Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 Motherboard Review

[an0nym0us]

it's ctrl+F1 to access the memory settings

[RangerXLT8]

Originally Posted by Blondie

There is actually a hidden feature on Gigabyte mobo's that give you the option to see more. Now, don't quote me on this but from memory it was pressing Ctrl & F3 or something to that effect. If your interested I can find the exact combo.

I scanned the article and didn't see a hardware specs list. Did you use a sata or pata drive? Did you try the Xpress Recovery2?

I'm a Gigabyte fangirl, only mobo I'll use because of the Xpress Recovery. With 5+ systems in the house, reformatting has to be easy.

Also, Gigabyte & Asus are merging from what I read. Hope it's for the best and hope they don't kill my favorite features.

Looks like a great mobo.

Yep found out it was Ctrl F1 after the review was done and over with. Dunno why Gigabyte excluded that from the instruction manual ect.

I used a PATA optical drive on the JMicron Controller, and 2x WD80SE SATA drives in RAID0 for the system volume.

BTW I updated the review to explain the Ctrl F1 thing and additional information on the new bios we got from Gigabyte.

[stinger608]

I stand corrected, I just checked a few hours ago, and it is ctrl+f1!! Sorry I posted alt f1.

[jph1589]

I don't have to buy any memory now. So it seems I can move on to the next item on my list. I have another ECS board coming my way to play with in the near future, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't keep it for my system. I've read enough reviews including the one Bo did on the GA-965P-DS3 to be pretty sure that would be a good choice. I was hoping to eventually be able to buy an nforce590 but i'm scared to death of that chipset now after all I've read about the delays.

I know the GA-965P-DS3 will be fine with the new memory. I'm also confident I can eventually get a core 2 for it. I'm just wondering how my D 920 will do in it until I buy a core 2. I'll probably also get a couple Sata3 drives so I can Raid 0 the windows volume.

The price is so nice on the GA-965P-DS3 compared to other core 2 boards, I just can't see anything that would be better. Bo's review was so well done that I just don't feel like there would be any surpises. So I may hit the buy button tomorrow after I sleep on it.

[an0nym0us]

Originally Posted by jph1589

I don't have to buy any memory now. So it seems I can move on to the next item on my list. I have another ECS board coming my way to play with in the near future, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't keep it for my system. I've read enough reviews including the one Bo did on the GA-965P-DS3 to be pretty sure that would be a good choice. I was hoping to eventually be able to buy an nforce590 but i'm scared to death of that chipset now after all I've read about the delays.

I know the GA-965P-DS3 will be fine with the new memory. I'm also confident I can eventually get a core 2 for it. I'm just wondering how my D 920 will do in it until I buy a core 2. I'll probably also get a couple Sata3 drives so I can Raid 0 the windows volume.

The price is so nice on the GA-965P-DS3 compared to other core 2 boards, I just can't see anything that would be better. Bo's review was so well done that I just don't feel like there would be any surpises. So I may hit the buy button tomorrow after I sleep on it.

if memory serves me right bo has a 4ghz 920 on his DS3.

[jph1589]

There used to be an issue with this board that if you had high voltage memory (2.2v) you needed to put a stick of 1.8 or 1.9 memory in it to get it to post the first time so you could change the memory voltage. Is that still an issue?

If it is I'll need to keep a stick of Corsair VS handy for every time I have to clear cmos.

Am I understanding the issue correctly?

[jph1589]

Bought it from Newegg a few minutes ago. I really like that new Paypal payment interface they have on Newegg. It makes it very easy.

[gvblake22]

Awesome, let us know what you think of it!

[an0nym0us]

Originally Posted by jph1589

There used to be an issue with this board that if you had high voltage memory (2.2v) you needed to put a stick of 1.8 or 1.9 memory in it to get it to post the first time so you could change the memory voltage. Is that still an issue?

If it is I'll need to keep a stick of Corsair VS handy for every time I have to clear cmos.

Am I understanding the issue correctly?

it only happens with some memory, my g.skill booted up just fine but i have heard of people at xs reporting failure to boot with some high voltage memory. keep a stick handy just in case, but with this board i've never had to reset the cmos. even with clocking it too high and failing to boot, the board just goes into limp mode and resets things back to auto... you go into the bios yourself and change it back to your settings.

[RangerXLT8]

Originally Posted by jph1589

There used to be an issue with this board that if you had high voltage memory (2.2v) you needed to put a stick of 1.8 or 1.9 memory in it to get it to post the first time so you could change the memory voltage. Is that still an issue?

If it is I'll need to keep a stick of Corsair VS handy for every time I have to clear cmos.

Am I understanding the issue correctly?

This problem was addressed in the latest bios release. Here's how it goes: With DDR2 voltage set to Normal in the bios on previous bioses, the voltage read 1.96v.


With the new F6a bios, Normal now means 2.1v, so that is enough to boot just about any DDR2 I can think of.