GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX All Solid Capacitor Intel Motherboard - Retail

Good Basic Board

Reviewed By: n00bxqb on 7/10/2008

Tech Level: somewhat high - Ownership: 1 month to 1 year

Pros: All solid caps, plenty of USB ports, stable, decent amount of overclocking options, arguably best board for the price at the time of purchase, @BIOS still the best Windows-based BIOS update utility I've used.

Cons: Some overclocking options not clearly explained, not a lot of features (No RAID, no Firewire, etc.), sparse accessory bundle, far too few SATA ports (only 4).

Other Thoughts: I picked this guy up because I was on a budget. I wanted to go higher-end, but I had to settle for this due to family-related financial issues. It's a good board, don't get me wrong, but those looking for a decent feature set and accessory package need not apply.

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Feels Solid

Reviewed By: RojoP on 7/4/2008

Tech Level: high - Ownership: 1 month to 1 year

This user purchased this item from Newegg

Pros: Solid feel and no real problems. I understood that I wasn't buying a top of the line MB going in, but I did expect the quality I have come to expect from Gigabyte and I haven't been disappointed.

Cons: Some minor issues with the onboard sound.

Other Thoughts: It's the heart of a E8400 overclocked to 3.6, 8gb ram, 8800GT, Vista 64 system.

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Reviewed By: Cliff on 7/1/2008

Tech Level: somewhat high - Ownership: 1 month to 1 year

This user purchased this item from Newegg

Pros: It works well. I haven't had any problems with the motherboard itself; it does everything it purports to do.

Cons: This is the only piece of my computer that I regret buying. There are a number of issues that I wish I had looked into beforehand.
One is that it doesn't support firewire (not even a header), which isn't a big deal, but is a bit of a nuisance.
The other big problem is that it only has one IDE port, and it is placed awkwardly at the very bottom of the motherboard. This makes it so that I can only have two CD drives and they must be master/slave (which isn't too big an issue either), but the placing of the port is a bigger issue, as it is pretty far away from where the CD drives go in a normal computer. I had to place my CD drives in the lower slots in my case and it was still difficult to plug in the cord.

Other Thoughts: The onboard sound is decent, but the program that comes with it isn't too great. It actually makes it significantly more difficult to change the volume, as it doesn't seem to work properly and I have to go into the control panel.

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