Comparing GA-P35-DS3, GA-P35-DS3 R, GA-P35-DSL

[lcliow]

hi all,

I had did some research on gigabyte website on these 3 model and found out some of the difference between them.

Theirs common Specifications:

Supports Intel® Core™ 2 multi-core and upcoming 45nm processors
Supports DDR2 1066 only, Dual Channel architecture up to 8GB by 4 DIMM slots
ATX form factor, 305 x 210mm
1 x PCI Express X16 slot
3 x PCI Express X1 slots
3 x PCI slots
1 x floppy disk drive connector
1 x IDE connector

The NorthBridge HeatSink is also different in size, DSL got the smallest and DS & DSR is about the same size.
here are some of the difference between them:

GA-P35-DSL (rev 1.0):
Internal I/O Connectors
4 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors
4 x USB 2.0/1.1 headers
1 x S/PDIF out connector

Back Panel Connectors
1 x parallel port
1 x serial port
4 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports

Integrated SATA 3Gb/s interface without RAID function
Ultra Durable Motherboard
------------------------------------------------------------------

GA-P35-DS (rev 1.0):
Internal I/O Connectors
6 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors
4 x USB 2.0/1.1 headers

Back Panel Connectors
1 x parallel port
1 x serial port
4 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports

Integrated SATA 3Gb/s with RAID function
Ultra Durable 2 Motherboard
------------------------------------------------------------------

GA-P35-DSR (rev(2.0)
Internal I/O Connectors
8 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors
2 x USB 2.0/1.1 connectors (supports 4 ports)

Back Panel Connectors
8 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports

Integrated SATA 3Gb/s with RAID function
Ultra Durable 2 Motherboard

Actually i am planning to sell away my Asus P5B together will Intel Pentium D 940 3.2GHz. So i had make the comaprison on these few model as they are very similar but i'm also not sure whether want to choose Asus P5K series as i do not need the extra PCI Express X4 slot and Firewire. Raid function is also not a must but i think it is good to have.

This system i will be using it mainly for doing web/application programming and running some application/web server such as tomcat, apache, mySQL server, sometimes i will also run Virtual PC and occasionally playing games such as warcraft 3, C&C Tiberian Sun.

So is it worth selling it away and upgrade it? And i would like to know whether these mainboard is suitable to install Artic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro? And i know there are some issues on the RAID i read at this fourm but not sure whether it had been solve?

Thanks everyone

 

[Maziar]

Why u r going to sell your P5B ? i know P35 is newer than P965 but ASUS P5B supports :

1_1333MHZ CPUs
http://event.asus.com/mb/fsb1333/

2_Next gen 45nm CPUs
http://event.asus.com/mb/45nm/

i say keep your board and upgrade your CPU and pay more for GFX or RAM

 

[spotless]

the GA-P35-DSR (rev(2.0) seems the better option, since the newer gadget dont use serial port no more, btw how much it its?

iam also looking for best/good single 16x pci mb with pci-e 2.0 support, since my plan is to nab 7900 or 1950 and wait till the direct x is mature enough, know any mainboard like this?

 

[boner]

oh yeah by the wat the GA-P35-DS3L rev 2.0 is cheaper than all those motherboards but you cannot run SLI and no DDR3 support and it brings the basic stuff(clables) because you can overclock and everything with it

 

[lcliow]

Maziar: Thanks for the advise. I will keep the board but my mainboard rev C1 and BIOS is ver 0170.
Can i straight away jump from this old ver to the most recent which is ver 1604? Plus i do not have a floppy drive to flash my mainboard.

I will upgrade my CPU to E6750 depend how much i can sell my old one.

spotless: Another option i found is Asus P5K-SE.

boner:
Is there a GA-P35-DSL (rev 2.0) ? I had only found rev 1.0 at gigabyte website.

 

[spotless]

lcliow : usually i update bios via os, no problem & dont need any floppy, and now to speed up boot & reduce cpu usage i disable my floppy.

Asus P5K-SE use 35 chipset? or?

and is it pci-e 2.0 compatible?

 

[Maziar]

ASUS P5K-E is a soild board , if u can get it go for it , its a P35 board(to spoteless)

GIGAYBTE REVx makes me mad , i had 965P DS4 rev 1.0 (i could buy a P5B @ that time but i didnt and went for the gigabyte one) and when 1333mhz cpus came out i asked gigaybte if rev 1.0 will work with it , they said only rev2.0 and 3.0 will work , so if i had bough that P5B i could have 1333 + even 45nm support

 

[lcliow]

Maziar: I didn't know that gigabyte rev got this kind of issues, i thought it just like others which just need an update on the bios. Thanks for the info, i will be careful if i'm going to buy gigabyte motherboard.

spotless: Asus P5K-SE is using P35. check this thread to find all the difference http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/244909-30-differences-asus-mobos

 

[lcliow]

spotless: may i know how do u update the bios from the os?

Is it by downloading BIOS-Utilities and run it?

Thanks a lot

 

[Maziar]

wel gigabyte has a program which u can update your BIOS in windows

 

[spotless]

asus too, i upgrade my asus board via windows i even disable my floppy to reduce my CPU utilization and fasten my boot time.

 

[lcliow]

thanks i found out, is by using the Asus Update utilities. But my bios was like the first version, so do i just update to the most recently version or i must update it one version by one version till the latest?

Thanks

 

[Maziar]

u have to update it to the latest version

 

[lcliow]

Thanks Maziar i will do it when i reach home.

 

[Maziar]

good luck