GIGABYTE GA-965P-DS3 LGA 775 Intel P965 Express ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: Bought this board in Sept and has been running rock stable ever since. Put a Q6600 2.4 ghz GO stepping processor and 2 gig of Crucial Balistix Tracer DDRII 1000 mhz Memory ON Board. (Note The SPD Chip on the memory is programmed as DDRII 800) Which is why that memory worked. Voltage rating 1.7 to 2.2 volts. Since the lower voltage rating met the 1.8 volt minimum it worked fine and the motherboard auto set the voltage at 1.9. Has been running rock solid.

Cons: The Express recovery Program (for backing up the hard drive) will only work on the Native SATA drivers and not the AHCI. Gigabyte neeeds to update this this program. And the manual mentions this limitation.

Not a con but for the giggles I did overclock this to 3.2 ghz with the memory running the 1000 and it was stable. however I put it back to normal because at stock it screams so I figure why push it now. Maybe in the future when the software grows to 10 gig a program but I think this machine will last her a for a few years. However nice to know the power is there if we need it.

Other Thoughts: This Motherboard, Q6600 Quad Processor, 2 gig Crucial DDRII 1000 mhz memory, Vista Home Premium, Seagate 320 gig 7200.10 Hard drive, Audigy2 ZS Sound Card, Evga 7600GT Superclocked video card, Sabrient Card Reader, Samsung 20X Dual layer DVD burner and My Wife is Loving her new toy.

Pros: great for video editing with ATI 1950 video card added

Cons: none

Pros: Amazing stability and OC abilities/options.

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: I have my 6600 OC'd to 3.4 stable but had it to 3.6 with little issues.

Pros: Price, features, layout, plentiful SATA, solid caps, 1333 MHz, Coaxial&Optical spdi/f an overclocker's dream board.

Cons: Poor documentation, no FireWire, no eSATA, BIOS can be somewhat tricky to navigate through. SLI would have been nice but not really a Con.

Other Thoughts: I simply love it. I struggled with an Asus P5N-E sli and could not for the life of me OC my E4300. I got rid of it in favor of this board and VOILA!! 3.0GHz on the first try!

Gigabyte DS3 board, E4300@3.0GHz, G.Skill@4,4,4,12, SeagateBarracuda 250GB, BFG 7900GS, ePower 550PSU

Pros: Very easy install - clean layout - stable board. For anyone looking for a budget 1066/1333 Mhz FSB this is a great motherboard.

Cons: Overall a great motherboard except I needed to run my SATA HDDs in AHCI mode. In order to install WinXP on a HDD running in AHCI mode on this MB (due to the ICH8 chipset) you must use hacked Intel drivers. Intel's Matrix Storage WinXP drivers do NOT support the ICH8 chipset running in AHCI mode . I was able to install WinXP using the hacked drivers but decided to return the motherboard for one with a chipset that Intel supports better.

If i didnt need to run my HDDs in AHCI mode i would have kept this motherboard and been entirely happy with it.

Pros: Plenty of sataII ports, reliable BIOS features, solid capacitors, and 8 VRM. This board is very well rounded and a pretty solid overclocker.

Cons: the 1 lone IDE port is in a horrible position. The only way i can get access to it is if I remove my sound card. I really wish it could have been off to the side or something. Also the Northbridge tends to get a bit hot.

Other Thoughts: If it wasn't for the jetstream in my case, I would easily be running into a heat issue. Make sure you choose a well size case with good airflow if your gonna build a system around this board.

Pros: Good features.

Cons: Owned this mobo for about 3 weeks. After first install of windows, it ran great. Ever since, i would get random reboots. I had to RMA this. The other parts are working great with a new mobo.

Other Thoughts: C2D 6750, Mushkin 2x1gb - 996527, 8800GTS, 320gb Seagate SATA II. Owned this mobo for about 3 weeks then RMA'd it. Then i got the P35-DS3R and that is super stable. Fast Shipping from Newegg as usual. Thanks Newegg!!!!

Pros: Stable well built mobo. Its easy to upgrade the bios. The software does it right in windows, installs it reboots and your gold. If the software was loaded off the cd for him a monkey could do it. I mean that.

Cons: The north bridge is hot. Its so hot you can't even touch it. When the mobo starts its takes a few seconds for the cpu fan to start running and sometimes the board gives a loud alarm thats its overheating but once the fan starts it stops and boots. Cant be good for the cpu. When I hook my headphones up to the jack thats at the front of my case the sound bad I'm using the onboard sound. I guess hte wire gets interfered with. When my headphones are hooked to the jack in the back its fine.

Other Thoughts: If you plan on overclocking make sure you have a good case and good heatsinks for the cpu and northbridge. If I decided to OC with this board I would get a heatsink and fan for the north bridge and a case with a good fan on the side. This board is getting some age on it so if I was buying now I would get one that I knew would take a Penryn.

In the end this board has served its purpose. When I got this mobo there was only 2 out for the core 2 cpus. This one and an Ausus one. This one was alot cheaper and I'm gla I got it because it had done what I wanted.

Pros: Great board when you get one that works. All solid capacitors, supports a lot of memory, sata, dual and quad cores, 1333 fsb. Has a 24 pin power connector but works perfectly well with my 20 pin psu.

Cons: Dead on arrival. I understand that there are bad apples in everything electronic, but it's still is the pits when you get one. Bought the same board locally for a little more money, but I needed my computer up and running ASAP.

Other Thoughts: Would have given 5 eggs instead of 4 if it wasn't for the first faulty one. Not newegg's fault though and I am waiting for my RMA to be processed.

Pros: Good motherboard for the price, fast, handles both of the Quads (extreme and non). Extremely easy to set up, I don't over clock so I cant offer any insight there. I upgraded my old P4 to this and it was an easy upgrade, didnt even have to reload my os.

Cons: DONT make the same mistake I did. I ordered the Patriot Extreme memory with this MB (4x1gig) and everything worked fine until last night. System rebooted in the middle of a game and would not come back up (no post at all). Researching this, I found that the memory I had installed is not rated at 1.8v (its 2.0v) and this seems to be a problem with this mother board. Researching turned up a lot of hits from other users on this.

Other Thoughts: Although the bios supports stepping up the voltage I could not get this to work. 2 of the 4 gig modules I ordered are useless now, if I install them the system will not POST at all. This issue is noted on the specs page of this motherboard, but I do not think it was there when I ordered it. Well I will be getting another MB here, since this problem appeared about a few days after my RMA period was up.