Conclusion
No doubt, Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS4 mainboard is a very attractive solution thanks to numerous advantages and great features we have pointed out in our review. It is not a universal mainboard, but a good solution for a home system. Average overclocking potential makes it not very fit for an overclocking testbed, but I would love to have it in my home PC. Besides, we have pointed out quite a few things that could be improved, so hopefully, this feedback will be taken into consideration.
Despite the seemingly modest accessories bundle, we have nothing to complain about here. The PCB layout and mainboard functionality are practically impeccable. The only thing to work on is the Silent-Pipe chipset cooling system. Most of our suggestions deal with the mainboard BIOS:
- It would be very helpful if the board could boot from USB Flash Drive as the primary boot-up device;
- We wish CPU Features or at least CPU EIST Function moved to MB Intelligent Tweaker (M.I.T);
- Overclockers could really use the information about the current North Bridge voltage and temperature as well as the FSB voltage;
- We would love to see fan rotation speed adjustment options in the BIOS;
- It is more convenient to have the voltage change in absolute and not relative units;
- We wouldn’t mind being informed when the board is resetting parameters to defaults after over-overclocking.
Please don’t be discouraged with this pretty long wish list. It is not a list of drawbacks, but our recommendations that hopefully will make great Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS4 mainboard even better. Unlike other boards we have reviewed that are easier to design from scratch than fix. You can say that we were even a little bit biased towards this board, paying attention to every little thing about it.
If our recommendations are put into life, this excellent mainboard will become practically perfect. And if its overclocking potential improves, then Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS4 mainboard will turn into a universal solution suitable for both: home use and record-breaking overclocking experiments. We could finally get that ideal mainboard we have been looking for all this time.