Conroe Buying Guide: Feeding the Monster
by Gary Key & Wesley Fink on July 19, 2006 6:20 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6
Basic Features
The Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6 was one of the most talked about and hyped boards at Computex 2006. We were excited when our test sample arrived. After getting through all of the marketing spin on the box and included documentation we found a board that provided everything but the kitchen sink (we believe that to be on the bottom of the board). While the list of options is definitely impressive along with the general look of the board, it is performance that counts in this market sector. Did it deliver? The answer is yes and no, as we will discuss shortly.
The board features 12-phase power, an all solid capacitor design, an impressive silent heat pipe system, Dolby Digital Live and DTS support, eight SATA 3Gbps ports, and a very good layout considering the sheer amount of options on this board. Our one gripe is the Crazy Cool plate on the back side of the board underneath the CPU socket. While we noticed this option worked as well if not better than the ASUS Stack Cool 2 system, the plate is just thick enough to rule out the usage of several aftermarket cooling systems that require the use of a back plate. Granted, some quick and minor modifications to the attachment screw lengths worked in several cases, but for a high end board Gigabyte should expect the user to upgrade the retail CPU cooling system.
Basic Performance
Gigabyte did indeed deliver excellent performance with this board. In fact, the overall performance of the board placed it squarely in the top of our roundup. The board exhibited excellent performance and stability throughout our testing regimen while providing a certain amount of gee whiz discussion amongst the staff members when first noticing the board. What is even more amazing is that this performance occurred with a board that was not running on all cylinders at the time. We had several issues that were solved with a constant stream of BIOS updates, but there was one that neither us nor Gigabyte could overcome.
The board would at various times simply refuse to accept a voltage change in the BIOS with a guaranteed lock up when changing the DRAM voltage. After changing various voltages either together or in a singular manner, the board would enter a reboot cycle that could only be stopped by turning off the power and clearing the CMOS. We were finally able to change the CPU voltage that allowed us to overclock the board to our reported results. However, we were not successful in truly finding the limits of this otherwise impressive board. The initial street pricing of $269.99 also has us concerned. After testing with other CPUs and memory, we ruled out BIOS issues and believe our board to be faulty. We have a new retail board on its way that will hopefully fix the issue.
Overclocking
Even with the aforementioned BIOS issues, we were able to clock this board to an impressive 376FSB. Gigabyte has sent us test results with a new B2 stepping 6 X6800 showing a fully stable system running at 6X498 with the current D27 BIOS. The board ran extremely cool during our overclocking tests indicating a well engineered heat pipe system, although the area around the CPU would need to be actively cooled if a liquid cooling system is utilized. During testing for the maximum FSB clock we ran into the BIOS issues and were not able to extend past the reported 376FSB due to our inability to set the MCH and FSB termination voltages. The only other noticeable drawback in overclocking this board is the lock on increasing the CPU multiplier when utilizing the X6800. We look forward to providing a full review of this board in the near future.
Basic Features
| Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6 | |
| Market Segment: | High-End/Enthusiast |
| CPU Interface: | Socket T (Socket 775) |
| CPU Support: | LGA775-based Pentium 4, Celeron D, Pentium D, Core 2 Duo |
| Chipset: | Intel P965 + ICH8R |
| Thermal Design: | 12-phase power Fan-less Heatpipe Cooling Crazy Cool for OC All Solid Capacitor Layout |
| Bus Speed Support: | 1066/800/533MHz |
| Bus Speeds: | 100 to 600 in 1MHz Increments |
| Memory Ratios: | Auto, 2, 2.5, 3, 2.66, 3.33, 4 |
| PCIe Speeds: | Auto, 90MHz~150MHz |
| PCI: | Fixed at 33 |
| Dynamic Tuning: | C.I.A. 2 - Disabled, Cruise, Sports, Racing, Turbo, Full Throttle |
| Core Voltage: | Normal, .68750V to 2.37500V in 0.00625V increments |
| CPU Clock Multiplier: | Auto, 6x-11x in 1X increments if CPU is unlocked |
| DRAM Voltage: | Normal, +.025V to +.775V in +.025V increments |
| DRAM Timing Control: | Auto, 9 Options |
| FSB Termination Voltage: | Normal, +.05V to +.35V in +.05V increments |
| NB Voltage: | Normal, +.05V to +.75V in +.05 increments |
| Memory Slots: | Four 240-pin DDR2 DIMM Slots Dual-Channel Configuration Regular Unbuffered Memory to 8GB Total |
| Expansion Slots: | 1 - PCIe X16 1 - PCIe X4 (X16 physical connector) 3 - PCIe X1 2 - PCI Slots 2.3 |
| Onboard SATA/RAID: | 6 SATA 3Gbps Ports - Intel ICH8R (RAID 0,1,1+0,5,JBOD) 2 SATA 3Gbps Ports - JMicron JMB363 (RAID 0,1, JBOD) |
| Onboard IDE: | 1 Standard ATA133/100/66/33 Port (2 drives) JMicron JMB363 |
| Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394: | 10 USB 2.0 Ports - 4 I/O Panel 6 Headers 3 Firewire 400 Ports via TI TSB43AB23 - 1 I/O Panel 2 Headers |
| Onboard LAN: | Gigabit Ethernet Controller Marvell 88E8053 |
| Onboard Audio: | Realtek ALC888DD HD-Audio 8-channel CODEC Supports Dolby Master Studio including Dolby Digital Live |
| Power Connectors: | ATX 24-pin, 8-pin EATX 12V, 4-Pin Molex |
| I/O Panel: | 1 x Serial 1 x LPT 1 x PS/2 Keyboard 1 x PS/2 Mouse 1 x RJ45 1 x IEEE-1394 4 x USB 2.0/1.1 2 x S/PDIF (Optical + Coaxial) 8-Channel Audio I/O |
| BIOS Revision: | AWARD D27 |
The Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6 was one of the most talked about and hyped boards at Computex 2006. We were excited when our test sample arrived. After getting through all of the marketing spin on the box and included documentation we found a board that provided everything but the kitchen sink (we believe that to be on the bottom of the board). While the list of options is definitely impressive along with the general look of the board, it is performance that counts in this market sector. Did it deliver? The answer is yes and no, as we will discuss shortly.
 |
| Click to enlarge |
The board features 12-phase power, an all solid capacitor design, an impressive silent heat pipe system, Dolby Digital Live and DTS support, eight SATA 3Gbps ports, and a very good layout considering the sheer amount of options on this board. Our one gripe is the Crazy Cool plate on the back side of the board underneath the CPU socket. While we noticed this option worked as well if not better than the ASUS Stack Cool 2 system, the plate is just thick enough to rule out the usage of several aftermarket cooling systems that require the use of a back plate. Granted, some quick and minor modifications to the attachment screw lengths worked in several cases, but for a high end board Gigabyte should expect the user to upgrade the retail CPU cooling system.
Basic Performance
Gigabyte did indeed deliver excellent performance with this board. In fact, the overall performance of the board placed it squarely in the top of our roundup. The board exhibited excellent performance and stability throughout our testing regimen while providing a certain amount of gee whiz discussion amongst the staff members when first noticing the board. What is even more amazing is that this performance occurred with a board that was not running on all cylinders at the time. We had several issues that were solved with a constant stream of BIOS updates, but there was one that neither us nor Gigabyte could overcome.
The board would at various times simply refuse to accept a voltage change in the BIOS with a guaranteed lock up when changing the DRAM voltage. After changing various voltages either together or in a singular manner, the board would enter a reboot cycle that could only be stopped by turning off the power and clearing the CMOS. We were finally able to change the CPU voltage that allowed us to overclock the board to our reported results. However, we were not successful in truly finding the limits of this otherwise impressive board. The initial street pricing of $269.99 also has us concerned. After testing with other CPUs and memory, we ruled out BIOS issues and believe our board to be faulty. We have a new retail board on its way that will hopefully fix the issue.
Overclocking
| Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6 Overclocking Testbed |
|
| Processor: | Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 Dual Core, 2.67GHz, 4MB Unified Cache 1066FSB, 10x Multiplier |
| CPU Voltage: | 1.525V (default 1.2V) |
| Cooling: | Tuniq Tower 120 Air Cooling |
| Power Supply: | OCZ GameXStream 700W |
| Memory: | Corsair Twin2X2048-PC2-8500C5 (2x1GB) (Micron Memory Chips) |
| Hard Drive | Hitachi 250GB 7200RPM SATA2 16MB Cache |
| Maximum OC: (Standard Ratio) |
376x10 (3-3-3-9) 3760MHz (+41%) |
Even with the aforementioned BIOS issues, we were able to clock this board to an impressive 376FSB. Gigabyte has sent us test results with a new B2 stepping 6 X6800 showing a fully stable system running at 6X498 with the current D27 BIOS. The board ran extremely cool during our overclocking tests indicating a well engineered heat pipe system, although the area around the CPU would need to be actively cooled if a liquid cooling system is utilized. During testing for the maximum FSB clock we ran into the BIOS issues and were not able to extend past the reported 376FSB due to our inability to set the MCH and FSB termination voltages. The only other noticeable drawback in overclocking this board is the lock on increasing the CPU multiplier when utilizing the X6800. We look forward to providing a full review of this board in the near future.
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JarredWalton - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
Erm... onboard sound isn't "legacy". As for the others, the instant you release something without floppy support, someone is going to want to install an OS that needs drivers on a floppy (XP). I still find BIOS updates to be far more successful when done from a floppy as well. Give it another year and the floppy might truly start to disappear; we just need better support for USB storage devices.Makaveli - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
Could u elaborate little more on the painful part of going from the AMD system to the conroe.rjm55 - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
What they said in the recommendations was pretty clear: "Most of our Reference systems have been based on AMD/AM2 for the last couple of years. To be honest, going back to some of those same systems after our Conroe testing, the differences are more obvious and painful than you might think. Conroe is clearly the faster platform - and not by small, barely measurable differences."They said it was painful going back to the slower AMD systems for some testing after working with all these Conroe boards.
phusg - Thursday, July 20, 2006 - link
I think Makaveli's point is how is is slower? Gaming, switching apps, overall? I'm interested in some elaboration on this point too.mine - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
missed the abit ab 9 proonly 965 board so far that showed some improvements in real wotld apps. over the 975.
but great review so far ...wait for more ..
Gary Key - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
We really wanted to include the Abit AB9 Pro, however we did not have time to fully test the latest bios that unlocks the memory timings. We did not feel it would be fair to the readers or Abit to publish numbers until we had a shipping bios for review. I will not go through another a review of system with a bios that is not going to be released. ;-) We will post a follow up once we have concluded our testing.DeathSniper - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
On page 3:I'm thinking you wanted to use 'coarse'? :D
Wesley Fink - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
Our grammar checking software needs an education :D Fixed.archcommus - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
Once again you guys continue to impress me. Can't think of another site that delivers this much (and this high quality) content.Thanks for keeping us informed!
vmsein - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
Hello gentlemen and thanks for the informative article. Could you let us know which BIOS version was used for testing on the P5W-DH? Thanks in advance!