GIGABYTE GA-P35C-DS3R LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: I bought it because tomshardware.com uses Gigabyte boards in their tests. I also like how it has a optical out for sound and it's is very overclockable (on paper.)

Cons: However, the mobo must work, which the two I have, don't.

I've built lots of systems and this is the only mobo that was a nightmare to setup. The first board wouldn't post with the 10x2 power cable and 2x2 cable connected, which is required. After testing everything, it was deemed defective and I sent it back to Newegg for replacement.

The replacement mobo wouldn't post with 1066 RAM but would post with 800 RAM in only one slot only (and it recognized 1GB as 512MB.)

In addition, the CPU fan wouldn't spin even though it did on the 1st board.

Other Thoughts: So far, I've spent 2 weekends trying to get this mobo to work as advertised to no avail. Usually, 30-45 minutes installing a mobo to first boot is what I've become accustom to. My time is too valuable to waste.

This board has a 30% poor or very poor rating on Newegg customer reviews. I'd stay clear of the GA-P35C-DS3R and by something else.

Pros: First motherboard I used to built from scratch. It was simple and easy to understand and upgrade. The book it came with answered all my questions. The DDR2 and 3 is also great plus. It was worth every penny.

Cons: Some connections such as the PCI and IDE are pretty close and can get difficult with certain cards, but a few adjustments worked out for me. However I'm sure that is a problem with many motherboards.

Other Thoughts: It comes with some helpful software as well.

Pros: DDR3 memory slots plus the DDR2 slots make this board one of the most upgradeable at a lower starting price. You can go for the upgrades later when the prices fall. You can upgrade CPU and graphics likewise.

Cons: Gigabyte and newegg have not yet changed the specs. Com and Serial ports do not exist on the revised versions' back panel that you will get. Com & Serial only had pins on the MBD nearest the last PCI slot at the bottom edge of the board.

Other Thoughts: I'd buy another one for an extra build in one of my 3 Chassis. See my 01/04/2008 review as well.

Pros: Arrived in perfect condition - everything works. A lot of accessory cables, etc. I do like the addition of an external SATA connection.

Cons: Wish it came with at least 1 Firewire port

Pros: My first build. Manual very informative and easy to follow. Lots of SATA ports and USB ports or connectors. BIOS offers a lot of tweakability if you're into that sort of thing. 3 PCI slots for legacy boards you can't part with.

Cons: The Gigabit LAN drivers on the included CD contain a virus! It was picked up by my antivirus software during install and wouldn't load the driver. Had to go to the Gigabyte web page for the board and downloaded an uncorrupted version. Newegg's website describes the version 2.0... no guarantee that's what you'll receive. I got version 1.1: it's got and LPT port (good, I need that) but no firewire (which I also need). My board had some thermal grease on the cpu latch suggesting it was an RMA for this reason.

Other Thoughts: Add firewire with a PCI card?

Pros: Nothing speical.

Cons: First one was DOA. Not even sure if this board provides beep codes on POST errors (even though they state otherwise). RMA worked out of the box. SATA location is hard to each if you have a BIG x16 Video Card. CPU 12V connected is hard to reach if you have a big HS/Fan combo. NO

Other Thoughts: Component: E6750 Intel duo, eVGA 8800gtx, Antec 900 case, OCZ 700W PS, Zalman 9700.

Pros: It's been over 6 months and it's still working (mostly).

Cons: All three PCI slots died on me when I tried to run an X-Fi sound card in them. After restarting the PC, the slot that the card was in would be totally fried and never worked again. After hearing of Giga's poor customer support I might just buy a diff board altogether when the time comes. I occasionally get some BSOD in some games, but I attribute that more to Vista than the board itself.

Other Thoughts: Overall it works as it should and other than the sound card/pci slot issues nothing else has gone wrong. I've been able to overclock my cpu/ram a bit as well w/out issues.

Pros: Offers compatibility with DDR3 and 45mm chips.
Seems stable after BIOS update.
Offers lots of overclocking options, if you're into that stuff.

Cons: Terrible placement of SATA ports and IDE drive.
Rev 1.x boards seem unstable; first one was DOA.
Any tweaking or non-default setting makes this board twitchy. This board seems very picky about memory.

Other Thoughts: Until I re-flashed the BIOS to F10, this board was somewhat unstable for me. The desktop would only partially load on some occasions, requiring a reboot.

This board has undergone several revisions and perhaps it has been improved. I'm working with a 1.x board. I've owned this MB for approx 5 months and have yet to experience the dreaded partial-post/reset cycling that many users have complained about. NOTE: check your SATA HDD connections carefully! I've had many BSODs caused by related issues.

The board works great for me now, but had I known about its issues, I probably would gone with a different brand.

Pros: Runs cool, Good layout except IDE location. I would give it a five it didn't have this rebooting cycle problem that has effected so many users.

Cons: After 6 months it started the rebooting cycle mentioned so often here. 3 seconds on/off. This was after unplugging it over night. I was able to get it to boot by removing one stick of memory (Corsair Dominator 2X1024 DDR2 1066 PC2 8500). After it "recovers" I can soft power it on/off with no problem and unplug it for a short period of time to replace the memory. I increased the memory voltage to +0.3 to see if that helps.

Other Thoughts: Corsair 520W P/S, 2GB DDR2 1066, E6600, Anatec Solo. DDR2 and 1066 is a bad combination. There are many complaints on numerous MBs

Pros: Good features and runs solid with my Intel E8400 CPU and 4GB of G.Skill memory.

Cons: Auto memory timing doesn't work with my G.Skill DDR2-800 memory (2x2GB). When I use auto timing, system is very unstable and keeps turning itself off and on. Once I manually set the memory clock multiplier to 800 (same speed as auto), worked fine. Strange, but it worked. Also had trouble getting Windows Vista installation to recognize IDE CD-ROM. Very important to make IDE CD/DVD-ROM the slave in IDE configuration.

Other Thoughts: Once initial problems (memory and IDE bus) were solved, everything started to work great. It was frustrating at first , but now that it's running, it's absolutely great. Will probably try overclocking at some point, but just happy to have it running right now.