Everyone's Thoughts...

[JimiP]

Alright everyone, I was just curious about this board. I was originally planning to purchase the Gigabyte DS3 (rev. 1.3) but then I saw the DS4. I probably will not use the SLI but at least I'll have the option to use it when and if I choose to.

What I want to know is this; Does anyone here own one? If so, how does it run? I know that because of the 650i chipset you can't run SLI in full x16 speed but you can run SLI in x8 speed. Other than benchmarks and whatnot is that really a huge difference? I heard it's not a real world difference but everyone feels all warm and fuzzy inside when they know their PC is running at it's best (lol). Is it a good solid board for someone who is not overly interested in overclocking?

Thanks in advance!

 

[alaricljs]

I've got the DS4. It's a nice board, and it's even a decent overclocker... I have zero interest in SLI so no info there.

As for a nice board with decent features and minimal interest in overclocking, it's a great board. Passive cooled NB so no whiny tiny fan. No issues at all if you're not overclocking. The 2 issues I had overclocking was a need for better NB cooling, and that if you go to far with the OC it may reboot into the 2ndary BIOS and it's not very forthcoming in telling you which BIOS booted, nor what version of the BIOS you're running (for instance if you updated BIOS A to a newer rev, but not BIOS B it's hard to tell).

 

[JimiP]

Gotcha, thanks for the input!

I'm not overly interested in SLI at this point but I will be in the future when games start really needing the extra boost in performance and the single slot card that gives it is around the current prices of the 8800Ultra... Too much money for a card that's not that much better than the GTX.