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Deactivated Item
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Manufacturer Warranty
Beyond any applicable Newegg return policy, this item is warranted independently by the product's Manufacturer. Below is a summary provided for convenience only and may not be accurate or current.
Use this link for full details.
- Manufacturer Limited Warranty period (parts): 1 year
- Manufacturer Limited Warranty period (labor): 1 year
Manufacturer Contact Info
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Gigabyte's S series of motherboards are designed to be speedy, smart and safe. The GA-M61P-S3 AM2 motherboard has all that and more. You can use the EasyTune 5 and the Motherboard Intelligent Tweaker to overclock and overvoltage the various subsystems and the Robust Graphics Booster to tweak video performance in the BIOS. And if there's a problem you can use the BIOS setting recovery feature or the Virtual DualBIOS to get you back to where you started.
Keeping your system drivers up to date is as important as choosing the right equipment in the first place. You’ve chosen well, and Gigabyte will help you keep it current with @BIOS/Q-Flash that provides automatic updates from the internet and built in flash utility. The download center and express install keep your drivers current.
The board is also AMD Live! ready so when used with a 64-bit dual core processor it turns your system into a multimedia powerhouse. Use one core to watch movies and the other to stream music into another room. Ready for Windows Vista, this board can take you well into the 64-bit future!
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- 5
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- 63%
- 4
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- 23%
- 3
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- 4%
- 2
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- 5%
- 1
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| Product Rating: |
 
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| Total Reviews: |
497 |
Great board,
- Pros: The most full-featured, non-SLI AM2 board currently available. Legacy ports (LPT, COM), FireWire, HD Audio, GbE, onboard video, 4 PCI slots - literally stick a CPU and 1 or 2GB of memory in it and you have a complete system without using a single slot. The big surprise is the complete but not DFI-style overwhelming set of overclock options (hit Ctrl-F1 in BIOS to access). VCore up to 1.550v, DDR2 voltage up to 2.4v, adjustable chipset & HT Link voltages as well. HT speeds up to 500MHz; I stopped testing HT speeds at 330MHz, and it was a surprise to me that it'd work that high on an integrated video chipset. Running a Brisbane X2 3600+ at 2.85GHz (300 x 9.5) at 1.35v. Speeds over that required big bumps of Vcore for IMHO not much benefit. With the BIOS Memory Clock option set to DDR667 (CPU/6), it has a pair of 1GB Super Talent DDR2-667 sticks running 5-5-5-12 @ 475MHz (DDR2-950) with voltage @ Auto (which is 1.9v). Orthos Blend mode stable for 48+ hours.
- Cons: 1) The heatsink on the GeForce 6100-430 chip got hot enough to burn my finger and should probably come from the factory with a small fan on it. 2) In the PC Health Status BIOS screen, voltages are listed as "OK" instead of showing the actual values. 3) The floppy connector could be in a better location. 4) Accessory brackets are a little hard to find. I found some generic combo 2-port USB/2-port FireWire brackets on that auction site that worked. The SPDIF bracket is next to impossible to find in the US, but seems to be available in Europe. Go figure. Other than that, no cons for Windows users; for Linux users, the onboard NIC issue and fix have been well-documented here.
- Other Thoughts: 1) As long as you don't need a microATX board this board is a no-brainer for a HTPC, especially with 4 PCI slots (read: multiple tuner cards) and everything else that's onboard. 2) Gigabyte used a TI chip for the onboard FireWire instead of the cheap(er) VIA solution, plus there are a total of 3 FireWire ports - one on the back & two headers on the system board. 3) The BIOS-embedded QFlash BIOS flasher can find BIOS files on USB pen drives. 4) I'd recommend putting a fan on the GeForce 6100-430 chip. Even a small & quiet 40mm fan is enough to cool it down significantly. 5) With an Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro + AS Ceramique on the CPU and a Delta 50x50x10mm fan + AS Ceramique on the 6100-430's heatsink, the system is virtually silent even under load (idle temps are ~30°, load temps under Orthos are ~44°).
Update-Fixed Incompatibility
- Pros: New Nvidia driver fixed incompatibility with Hauppauge PVR 150 and XFX 7600GT, see previous posting. Unstable booting now fixed with F5 bios.
- Cons: North bridge hot. Removed north bridge heatsink and replaced gunk with arctic silver. Also added fan.
- Other Thoughts: OK overall. Great features but required some tweaking. Great overclocker.
| Model | GA-M61P-S3 |
| CPU Socket Type | AM2 |
| CPU Type | Athlon 64 X2 / Athlon 64 / Sempron |
| FSB | 1000MHz Hyper Transport (2000 MT/s) |
| North Bridge | NVIDIA GeForce 6100 |
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| Total Reviews: |
497 |
Very pleased with this mobo
- Pros: Love the onboard everything... which I guess most mobos these days are doing. Had to have Firewire, though, which not all come with. Also, had to have Nvidia to take advantage of the Linux drivers, and the onboard NVIDIA GeForce 6100 video chipset was just the ticket.
- Cons: None as far as I am concerned.
- Other Thoughts: I'd buy this mobo again without hesitation. Dropped in 2 GB of dual channel DDR2 800 SDRAM and an AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600+ Windsor CPU. Running Mepis Linux and it's flawless... loving it. Tried an add-on NVIDIA based card that had better performance but it failed after only a week, so I went back to the onboard video and I'm actually perfectly happy with it.
Pretty solid.
- Pros: Multiple firewire connects, has been quite stable, Fedora Linux liked it for the most part (still haven't gotten the firewire to work, but that's my fault I'm sure, not the motherboard's). Price was good for the things you get. Onboard video in the case that you need a backup if your REAL board dies.
- Cons: Too few fan connections for my taste, but luckily most of my fans have the option of normal 4 pin power connetion. The north bridge does get warm, but not too bad since I don't use th onboard video.
- Other Thoughts: Great for the budget build.
- Pros: The motherboard is ok when it works
- Cons: had boot up prob with Ram sticks in Slots 1 & 2 , moved to slots 3 & 4 boot ok. RMA motherboard, new one the onboard sound is dead, had to install a sound card. Also have second board and the memory slots 1 & 2 are going out also.
- Other Thoughts: These boards might need to beckecked by Gigabyte. Surely I wouldn't have gotten the only bad two
| Model |
| Brand |
GIGABYTE |
| Model |
GA-M61P-S3 |
| Supported CPU |
| CPU Socket Type |
AM2 |
| CPU Type |
Athlon 64 X2 / Athlon 64 / Sempron |
| FSB |
1000MHz Hyper Transport (2000 MT/s) |
| Chipsets |
| North Bridge |
NVIDIA GeForce 6100 / nForce 430 |
| Memory |
| Number of Memory Slots |
4×240pin
Supports 1.8V DDR2 DIMMs |
| Memory Standard |
DDR2 800 |
| Maximum Memory Supported |
16GB |
| Channel Supported |
Dual Channel |
| Expansion Slots |
| PCI Express x16 |
1 |
| PCI Express x1 |
2 |
| PCI Slots |
4 |
| Storage Devices |
| PATA |
1 x ATA100 2 Dev. Max |
| SATA 3Gb/s |
4 |
| SATA RAID |
0/1/0+1/5 |
| Onboard Video |
| Onboard Video Chipset |
NVIDIA GeForce 6100 |
| Onboard Audio |
| Audio Chipset |
Realtek ALC883 |
| Audio Channels |
8 Channels |
| Onboard LAN |
| LAN Chipset |
Realtek 8211 |
| Max LAN Speed |
10/100/1000Mbps |
| Rear Panel Ports |
| PS/2 |
2 |
| COM |
1 |
| LPT |
1 |
| Video Ports |
D-Sub |
| USB 1.1/2.0 |
4 x USB 2.0 |
| IEEE 1394 |
1 x IEEE 1394a |
| Audio Ports |
6 Ports |
| Onboard USB |
| Onboard USB |
3 x USB 2.0 connectors support 6 ports |
| Onboard 1394 |
| Onboard 1394 |
2x 1394a |
| Physical Spec |
| Form Factor |
ATX |
| Dimensions |
12.0" x 8.6" |
| Windows Vista |
Certified for Windows Vista |
| Power Pin |
24 Pin |
| Features |
| Features |
Due to the limitation of Windows 32-bit operating system, when more than 4GB of physical memory is installed, the actual memory available for the operating system will be less than 4GB; Windows 64-bit operating system doesn't have such limitation |
| Packaging |
| Package Contents |
GA-M61P-S3
Driver Disk
User Manual
Rear I/O Panel Shield
IDE/PATA Cable
FDD Cable
2 x SATA Cable |
| Manufacturer Warranty |
| Parts |
1 year limited |
| Labor |
1 year limited |
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2x Winner of Customer Choice Award - AMD Motherboards
Reviewed By: WetWilly on 5/10/2007
Tech Level: high - Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
