GA-965P-DS3P (rev 2.0)

U

unclewebb

[H]ard|Gawd
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I can't wait for Gigabyte's GA-965P-DS3P (rev 2.0) to start selling in North America.

They've included all the things that I wish they would have included with the original DS3.

The DS3P uses the Intel P965+ ICH8R chipset which includes Intel RAID support.

This new board also has built in 1394 firewire and dual PCI-E graphics slots for ATI CrossFire support.

If everyone sends a request to Newegg maybe they'll order some in.
 
unclewebb said:
I can't wait for Gigabyte's GA-965P-DS3P (rev 2.0) to start selling in North America.

They've included all the things that I wish they would have included with the original DS3.

The DS3P uses the Intel P965+ ICH8R chipset which includes Intel RAID support.

This new board also has built in 1394 firewire and dual PCI-E graphics slots for ATI CrossFire support.

If everyone sends a request to Newegg maybe they'll order some in.
Click to expand...

Bah, that's the reason I picked up the DQ6, oh well. Ya win some ya lose some. I'm in no position to rebuild right now for this.
 
sounds awesome.

And it will probably have the resistor or whatever that makes the D9 Micron chips overclock better too.
 
chrisf6969 said:
sounds awesome.

And it will probably have the resistor or whatever that makes the D9 Micron chips overclock better too.
Click to expand...
i think it's supposed to be fixed in this version .
:cool: i'm going to order one of these myself--
 
WickedWeasel said:
Any news on pricing? Is it to replace the DS3, or to compete with the P5B-E?
Click to expand...
Being labeled as a revision 2, I think it is intended to replace the DS3. Gigabyte has a history of tweaking and then releasing a second version of their more successful boards.

It is presently selling in Japan at a 20% premium to the DS3. Newegg has the DS3 on sale for $130 so this new DS3P might sell for about $155 to $170 U.S. The P probably stands for a Pro version since Gigabyte has used that term before.

As for competing with the P5B-E, it might not be much of a competition if they work out all the minor DS3 bugs and short comings which it looks like they have. They even placed the IDE port on the edge of the board at a 90 degree angle to keep the reviewers that like clean cable management happy.

If the D9 bug is fixed and this thing goes to 500+ MHz like the original DS3 then look for this new DS3P to be getting plenty of "Kick Ass" awards. It looks like the perfect enthusiast C2D board without the high price of the DQ6.

I've already seen one company in Britain selling them on ebay. I can wait another month before building a well overclocked, budget, CrossFire capable super computer.
 
i was about to start my build and pick up a ds3, looks like ill have to wait now. does this mobo support sli? or only crossfire.
 
Crossfire officially - (but one slot is 16x & one slot is 4x)

SLI only supported with old / hacked drivers (unofficial)
 
you can buy it through *special people* at another forum ;) 153.00 + 40 shipping
 
Gigabyte's RMA's take FOREVER. They recieved my mobo on the 17th of last month, no updates, at all.
 
Gigabyte lists a little bit of info on their U.S. website about the generation 2.0 boards coming out.

In Taiwan they list the generation 2.0 DS3 specs here:
http://www.giga-byte.com.tw/Product...iew.aspx?ProductID=2424&ModelName=GA-965P-DS3

This board is already selling in Japan and it will replace the current P965-DS3 v1.0 boards. The D9 memory bug should be fixed and hopefully there will be a lot less memory incompatibility issues in general. Too many ver1.0 boards were returned DOA because users couldn't get them to POST so they couldn't get into the bios to give the memory enough voltage to work properly on initial boot. I needed some low voltage DDR2 to get around this bug with the DS3 I had.

The new DS3P is an upgraded DS3 that uses the Intel ICH8R RAID chipset and has a TI 1394a firewire chip. It is already selling in Japan and the rumor is that Gigabyte will be releasing it into the U.S. by January 2007. The DS3P is just what I'm looking for so I'll be first in line.

I think I read in a Japanese forum that they are hitting 560 MHz to 570 MHz with this new bad boy. :D

p965-ds3p-1.jpg


That box sure looks like it was designed and is ready for the U.S. market.
 
Damnit, I was going to buy a DS3 next week to complete my build, and now I have to decide whether I want to wait and let the rest of my parts sit for another month, or get a board thats going to be obsolete in a month.
 
I'm in the same boat. I almost bought the DS3 last week. Now I'm not sure if it is worth waiting for the DS3P because I don't intend to go over 400 FSB. Need more information to make that decision. When exactly, will it be available and the additional cost over the DS3?
 
WickedWeasel: If you don't need to go over 400 MHz and you don't need the Intel ICH8R RAID chipset and you don't plan to ever run CrossFire then you might as well pick up a DS3 ver1.0 board tomorrow.

The original DS3 is a great board. It was effortless for me to hit 3300 MHz with an E6300 on a DS3. No additional voltage for anything was needed besides the memory. I set the memory divider to 1:1, dropped the memory timings from CL5-5-5 to CL4-4-4 and bumped it from 1.8 to 2.1 volts and I was done. Rock solid stable with both cores at full load. It was dead simple to overclock 75% using nothing special, cheap, CL5 Micron DDR2-667 memory.

On the U.S. Gigabyte website they show that the Generation 2.0 965 boards are coming soon but it could be a month before they're available at Newegg. The DS3 is coming but there's no guarantee yet that the DS3P will even be sold in the U.S. market.

The DS3P is presently available in Japan, Australia, Ireland, the U.K and South Africa so I think it's just a matter of time before it's available here. I don't need a new computer right away so I can wait until January to see what happens.

In Japan the DS3P is selling for less than the DQ6 and about 20% more than a DS3. My best guess is that it will retail for at most $170 U.S. and maybe even $160. It will definitely be near the top of the "A" list for any enthusiast building a new C2D system.

With Newegg blowing out the old DS3 boards for $135, the gen 2.0 boards might be closer than we think.
 
How is this new version going to compare to the MSI 965 Platinum which already comes with a 2nd x16 slot (x4 electrical) and ICH8R and can be had for $120 at newegg AR?
 
Damnit, I was going to buy a DS3 next week to complete my build, and now I have to decide whether I want to wait and let the rest of my parts sit for another month, or get a board thats going to be obsolete in a month.
Click to expand...
I think that use of obsolete is a bit strong. The DS3 has a few bugs but you should determine if they affect you. If not, I do not see the value of waiting for the new revision.
Also, the new revision might have some bugs of its own.
Patience is a virtue but there is always something better in the pipeline somewhere...

I think of replacing my X2 by a COD2 in the coming months and the DS3P should be one of the candidate. I do not care about SLI (and Crossfire) support but I want to overclock.

AFAIK, the recent DS3 board has no problems booting with the Micron D9. However, the overclocking issue is still there.
 
unclewebb said:
The MSI 965 Platinum board has some serious flaws and isn't in the same league as any version of the DS3.

Here's how the MSI struggled when Anandtech tested it:
http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2882&p=4
Click to expand...

The only place it struggled was high overclocks. Other then that it outperformed every other 965 board at stock settings. A new bios could fix the overclocking issues, it might not, but other then that, to quote AT:

"The MSI P965 Platinum is fast, it feels fast, it looks fast, and is priced to sell fast. The board has the best overall stock performance of our P965 boards and that includes the last grouping of boards yet to be reviewed. MSI has made great strides in memory compatibility with the last BIOS release and actually had minor improvements in overclocking. We like the board, we like the support, and we would like to give it unequivocal accolades but those will have to wait. While improving overclocking to the 450~475FSB level would make this board an absolute steal for the price we did encounter a couple of minor issues that need addressing with the big one."

The minor issue is that you have to use a PS2 keyboard when rebooting from a failed overclock and you were greeted by a blank screen on a warm reboot from a failed overclock. Big deal...

I guess if all you're looking for is high overclocks, then it isn't for you, but other then that it seems to offer everything this DS3 v2 is going to offer. For them to get me to pay an extra 30 bucks for the DS3 it better damned well do something other then overclock better then the MSI. Something like user configurable lanes for the x16 slots, why haven't we seen that yet? You telling me they can't split the x16 in half and wire two x8s to the physical x16 slots. Then we might actually be able to run a non-crippled crossfire on it.
 
unclewebb said:
WickedWeasel: If you don't need to go over 400 MHz and you don't need the Intel ICH8R RAID chipset and you don't plan to ever run CrossFire then you might as well pick up a DS3 ver1.0 board tomorrow.

The original DS3 is a great board. It was effortless for me to hit 3300 MHz with an E6300 on a DS3. No additional voltage for anything was needed besides the memory. I set the memory divider to 1:1, dropped the memory timings from CL5-5-5 to CL4-4-4 and bumped it from 1.8 to 2.1 volts and I was done. Rock solid stable with both cores at full load. It was dead simple to overclock 75% using nothing special, cheap, CL5 Micron DDR2-667 memory.

On the U.S. Gigabyte website they show that the Generation 2.0 965 boards are coming soon but it could be a month before they're available at Newegg. The DS3 is coming but there's no guarantee yet that the DS3P will even be sold in the U.S. market.

The DS3P is presently available in Japan, Australia, Ireland, the U.K and South Africa so I think it's just a matter of time before it's available here. I don't need a new computer right away so I can wait until January to see what happens.

In Japan the DS3P is selling for less than the DQ6 and about 20% more than a DS3. My best guess is that it will retail for at most $170 U.S. and maybe even $160. It will definitely be near the top of the "A" list for any enthusiast building a new C2D system.

With Newegg blowing out the old DS3 boards for $135, the gen 2.0 boards might be closer than we think.
Click to expand...
I absolutely love these testimonials. You should speak louder, so people see more than just the big haze the ds3 has over it right now :)
 
ND40oz: These days most motherboards built on the same chipset have almost identical performance at default MHz. If you are not overclocking then the MSI board with firewire, and the Intel ICH8R RAID chipset at that price point looks like a good option.

All C2D processors have an incredible amount of overclocking head room built into them so I like to overclock and get as much performance out of a combination as I can. If MSI can come out with a new bios they might become competitive in this area but at the moment they're a long way behind the competition.

It seems that pretty much all of the first generation P965 boards have some issues. Gigabyte has the D9 memory issue, MSI has some overclocking problems and one look at the reviews at Newegg will tell you that the overclocking king Asus has had their fair share of problems as well. Anandtech liked the Deluxe Biostar 965 board but they're hard to find and it lacked firewire, optical out, had limited memory voltage options and doesn't support CrossFire. All 965 boards also have some voltage droop issues under full load.

I'm tired of buying computer hardware with a few "issues" and I'm tired of being a product tester for manufacturers that turn out products so fast that they don't have time to work out all the bugs. I'm waiting for the second generation 965 boards from all the manufacturers before I build my next computer.

So far, on paper, the DS3P is just what I'm looking for. I'll wait to see some reviews before buying one though.
 
unclewebb said:
ND40oz: These days most motherboards built on the same chipset have almost identical performance at default MHz. If you are not overclocking then the MSI board with firewire, and the Intel ICH8R RAID chipset at that price point looks like a good option.

All C2D processors have an incredible amount of overclocking head room built into them so I like to overclock and get as much performance out of a combination as I can. If MSI can come out with a new bios they might become competitive in this area but at the moment they're a long way behind the competition.

It seems that pretty much all of the first generation P965 boards have some issues. Gigabyte has the D9 memory issue, MSI has some overclocking problems and one look at the reviews at Newegg will tell you that the overclocking king Asus has had their fair share of problems as well. Anandtech liked the Deluxe Biostar 965 board but they're hard to find and it lacked firewire, optical out, had limited memory voltage options and doesn't support CrossFire. All 965 boards also have some voltage droop issues under full load.

I'm tired of buying computer hardware with a few "issues" and I'm tired of being a product tester for manufacturers that turn out products so fast that they don't have time to work out all the bugs. I'm waiting for the second generation 965 boards from all the manufacturers before I build my next computer.

So far, on paper, the DS3P is just what I'm looking for. I'll wait to see some reviews before buying one though.
Click to expand...
Hah! You've read my mind again. I'm really pretty tired by all the little quirks here and there. Are the new ds3 boards newegg is shipping still having d9 issues? I thought there was a bios update that more or less addressed it somewhat? I was told that the egg is still selling revision 1 ds3's but with c2 cores?

As for the biostar, everything looks great to me. The vddr only goes to 2.2v but there's a real easy and unintrusive mod to allow you to bring it up to whatever you want to. The only thing that bugs me about the biostar is that I'd have to find a parallel port to connect to the header on the motherboard. Hell, even the placement of the atx connector looks almost smart if you ask me. It'd allow for much better airflow to the ram compared to the ds3 in my case. I don't know how I talked myself into the ds3 though. It was originally between the biostar and the s3. But then I figured, for the cost of parts to get a parallel port and to mod the vdimm, I'd be almost up to the s3. Then I saw the ds3 was on sale for only $10 more than the s3 and I went up to that. Now that puts me $30 more than the biostar, which is clearly more money that I had originally intended, but from what I've been reading, the newer ds3's aren't nearly the hassle of the earlier ones (at least until you mentioned there are still lingering d9 issues??). I've got an e6400 instead of an e6300 so I figure I wouldn't need to go that high into fsb, and will probably top out around 450 or so, and figure the ds3 should be able to handle that no sweat?? RAM would be running 1125 @ 4:5 and I'm hoping my d9gmh will do alright there.
 
ziddey: Good news. My DS3 loved Micron DDR2-667 memory that used the D9GMH chips. It ran nice and stable at DDR2-944 speeds at CL4-4-4.

To go any higher I probably would have had to reduce the timings to CL5-5-5 and then I would need to crank up the MHz and voltages to make it worth while. I didn't want a ticking time bomb kind of overclock, just a nice reliable speedy system so I stopped my E6300 at 3300 MHz.

For your E6400 I would run the memory at 1:1 and start at 400x8 and work your way up to 450x8 if possible and try to keep the timings at CL4 using 2.1 to 2.2 volts.

Best performance is not always achieved by using sky high MHz. Do lots of benchmarks along the way and play with your memory timings and speed and you'll see exactly what I'm talking about.
 
I've had zero issues with my DS3. Pretty much from day one.

The BIOS that came on the motherboard was quirky, but I flashed it as soon as I got it, and it got me to the max my chip will do. Unfortunately, my chip only does 3Ghz.

but the board does
333FSB x 9 at 2.5:1 (ddr2 833Mhz) tight timings
333FSB x 9 at 3:1 (ddr2 1Ghz) loose timings
375FSB x 8 at 2.5:1 (ddr2 938Mhz)
430FSB x 7 at 2:1 (ddr2 860Mhz)
473FSB x 6 at 2:1 (ddr2 946Mhz) only 2.84Ghz

And there seems to be no FSB holes with the F7 bios.

Oddly enough the scores were almost identical at the first 4 settings which all equaled 3Ghz. So I kept it at the first setting b/c the tight timings helped some benchmarks.
 
chrisf6969: Are you absolutely sure that your CPU is only good for 3000 MHz?

It looks like you've hit a wall but with a little bit of tweaking I think there is still more left in your combo. The ability of your memory to run at a lot of different speeds with different timings is a good sign.

Run Orthos to fully load both cores. What temps does CoreTemp report?

How much voltage does CPU-z report at full load. As I mentioned before, all 965 boards seem to have some voltage droop under full load so you might have to use a little more in the bios to maintain the Intel default of 1.325 volts under full load.

Too much voltage isn't a good thing because it can cause too much heat but anything under 1.400 volts at full load is 100% safe for the C2D. Some crazies are going a lot higher than that without a nuclear melt down.

I'm a strong believer that there are very few bad CPU chips. What actually happens when you try to push beyond 3000 MHz? I don't want to get this thread too off topic so if you need some help pushing your DS3 farther just send me a PM.
 
unclewebb said:
chrisf6969: Are you absolutely sure that your CPU is only good for 3000 MHz?

Too much voltage isn't a good thing because it can cause too much heat but anything under 1.400 volts at full load is 100% safe for the C2D. Some crazies are going a lot higher than that without a nuclear melt down.

I'm a strong believer that there are very few bad CPU chips. What actually happens when you try to push beyond 3000 MHz? I don't want to get this thread too off topic so if you need some help pushing your DS3 farther just send me a PM.
Click to expand...

Here's a test from last night. I wanted to see how the new fans/cooling worked out:
conroe.gif


Thats with the voltage set at 1.375v (bios)

I've tried at 1.475v and I just get errors anything much over 3.1Ghz.

So I leave it at 3Ghz at 1.375 b/c its not worth the extra voltage/heat at 3.1Ghz. I guess if I pumped 1.55v I might be able to get it stable at 3.2Ghz. Thing is I can boot and do things at around 3.2Ghz, but its not Orthos stable anywhere near that.
 
Your bios setting of 1.375 volts for the CPU is just where you want to be. That should be enough to get you higher than 3000 MHz.

CoreTemp of 56C under full load is good too.

What memory voltage are you running? Playing around with that, up or down, might help out.

I've seen some great results from D9 based memory at 2.3 to 2.4 volts but even 2.2 volts should be enough to get you higher.

The screen you posted was at CL4. Can you go higher than 3000 MHz at CL5?
 
unclewebb said:
The DS3P is presently available in Japan, Australia, Ireland, the U.K and South Africa so I think it's just a matter of time before it's available here.
Click to expand...
I have searched in google and cannot find a single place in the UK/ europe that sells the DS3P and has it in stock. Are you certain that they are selling it there already?
 
drizzt81 said:
I have searched in google and cannot find a single place in the UK/ europe that sells the DS3P and has it in stock. Are you certain that they are selling it there already?
Click to expand...

Maybe not in Europe, but it is available from Asia. Newls1 has one already. Got it shipped to him from Asia.
 
unclewebb said:
Your bios setting of 1.375 volts for the CPU is just where you want to be. That should be enough to get you higher than 3000 MHz.

CoreTemp of 56C under full load is good too.

What memory voltage are you running? Playing around with that, up or down, might help out.

I've seen some great results from D9 based memory at 2.3 to 2.4 volts but even 2.2 volts should be enough to get you higher.

The screen you posted was at CL4. Can you go higher than 3000 MHz at CL5?
Click to expand...

Tried cas 5, tried more volts, tried it ALL, etc... (I'm not a newb! ;) )
Luckily Core 2 rocks even at "only" 3Ghz.

I tried each thing independently to find each components max.

Ram: 920 at 4-4-4-12 @ 2.0v, or 1Ghz 5-5-5-15 @ 2.1v

Motherboard does 473Mhz

Cpu is running cool, tried all kinds of different voltages.
Tried from 1.325-1.475
The chip only does like 2.7Ghz at default voltage (1.325 in BIOS, reads like 1.28v in Windows underload)

ITs like at 3Ghz the voltage needed just ramps up REALLY quickly off the chart of what I want to put in to it. Granted if I gave it 1.6v or something I might get 3.2Ghz.

Its an OEM week 24, so I've just accepted that its a weak chip. Hopefully, I'll get a better chip next time. I really kind of think the OEM chips are crappier. Possibly picked through (for the cherry ones) by people, etc.
 
Don't worry, your not the only one with a C2D that can go past 3Ghz. Mine stops at 3Ghz too. I believe it was an oem week 25 +/- 1 week. I am guessing that production matured a bit more with latter chips.

My next step is to pop in this 6600 that has been lying around for over a month now.
 
drizzt81 said:
I have searched in google and cannot find a single place in the UK/ europe that sells the DS3P and has it in stock. Are you certain that they are selling it there already?
Click to expand...
I originally saw about 10 DS3P boards for sale on ebay by one seller in the U.K. I'm not sure if it was a bogus ad by someone that didn't actually have any in stock kind of like some people trying to sell the PS3.

I'll keep hunting around. I'll let you know when I find one, right after I order one! :D

chrisf6969: Didn't mean to insult your intelligence or hard work!

My E6300 was so damn easy getting to 3300 MHz that I thought everyone should be able to get that high. I've heard that some people though are not having as much luck with the E6600 compared to the E6300 / E6400 so you're not alone. Sorry to hear you're suffering at "only" 3 GHz!

Anandtech was able to get approximately 3.6 GHz out of all of his Intel E6x00 processors but that was on an Asus board. They all reached the same speed.

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2822&p=4
 
Just wanted to let everyone know that I just got my ds3 from newegg and it's rev2
 
That's very interesting since the DS3 was only around $129 at newegg last I checked. I'm not sure people are going to believe you though without pics :). Especially the ones that are trying to get them shipped here from Asia.
 
kirbyrj said:
That's very interesting since the DS3 was only around $129 at newegg last I checked. I'm not sure people are going to believe you though without pics :). Especially the ones that are trying to get them shipped here from Asia.
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lol you talking to me? Why wouldn't people believe me :p I've got no reason to have it in for people and I don't work for newegg ;) If it helps any, it got shipped from NJ although the shipping has CA as the return addy. I'll post pics later if people really want them
 
chrisf6969 said:
Shens w/o pics
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LOL I can't tell if you're pulling my chain or if you seriously think I'm out to get you guys. Alright alright I'll post a pic in a sec. Just wanted to say though that I haven't had much of a time to fiddle yet. But I did get it put together all over my desk. Using stock cooler now, and I had a hell of a time getting the hsf on this time around for some odd reason, and must have for sure wrecked havoc on the nice layer of as5 I had on there. But regardless, it comes with F7 bios. Out of the box, I have it up at 400fsb 1:1 and memtest is almost onto test5. Going to snap pictures now
 


So I've got sata in native mode and set to ahci. Is this the right way to go about things? I notice my ide optical gets detected in a special thing after initial post now. Don't have any floppys though so not sure if I'll be able to install windows like this
 
lol what? now that i've posted a picture, you guys all disappeared!! :(

edit: Oh in case there was any confusion, I got the ds3 rev2 NOT the ds3p.

Looks like ich8 doesn't support ahci/ncq. I put jmicron controller to ide emulation since I'm only running a dvdrw on there. Have ich8 sata on native though whatever that means. Might move my wd re2 onto the jmicron controller later if it turns out to be faster

Installing w2k3r2 sp1 right now. Have it set to 400fsb, 1.375v vcore (from 1.325 in case there are multiple vid's for e6400). 8x multiplier. 1:1 with ram @ spd 2.1v (see some niiiice vdimm options in the bios!!! i think up to +0.7v or something although I can't remember)

All other voltages are set to normal. PCIE set to 110. BIOS reporting sky high cpu temps though, which was completely my fault since I completely went fubar when installing the stock hsf (haven't had such a hard time in years, not sure what happened). Hoping that when the as5 heats up and settles, it'll even itself out.

I probably should have done the install at stock and then started fiddling, but I got too zealous and it appears to be chugging along great! I just assumed my e6400 would do 3.2 at 1.375.

And something else that left a good taste in my mouth, I accidentally let it boot into windows (from an old install on a 945g) and it went in perfect and started installing drivers. I ran a quick 20 minute memtest and it was flawless. I can't say whether 400fsb is in the 1066 strap of 1333 yet. Will do testing at 400 and 401 among others.

Hmm... 8x450=3600 with stock hsf?? I wonder if it'll be possible :)


cpu heatsink definitely feels cold to the touch. northbridge on the other hand is burning the hell up.
 
lol windows is up and running. system is stable, although hsf definitely needs to come off. coretemp shows 65'c idle 75'c load

yikes!

grr looks like my stock hsf is bent or something. it goes down so difficultly i swear i'm going to snap the motherboard. and it barely had any contact with the chip at all. i couldn't put it back on any better than before and cpu temps are climbing like they were before as well.
 
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