GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P35

[Glavinsolo]

I think I finally decided on a motherboard for my E8400 build. I won't be utilizing raid or SLI so this motherboard seems suffice.

My three questions are the following:

1. The current motherboard might not accept off the bat the e8400. If I need to update the bios can I do this with the e8400 chip or do I need to use a previous chip? Hopefully it takes the e8400 and is able to boot.

2. The northbridge may get hot with me overclocking the FSB so high ~450mhz or so. Will a NB or SB cooler be needed with this motherboard?

3. Will overclocking the FSB cause increased latency on the motherboard in which case a motherboard that could handle higher fsbs be a better alternative such as an x38 or the like?

 

[amenx]

Dont know about rev.1 of this board, but rev.2 (F6 bios, Nov.5) did accept my e8400. Official Wolfdale support though came with the F8a bios which I updated to.

The NB on my board at 400-425 FSB does get around 41-45c avg (have seen it up to 51c when stressed). Knocked 2or 3c off of that by attaching a small 40mm fan to it. But these things can withstand much higher temps so I wouldnt worry about it.

What latencies are you talking about, RAM? A higher FSB decreases RAM latencies.

 

[Glavinsolo]

Originally posted by: amenx
Dont know about rev.1 of this board, but rev.2 (F6 bios, Nov.5) did accept my e8400. Official Wolfdale support though came with the F8a bios which I updated to.

The NB on my board at 400-425 FSB does get around 41-45c avg (have seen it up to 51c when stressed). Knocked 2or 3c off of that by attaching a small 40mm fan to it. But these things can withstand much higher temps so I wouldnt worry about it.

What latencies are you talking about, RAM? A higher FSB decreases RAM latencies.

Thanks for the clarification on revisions of mobos. a 3c decrease doesn't warrant a fan purchase I suppose. Also disregard the 3rd question it was something that I read on another forum. It basically stated that some motherboards are better overclockers than others due to the headroom they provide. That some motherboards can't handle the overclocks and cause a decrease in performance due to latency within the circuitry of the motherboard itself. Since its something that is hard to prove I am going to go with this board as it seems to be the best performing overclocker p35 board for the money.

Bloodiron is on my list as well but the $40 difference proves to be no gain over the DS3L

 

[andrei3333]

i have the same board (revision 2.0) and E8400

yes i can also confirm that the e8400 worked with my board out of the box, no bios updates needed, BUT with F6 bios games were really really laggy, after i updated to F8a using gigabytes @bios program that shipped with the dvd that went away and everything was smooth

its a nice board for he basics, but i also did not need raid and anything else, so it was less than 100 and i got it

 

[sem1966]

I had the same board, not sure which version on the bios, but it work great out the box with my new cpu E8400. I have not been done on bios update before, is it hard to do? i afraid i will screw up.