GA-P35-DS4 or MSI P35 Platinum?

[Kazzz2007]

Hi all,
Which is better? Its that simple lol
Im goin to get a Q6600 G0 stepping, and probz push it up to 3GHz,
keep in mind im goin to use a thermalright 120 Xtreme cooler, which is what put me off the gigabyte DQ6, because i'd have to remove the backplate to fit it in, so thats qutie pointless..
Please help/advise and thanks in advance

 

[Kazzz2007]

Any advice please??

 

[Nickel020]

They're both superb boards, it comes more or less down to personal preferenen. One advantage of the MSI that Speedstep works when overclocking, whcih saves about 20W on a heavily OC'ed C2D, dunno about quads. MSI also has jumpers to choose straps manually (think of internal chipset timings) which can improve performance. Straps usually automaticall change once you get to a certain OC'ed FSB, so on a Gigabyte board you OC to 413 FSB then use Clockgen to get to 450 FSB for example - theres no need to do that on the MSI.
Current Gigabyte boars are known for their excellent stability and good overclockability. They're also relatively bug and problem free, more so than the other boards. Gigabyte P35 boards are also Made In Taiwan so there's much less chance of sweatshop factories than Chinese boards - compared to western stndards pretty much every Chinese factory is a sweatshop. Actually it's not a sweatshop for sure, since there are recent reports on Gigabytes manufacturing process on the web, it shows P35 boards being made.

 

[Hans Gruber]

I have the exact same problem. I have both GigaByte and MSI motherboards. Both are great. I'm getting the Q6600 quad also and I don't know if I should get the MSI platinum that supports DDR3 for the future. MSI platinum has the heatpipes and super cooling on the northbridge. I've got a Gigabyte 965P-DS3 for my C2D e6400 which runs ultra stable at 3.2ghz. I expect at least that if not more from the Q6600. I will be using a Tuniq 120 Tower for the quad core. I have the Theramalright ultra 120 in my C2D right now.

I'm leaning toward MSI but Gigabyte is outstanding as well.

 

[Nickel020]

MSI is more power efficient in idle because Speedstep works under OC, can be around 20W less under heavy OC. Gigabyte tends to overclock a little higher, and the 6 pahse PWMs (MSI 4 pahses) are better for Quads. MSI is a little faster if you tweak a lot, use the strap jumpers in connection with the right mod BIOS. No mod BIOS for GB unfortunately, but I would still tend towards the GB for a Quad, because Vcore for the CPU should be more stable.

 

[robertsu]

I'm Gigabyte fan always but my last board is MSI P35 Platinum which I got in some computer parts exchange with friend... bla bla nvm. But everything I can say is that this board rock!! I didn't dream that this board will work on all default voltages at 500MHz FSB, 1000 MHZ mem (1066 Kingmax which rock! for 30 euro 1GB piece 2x) and cpu Dual core 6750 at 3500 MHz, I know its not too high but all is on default voltage and working extra stable and fast for me.
On default voltage I try to push board to 515 FSB stable, at 520 FSB wont work stable at default voltage but 500 is nice for me.
My memory is Kingmax 1066 (KKA8FFIXF) which work even on 4-5-4-15 at 1.9v and I got 9705 MB/sec memory read in Everest which is quite impressive for memory at 1.9v of 30euro price per module.
I didn't try Gygabyte model you want tu buy but I got 2 others at my home P35-DQ6 and X38-DQ6 which my brother use and both of boards can't hit 470 fsb stable or without switching voltages in bios to max and get stable 470, I can say only that both boards are 1.0rev, may be that's why they don't work more than 470 MHz FSB easy. I read on forums everywhere 1.1 board rev. work rock stable at 520 easy so be careful before you buy (I think 1.0rev are always been avanturistic in most cases)
Btw. MSI P35 Platinum which I have is also 1.1v and I read on few forums also that 1.0 wont hit more than 470MHz FSB so be careful here also when you choose board. And for some low amount of money you can have nice PC.