Gigabyte P35C-DS3R:



Over the past years an ever increasing number of articles featuring products by Gigabyte begin with the obligatory statement: "Gigabyte needs no introduction.." Ironic how saying nothing about a company can say so much. Gigabyte is a mainstay with 22-years in this industry converting like dog years compared to any other. I purchased my first GA-7VRX KT333 board over eight years ago. That was when $125 would buy the best board on the market. Times have changed but some things haven't. Gigabyte's Dual BIOS still remains a mystery to me and fortunately for the consumer Gigabyte is still building feature rich, performance oriented motherboards for an affordable price. The P35C-DS3R (Rev. 1.1) is no exception. Removing everything from the box reveals a spread of ancillaries including SATA-II cables with locking mechanisms. A nice detail.



Essentially Gigabyte's P35C-DS3R is a hybrid DDR2/DDR3 version of their P35-DS3R with the following DDR2/DDR3 memory supported. Insofar as processors the board supports most Socket-T processors including current Wolfdale and Yorkfield cores for those in a 45nm frame of mind. Gigabyte also provides a current list of supported processors and BIOS revisions required to run them. Another nice detail.

Specifications:

CPU

Supports Intel® Core™2 Extreme Quad-Core / Core™2 Duo / Intel® Pentium® Extreme/ Intel® Pentium® D processors

Supports 1333/1066/800 MHz FSB

Chipset Northbridge:

Intel® P35 Express Chipset

Southbridge:

Intel® ICH9R

Gigabit Lan Controller

8 Channels ALC889A Audio controller

Memory DDR3:

2 x 1.5V DDR3 DIMM sockets supporting up to 4 GB of system memory

Dual channel memory architecture

Support for DDR3 1333*/1066/800 MHz memory modules

DDR2:

4 x 1.8V DDR2 DIMM sockets supporting up to 8 GB of system memory

Dual channel memory architecture

Support for DDR2 1066*/800/667 MHz memory modules
* Please refer "Memory Support List" for memory support information.

Expansion Slots:

1 PCI Express X16 slot /'3 PCI Express X1 slots
3 PCI slots

Form Factor:

ATX form factor, 305 x 245mm

Internal I/O Connectors:

1 x 24-pin ATX main power connector

1 x 4-pin ATX 12V power connector

1 x floppy disk drive connector

1 x IDE connector

8 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors

1 x CPU fan header

2 x system fan headers

1 x power fan header

1 x front panel header

1 x front panel audio header

1 x CD In connector

1 x S/PDIF In header

4 x USB 2.0/1.1 headers

1 x power LED header

1 x Chassis Intrusion header

Back Panel Connectors:

1 x PS/2 keyboard port

1 x PS/2 mouse port

1 x parallel port

1 x coaxial S/PDIF Out connector

1 x optical S/PDIF Out connector

1 x serial port

4 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports

1 x RJ-45 port

6 x audio jacks (Center/Subwoofer Speaker Out/Rear Speaker Out/Side Speaker Out/Line In/Line Out/Microphone)



BIOS:

Supports Virtual DualBIOS

1 x 8 Mbit flash

Use of licensed AWARD BIOS

PnP 1.0a, DMI 2.0, SM BIOS 2.3, ACPI 1.0b

Other Features:

Ultra Durable 2 Motherboard

All Japanese manufactured solid

Over-clocking Enhanced

Comments:

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.

Duo to chipset limitation, Intel ICH9R RAID driver does not support Windows 2000 operating system.

For what might be considered a "budget" board, the list of features is substantial. Onto topology...