GIGABYTE GA-EX38-DS4 LGA 775 Intel X38 ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: Near state-of-the-art at low cost. It works. RAID support, e-SATA support, stable, legacy PS-2 support, dual ethernet connections.

Cons: Poor documentation. Abysmal tech support.

Other Thoughts: Fortunately, everything worked just fine and I didn't have to contact tech support through their "technical support zone" web-based system for anything really critical. I just had a few questions about how to configure RAID 0. Good grief! It took them days to respond, and when they did, all I got were a few short sentences in reply to my carefully constructed questions. It was obvious that they didn't read my questions carefully and just wanted to blow through it. It took several back-and-forths to get the answers and I had to repeat myself several times. All in all, it took over a week and I still wasn't satisfied. I had to resort to an independent forum to get answers (Tom's Hardware forum).

If you're very knowledgeable about mobos you probably won't find this an issue. However, if something goes wrong and you need them - GOOD LUCK!

Pros: Has a hole to stick a CPU into

Cons: On board sound gets a lot of interference

Other Thoughts: Running a Q9450 at stock speeds.

Pros: worked with no bios update for xoen e3110 pros. and with un-spec xms2 ram It runs vista ult with virtual sever running server2008 without a hitch have not tried xfire yet

Cons: mine came over clocked from the factory so to all the people who gave bad reviews about BSOD check your clock. with cheap ram like i have 30.00 for 2gigs you can not over clock or not buy much took me 20 minutes or so to figure this out
also I wish all manufacturers would stop changing all the connectors just to make you buy a new PSU or a bunch of connectors

Other Thoughts: why did I weight so long. the mombo ram pros and pwr supply
total cost 500.00 after rebate

Pros: This board works real good. You really wouldn't miss, w/ this one.

Cons: Here is my 'one point to add.' When the system noots, after to post, it comes to Windows (Vista) screen and has a 30 seconds timer, til it auto-boots. The Windows w/ this board, won't recognize my 710 Logitech wireless keyboard, so i have to always wait 30 seconds, when i reboot/ restart (like in to overclock.) Here's the killer, i just swapped out my core 2 quad q9300 for a q9450, and when i posted the first time, after post it said 'delete restoration data, and boot Windows?'. Listen, because my ex38-ds4 wouldn't recognize my Logitech 710 usb wireless keyboard, everything i tried always came back to this screen 'delete restoration data?'. I could get past it, even waiting an hour. So i had to re-install Windows Vista, and there's alot of updates these days. The point here is on this mobo & Windows not recognizing a very mainstream keyboard, the Enter key, to be exact.

Other Thoughts: This mobo, and newegg, both rock. Nothing wrong w/ to buy this Gigabyte mobo.

Pros: Great board. Went with Gigabyte for brand name. Flexible BIOS.

Cons: Can't do energy saving when CPU is overclocked

Other Thoughts: E8400 @ 3.6Ghz, mushkin 2x2gb DDR2 800 CAS 5, 9600GT, Cooler Master 650W PSU

Pros: I finally switched to the Gigabyte after about 10+ years of being faithful to other motherboards. This motherboard is an answer to the “capacitor plague” that affected electronic components all over the world because the good thing is that Gigabyte uses solid capacitors among other technologies on the DS4. This board is solid in terms of using the best circuitry money can buy. I’m very impressed with this aspect of their product. I’m also impressed with some of the advanced features of the BIOS that allows you to flash the BIOS via USB drive without the need of a “bootable” USB or floppy device.

Cons: Realistically, the actual product is great, however when trying to download files directly from the Gigabyte web site via broadband I was reminded how bad it was during the early 90s to download 20 – 40 gigabyte files via the modem. Yes, it is that slow. So in regards to supporting the product they do, however they don’t do as good as a job as they should due to the slow connection speed. To make matters worse they recommend using tools to cache the files for when you lose connections, so this is something they know about and refuse to correct. Nothing like waiting 3 hours and being disconnected 3 times for about 100mb in files as you wait impatiently to put your $200 motherboard to the test. I also noticed the Realtek driver was newer on the Realtek web site then on the Gigabyte, so be sure to check the versions of the drivers with the various manufacturers of the products (don’t just assume Gigabyte is putting the latest and greatest up there).

Other Thoughts: The benefits of the actual hardware and functionalities on the board far exceed what I’ve been used to from purchasing my last 3 ASUS products (one of them within 6 months). I’m running 1200Mhz DDR 2 OCZ liquid cooled memory on the motherboard with Windows Vista x64. Everything is a 5.9 with a Q9450 processor, XFX GeForce 8800 GTS, and the memory I mentioned above -- except for the hard drive that clocks in at a 5.3 within the Windows Experience Index. Overall I’m keeping the product although reluctantly as I don’t feel that I should support a company that provides such limited download speeds for their customers. This all builds into customer support, and to be competitive in the global market you also need to provide exceptional customer service to countries that are used to it like the US. Please feel free to contact Gigabyte’s customer support if you experience the same thing, as the only way they’re going to make the download (d/l) speeds better is if enough people complain a

Pros: This is a great motherboard. Everything is well-laid out and easy to access. Great overclocking for both CPU and RAM.

Cons: Only thing is that with my Tuniq Tower 120, the CPU power connector and the CPU Fan connector were nearly impossible to reach, even though I have small hands. I'm sure my choice of case had something to do with it, though.

Pros: Fast and reliable. Great raid support and supports the 1600mhz FSB without overclocking. DDR2 memory.

Cons: Does not support DDR3. There are boards that support both.

Other Thoughts: DDR2 1200MHZ memory is not easy to find but they are out there. I just got my Intel Q9450 from newegg and I must say this mobo and that processor are a heck of a pair. On board audio is very nice with alot of options and settings, however as a gamer I run this thing at 1920x1080 (1080p) so I can't have the onboard audio using sprocessor resources esp with Crysis and Call of Duty 4 at max settings. At this point I do not see the purpose spending the extra money for a X48 board, since the performance of this board is identical.

FYI ,Intel is coming out with a new socket for the home desktop pc by the end of this year, socket 715.

Intel Q9450, 4X1GB OCZ DDR2 800MHZ Plat Rev 2.0, EVGA 9800GX2, Creative X-FI Fata1ty Champion Edition, Hiper 880W UPS, 3x250Gb SataII HD's in Raid 5 config.

Pros: This is the most expensive mb I've purchased, and worth the price. Full featured, very good raid options, bios with everything you would want. The cooling seems very well designed. I have not overclocked it yet, but it appears very capable in that regard. The bios update utility from within the OS is nice.

Cons: I'm not impressed with the included software. It's a little clunky, and the absence of an easy temperature monitor seems odd for a board intended for overclocking.

Pros: The layout of this motherboard is excellent and the all solid capacitors noticeably increase the sturdiness.

Cons: No cons to report. :)

Other Thoughts: Something to keep in mind, if you order a Zalman 9500A 92mm it will need to blow up or down. I spent some time figuring how to get it on. The latch to lock the heatsink into place is large and the capacitors or the passive mobo cooling gets in the way.

The Bios also offers a ton of options and as others have mentioned, is great for OCing. However, I have not tried that yet.