Package and Specs

The first mainboard on Intel P965 chipset we tested in our lab was MSI P965 Neo-F, however, its features turned out limited by the manufacturer: the maximum FSB frequency was only 333MHz, and there were no options allowing to increase the CPU Vcore and Vchipset. Overclockers will hardly be interested in this mainboard. And sometime ago we came across Gigabyte GA-965P-S3 mainboard. But how good is it for overclockers? The package tries to answer this question:

Gigabyte GA-965P-S3 mainboard belongs to the so-called S Series. The mainboards from this series are designed not only for Intel processors, but also for AMD processors. The symbol of this family is a letter “S?with the digit ??hidden in it. S3 family incorporates three notions: Speed, Smart and Safe, and each of them includes a few parameters. For example, “Safe?category includes BIOS saving and restoring technologies, while “Smart?category offers BIOS reflashing tools and allows simplifying the boot-up device on start-up. However, being overclocking fans we are certainly most interested in “Speed?category, that allows adjusting frequencies and voltages, which is exactly what an overclocker might need.

At this point we stumble upon another important question: why Gigabyte GA-965P-S3 is much less expensive than Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 that looks very similar at first sight? Gigabyte’s official website offers a very convenient tool for mainboard features comparison. If we compare S3 and DS3 mainboards side by side, we will discover that the only difference between them is the model of the network controller: Marvell 8056 Gigabit LAN by S3 mainboard and Marvel 8053 Gigabit LAN by the DS3 mainboard. I don’t think this is enough to justify the $40 price difference. Let’s take a look at the specifications then:

Specification
Processor	Supports Intel Core 2 Extreme Quad-Core / Core 2 Duo / Intel Pentium D processor Supports 1066/800/533 MHz FSB
Chipset	Northbridge: Intel P965 Express Chipset Southbridge: Intel ICH8 Marvell 8056 Gigabit LAN Controller GIGABYTE SATAII controller Realtek ALC883 8 Channel Audio Codec
Memory	Supports DDR2 800/667/533 memory Dual Channel architecture support up to 8GB by 4 DIMM slots * Due to standard PC architecture, a certain amount of memory is reserved for system usage and therefore the actual memory size is less than the stated amount.
Expansion Slots	1 x PCI Express X16 slot 3 x PCI Express X1 slot 3 x PCI slots
Form Factor	ATX form factor, 305 x 210mm
Internal I/O Connectors	1 x 24-pin ATX power 1 x 4-pin ATX 12V power connector 1 x floppy connector 1 x IDE connector 6 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors 1 x CPU fan connector 1 x system fan connector 1 x front panel connector 1 x front audio connector 1 x CD In connector 3 x USB 2.0/1.1 connectors for additional 6 ports by cables 1 x SPDIF In connector 1 x power LED connector
Rear Panel I/O	1 x PS/2 keyboard port 1 x PS/2 mouse port 1 x SPDIF Out connection (coaxial+optical) 1 x parallel port 4 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports 1 x serial port (COMA) 1 x RJ-45 port 6 x audio jacks (Line In / Line Out / MIC In/Surround Speaker Out (Rear Speaker Out)/Center/Subwoofer Speaker Out/Side Speaker Out)
H/W Monitoring	System voltage detection CPU / System temperature detection CPU / System fan speed detection CPU warning temperature CPU / System fan failure warning CPU Smart Fan Control
Other Features	Supports RAID 0, 1, JBOD (GIGABYTE SATA 2) Supports @BIOS Supports Download Center Supports Q-Flash Supports EasyTune 5 Supports Xpress Install Supports Xpress Recovery2 Supports Vertual DualBIOS
Remark	Due to different Linux support condition provided by chipset vendors, please download Linux driver from chipset vendors' website or 3rd party website. Due to most hardware/software vendors no longer offer support for Win9X/ME. If some vendors still has Win9X/ME drivers available, we will publish on website.

Even having studied all the spec sheets, we cannot discover any other differences between Gigabyte GA-965P-S3 and GA-965P-DS3. Ok, let’s take a closer look at our mainboard, maybe we will get to the roots of things later in our review.