GA-965P-S3 965 board from gigabyte?? p965 965p REVIEW !!! UPDATE

[Vette73]

OK the only thing I see different between the GA-965P-S3 or GA-965P-DS3 is the ethernet controller. Is there anything else? The GA-965P-S3 is only $129 at zipzoomfly.com shipped. Seems cheap but a little better then tyhe $100 MSI 965 board.

Anybody??
Thanks


UPDATE


Ok I have the Gigabyte installed and up and running here is my little review?


The board as you probable know is a Gigabyte GA-965P-S3

The parts for the build are?

CPU = Intel 805 with retail copper core heatsink
Ram = 2gig of 3.7ns DDR2 in dual Ch mode
Video card = PCIe X800 with 128mb of ram
Sound = onboard
Hard drive = 15k SCSI 36gig as master boot and 120gig Sata backup
Scsi card = PCI LSI 160 card
Ethernet = PCI wireless card and wired (not in use) onboard
Dvd-burner = Lite-on
Power supply = 500 watt AGE


The only new parts are the board and ram. I am going from an Asus board with a max over clock of 2.79Ghz. My last board an asrock had a limit of about 2.79Ghz so the cpu is not a good overclocker so I doubt my review will give a great idea of the boards true ability to overclock.

Well the outlay is very good I think so installing the board in my case was pretty easy compared to some others. With everything installed I tried to boot but it was having a hard time letting me boot off of CD with my scsi setup on the system. So I had to format the scsi drive with the scsi controller. After I did that I was able to boot up off the cd/dvd drive. Install went very good, no errors or anything. The next problem I ran into was I could not get into the BIOS with my scsi gear in the system. But after I did a bios update, in windows with the gigabyte program that came with the board, I am now able to enter the Bios with everything in my case. I did an overclock to 2.8Ghz, the limit of the Asus board my last one. So far so good. I then went fromt eh 140Mhz to 150. No go, it would not boot. So after playing with it I am now at 2.9Ghz, 145Mhz, very stable. I tried more voltage but I am going back to my 805 cpu as the limit, not the board. I have not tried the windows based overclocking tool that came with the board yet. I am going to let everything break in for a couple days and try again.

Pros:
Good price compared to other 965 boards(got it from zipzoomfly.com for $129 shipped fed-ex)
Good layout as the install went very fast and easy
Included software was able to update Bios in windows and worked well, no need for floppy
Manual and paper work was laid out well for even a first timer.
Good selection of overclocking tools and settings in the bios
No fan on Northbridge and a decent heatsink on Southbridge

Cons:
North bridge heatsink does get very warm, wish it was bigger
Price is fair for a 965 board but may come down in a month or so as it is still new
Only 1 ide port but that is intels fault not gigabytes and will affect most/all ICH8 boards
Needs to update Bios ASAP as I had problems with the Bios and SCSI setup

OK well that is it in a wuick look. If you have any questions just ask. Or live near Cary/Raleigh NC and have a Conroe chip you are welcome to come over and try it out to see its true overclocking limit as my 805 is not stressing this board at all.

 

[Talcite]

The DS3 has all solid caps.

 

[Corporate Thug]

Originally posted by: Talcite
The DS3 has all solid caps.

which, at the point, the jury is still out on. We dont know if it has any bearing at all on OC.

 

[Vette73]

Originally posted by: Corporate Thug

Originally posted by: Talcite
The DS3 has all solid caps.

which, at the point, the jury is still out on. We dont know if it has any bearing at all on OC.

Yea that was what I was thinking as well. A cap should be a cap when it comes to performance. Now its life span might be longer for a solid cap. But aftre a year or 2 I will probable get rid of it (i.e. upgrade)

Anybody else know of any better and cheap core2 boards? If not then the GA-965P-S3 or MSI NEO-F P965 might be my board. Just need a cheap 965 board that works ok.

Thanks

 

[Vette73]

Looks like I am back to the gigabyte as I juts read a review that says the MSI NEO-F P965 has no way to adjust the voltage to the CPU. I can;t believe someoen would make a 965 board and not have a basic item like that.

 

[Auric]

What's the difference betwixt the Marvel 8053 and 8056? And why aren't any manufacturers opting for Intel's optional LAN? I suppose that's a rhetorical question because the answer must be cost. But I have been happy with Intel's performance and software.

 

[gobucks]

i don't know if the solid caps are what makes the difference, but pretty much every reviewer i've seen is hitting tremendous overclocks with the DS3, something like 550mhz! I currently have mine up to 400MHz, i'll try to push it further when i get some better RAM in a few days.

 

[Vette73]

OK I ordered the S3 from zipzoomfly. I don;t have a conroe so my testing will be with a 805 chip to see what I can get.

 

[dakotagts]

SO are these S3's doing the job for minor overclocks or stock boards?


I am not seeing any reviews from members here

I am really looking at one, it would allow me to get the 6600 or get a better vidcard maybe a 1900xt instead of the 7900gt

 

[LRguy]

So are these 2 boards exactly the same aside from the solid caps thing? The way I'm reading it is that the DS3 will overclock a little better? Is that true?

 

[Vette73]

Originally posted by: LRguy
So are these 2 boards exactly the same aside from the solid caps thing? The way I'm reading it is that the DS3 will overclock a little better? Is that true?

Well I will be putting the S3 together tonight. But I only have a 805, so no crazy Conroe overclocks.

But yea the only diff is the ethernet chip and the solid caps. So overclocking should be the same, they even use the same Bios.

 

[dakotagts]

Originally posted by: Marlin1975

Originally posted by: LRguy
So are these 2 boards exactly the same aside from the solid caps thing? The way I'm reading it is that the DS3 will overclock a little better? Is that true?

Well I will be putting the S3 together tonight. But I only have a 805, so no crazy Conroe overclocks.

But yea the only diff is the ethernet chip and the solid caps. So overclocking should be the same, they even use the same Bios.

ethernet chip? i thought they were the same...

 

[Vette73]

Originally posted by: dakotagts

Originally posted by: Marlin1975

Originally posted by: LRguy
So are these 2 boards exactly the same aside from the solid caps thing? The way I'm reading it is that the DS3 will overclock a little better? Is that true?

Well I will be putting the S3 together tonight. But I only have a 805, so no crazy Conroe overclocks.

But yea the only diff is the ethernet chip and the solid caps. So overclocking should be the same, they even use the same Bios.

ethernet chip? i thought they were the same...

The S3 has a 8056 marvell and the DS3 has a marvell 8053. I can't find any difference.

 

[LRguy]

Originally posted by: Marlin1975
Well I will be putting the S3 together tonight. But I only have a 805, so no crazy Conroe overclocks.

But yea the only diff is the ethernet chip and the solid caps. So overclocking should be the same, they even use the same Bios.

Keep us updated. Tell us all about your overclocking adventures.

 

[Vette73]

UPDATE


Ok I have the Gigabyte installed and up and running here is my little review?


The board as you probable know is a Gigabyte GA-965P-S3

The parts for the build are?

CPU = Intel 805 with retail copper core heatsink
Ram = 2gig of 3.7ns DDR2 in dual Ch mode
Video card = PCIe X800 with 128mb of ram
Sound = onboard
Hard drive = 15k SCSI 36gig as master boot and 120gig Sata backup
Scsi card = PCI LSI 160 card
Ethernet = PCI wireless card and wired (not in use) onboard
Dvd-burner = Lite-on
Power supply = 500 watt AGE


The only new parts are the board and ram. I am going from an Asus board with a max over clock of 2.79Ghz. My last board an asrock had a limit of about 2.79Ghz so the cpu is not a good overclocker so I doubt my review will give a great idea of the boards true ability to overclock.

Well the outlay is very good I think so installing the board in my case was pretty easy compared to some others. With everything installed I tried to boot but it was having a hard time letting me boot off of CD with my scsi setup on the system. So I had to format the scsi drive with the scsi controller. After I did that I was able to boot up off the cd/dvd drive. Install went very good, no errors or anything. The next problem I ran into was I could not get into the BIOS with my scsi gear in the system. But after I did a bios update, in windows with the gigabyte program that came with the board, I am now able to enter the Bios with everything in my case. I did an overclock to 2.8Ghz, the limit of the Asus board my last one. So far so good. I then went fromt eh 140Mhz to 150. No go, it would not boot. So after playing with it I am now at 2.9Ghz, 145Mhz, very stable. I tried more voltage but I am going back to my 805 cpu as the limit, not the board. I have not tried the windows based overclocking tool that came with the board yet. I am going to let everything break in for a couple days and try again.

Pros:
Good price compared to other 965 boards(got it from zipzoomfly.com for $129 shipped fed-ex)
Good layout as the install went very fast and easy
Included software was able to update Bios in windows and worked well, no need for floppy
Manual and paper work was laid out well for even a first timer.
Good selection of overclocking tools and settings in the bios
No fan on Northbridge and a decent heatsink on Southbridge

Cons:
North bridge heatsink does get very warm, wish it was bigger
Price is fair for a 965 board but may come down in a month or so as it is still new
Only 1 ide port but that is intels fault not gigabytes and will affect most/all ICH8 boards
Needs to update Bios ASAP as I had problems with the Bios and SCSI setup

OK well that is it in a wuick look. If you have any questions just ask. Or live near Cary/Raleigh NC and have a Conroe chip you are welcome to come over and try it out to see its true overclocking limit as my 805 is not stressing this board at all.

 

[galvelan]

Hey marlin

Can you give a range on the voltage options available. Some in the vr-zone forums are saying that the voltage options are not as broad as on the ds3... somewhat like the ds3 arent as broad as the DQ6. maybe we can get a ds3 owner to verify the voltage differences if any...

here is the link

http://forums.vr-zone.com/showthread.php?t=84145

 

[Vette73]

Originally posted by: galvelan
Hey marlin

Can you give a range on the voltage options available. Some in the vr-zone forums are saying that the voltage options are not as broad as on the ds3... somewhat like the ds3 arent as broad as the DQ6. maybe we can get a ds3 owner to verify the voltage differences if any...

here is the link

http://forums.vr-zone.com/showthread.php?t=84145

The CPU voltage goes up to 2.0volts. I think the cpu voltage depends ont eh cpu I read some where but for my 805 I can go to a way to much 2.0 volts.

The Video card I can add another .1 volts but that is all.

The ram I think can go up to another .8 volts, will have to check.

There are also MCH and FSB voltage ups but can't remember how high.

As stated in my mini-review I have updated the Bios to the newwest. Have read that in the DS3 you have to press "Ctrl+F1 to get advanced options for overclocking". Have not tried that with the S3.

Marlin

 

[galvelan]

Got some good news here. I called up gigabyte's oem builder line telling them that i want to build systems using their 965p-s3 but that i had some questions regarding it. They transferred me to a motherboard technician since I had questions that seemed to detailed for the sales guy. (I was hoping he would do that!!! LOL) Anyways here is what the tech said.

Question 1: What is the difference between the 965p-ds3 and 965p-s3?

Response: Their is no difference except for the solid state capacitors on the ds3.

Question 2: Does not having the solid state capacitors on the s3 affect overclocking on core 2 duo.

Response: The solid state capacitors have no impact or bearing on the boards ability to overclock. The solid state capacitors are used for long term durability.

Question 3: When you say durability can u elaborate on that?

Response: By durability I mean the S3 board will last probably about 3-4 years. The DS3 will last 5+ years.

Question 4: The DS3 is shown to hit high FSB speeds above 400 easily. Can that be expected or attained on the S3?

Response: Again as I mentioned the boards are the same and we have reached those speeds in testing.

Thats what i asked and that is how he answered... pretty interesting huh!!!

 

[dakotagts]

nice to hear, I will be ordering this board and in the next couple of days...

 

[Vette73]

^^


Actually they use a different ethernet chip onboard. Not much diff. other then the number of them as they are both Marvell based and only the last number of the chip is different.

 

[galvelan]

Your right marlin... forgot about that. Must not be enough of a difference though for him to state anything but looks like you have a core 2 duo ready board.

 

[mistue]

thx guys for your time, very intresting about the mobo's. hope to hear from some one with a duo and s3. see what they can hit.

 

[Vette73]

UPDATE


There is a new Bios for extra support for soem DDR2 memory and GFX cards.

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Support/Moth...&ProductID=2321&ProductName=GA-965P-S3


Also have my 805 up to a little over 3Ghz. So this board is doing better everyday.

 

[filmore crashcart]

Careful with the F4 bios... I have this board and flashed the bios yesterday evening about 8 p.m..... I'm now back up running again after a full day of computer hell (reformatting, talking to nice Indian people as to why I have to, again, activate XP, having everything get hosed again after reactivating, reformating, etc...,). I flashed back to F3 after reformatiting twice and then found that I couldn't install the Intel chipset drivers while using a USB keyboard (having USB keyboard enabled in the bios).

I don't overclock, and I had everything at standard settings. When I flashed to F4, the flash went fine but when I booted into Windows, everything got hosed - royaly! I finally had to flash back to F3 and get an old PS2 keyboard to install everything before switching back to the USB keyboard.

You can check my system specs in my signature... maybe it was operator error (I've never had a USB keyboard before, but I never thought it would cause that kind of problem when I flashed a bios) but, I will not be trying any new bios for this board again anytime soon as the F3 works fine for me if I'm not overclocking.

 

[Icepick]

This is an excellent thread. This board is at the top of my list right now for my fall Core2Duo rig.