

-When adjusting voltages (in Manual over-volting settings the only Voltage readout they display is the V-Core). So you have to look in software to find settings like DDRII's V-Core. (Problematic if you Memory won't boot on systems default (1.8-1.9V). My memory Crucial Ballistix PC8000 booted right up at 1.9V, but I didn't know at what voltage until got into software (after installing OS...etc.).-

-Liked the BIOS Fan settings, can alarm for any fan that shuts down, and have a variety of settings to run your CPU fan speeds to keep the noise levels as low as desired...

-Gigabyte (this is my second of their boards) glosses over important settings while going into detail on un-needed settings. Not any worse than others but more detailed information on THEIR WEBSITE would be helpful.

-I am running this board with an Core 2 Duo E6750. Initially with (F4 BIOS) this auto detected at 200Mhz x 8 multiplier setting me at 1600Mhz per core. I enabled manual adjustments in CPU Core and set the proper FSB/Core Clock to 333Mhz. No problems with that.-
-I have since Used the Windows tool @Bios to flash (upgrade) the BIOS from within Windows. I updated that from the disk provided with the motherboard (version 1.20 to 1.21) by clicking update @Bios. Then restarted. This tool is great it will search Gigabyte's websites (select your language-be careful as BIOS's are not all English-so download from US). Updated to (BIOS F9). Very simple but after downloading in the first attempt @Bios gave an error message saying Timed Out ...not the kind of thing (unstable program) that you want to see anytime you are flashing BIOS ROM. Anyway restarted the program (@Bios 1.21) and it quickly flashed just fine :-). At the time of this writing I haven't fully explored the changes to the BIOS with F9. F9-Added some more over-clocking functionality, but so far that is all I see. It did auto-detect my processor's correct default settings 8x333).-

PHYSICAL LAYOUT-------------------------
-I couldn't stand the IDE location. If you have your IDE device way up on your case then it forces you to use a really long IDE cable in order to avoid having it drape across or blocking the SATA ports.-
UPDATE-I had to temporarily use the IDE port b/c my new Samsung DVD SATA drive is having difficulties. I was unable to install XP Pro SP-1 or SP-2 until I used the old IDE drive (kept getting errors. So I am VERY GLAD that Gigabyte has not discarded this port yet (SHAME ON YOU INTEL!).
The IDE port & the purple SATA ports are actually controlled by a Gigabyte chip, not the South Bridge that the other SATAs are controlled by; so you can shut them off separately or enable them in the BIOS. I skipped this altogether by buying an OEM SATA DVD drive/burner.- (SEE ABOVE EDIT)

-The board has a nice balance between PCIEx1 & PCI slots. I don't have any PCIEx1 cards (yet), so I am thankful for the unblocked access to the PCI cards. Although the board has the Realtek HD sound chip system, I installed a Creative X-Fi card and TV Tuner.-

-Fan ports (4) are nice, including the CPU fan. Unfortunately this did not link up with my Antec 900 case which has (4) case fans and they only use (2) wire molex connectors. Used a Zalman CNPS-9500LED as CPU cooler and for whatever reason their 3 pin power connector would not work in the 4 pin CPU fan connector (as it should have). But thanks to the ample connectors I simply used a SYS fan port and in the BIOS changed the detection to NOT ALARM on missing CPU fan and to Alarm instead if the SYS fan stops/fails. Another nice set of BIOS settings.-

EDIT - THE CPU 3 pin Fan I have (Zalman) Does work just fine after all in the CPU FAN port...However there is an initial delay of about 8 seconds before the fan kicks on. I was too busy trying to shut it down the first time to notice. But after reading elsewhere about the delay ??Strange Gigabyte??

Voltages---------
So far everything seems spot on. I am in the process of running stability tests on it at stock speeds. OCCT, Prime 95, Super PI.

The newer material/design of this mobo is very low temperature. With my set up, running 100% stress tests on both CPU's I am still around 28% C. NB & SB are cool but I have lots of case fans.

Ran into an issue with BIOS settings and the LAN/NIC port not functioning (after installed drivers from the MOBO disk).
There are several drivers that you need off the mobo setup disk and a several tools you will likely want to get off of it.

I am a nit picker, but I LOVE THIS BOARD!!

By bdubslawman - Dec 1, 2007

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!

By JohnnyIV - Sep 5, 2007

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...
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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 SATA natively so you can install Windows XP off of a CD using a SATA drive on a new build.

By adlu - Aug 29, 2007

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...
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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 quality. It is supposed to OC really well, but with my e4400 I did not have to push it out of its specifications to get a good OC on the cpu.

It will support the new Penryn chips when they come out.
Recommended.

By splitwire - Aug 18, 2007

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...
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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 online sites and they all like it.
I love all the USB ports, 4 in the back plus 8 available on the board.
I board has been running cool with lots of processing going on.
My only glitch is that I bought Patriot PC2-6400 800 MHz (4-4-4-12) memory to go with the board and while it too is solid, the board's BIOS doesn't allow you to see or set the specific parameters (CAS etc.) you want your memory to run at. Version F3 of the BIOS allowed you to enter a secret BIOS page in which you could set the parameters by entering CTRL-F1. My board has Version F4 and it looks like you can no longer do that. The BIOS does allow you to boost voltages for all the components and looks like a good overclocking board but I am not at that point yet.

By fpolaski - Aug 11, 2007