GIGABYTE GA-MA770-DS3 AM2+/AM2 AMD 770 ATX All Solid Capacitor AMD Motherboard

Pros: This is a great board for the price. Higher performance, all-solid capacitor design means rock solid reliability from a company that whose hardware is already pretty reliable. And, as others have said, this....board....is.....FAST. Put a 6400+ and 4 gigs of RAM in this thing and you better bolt it down or it will be out the window. I dont OC so I can't comment on that.

Cons: READ THIS BEFORE YOU PURCHASE! This board advertises 4 SATA ports on board and support for RAID 0 and 1. However, what it does NOT tell you, is that if you set up a raid array (1 or 0) on 2 of the SATA ports, the other 2 ports will be unusable for an optical drive. If you want to boot from a RAID array, you'll be forced to use the on board PATA connector for your optical drive. I was pretty disappointed by this because I usually run 2 HDD in RAID and 2 opticals for burning. No can do on this board without running a master/slave on the PATA which sucks for burning high speed. Apparently this is a limitation inherent in the SB600 southbridge controller.

Overall Review: Other than the issue above, this is a great board. Some complain about the floppy connector being tucked down below the lowest PCI bus adapter but I did not find this to be a problem.

Pros: new durable stuff is great, board is smaller than most ATX (thinner). I like the rear panel layout.

Cons: lousy fan control(only auto mode that does not get quiet enough)other boards have silent fan mode etc. couldnt get AHCI to work(instant blue screen),will try again with bios update

Overall Review: manual is wrong about ram slots. for dual channel, ram must be installed next to eachother (both sticks in same color slots)

Pros: Was worried about buying such a cheap board after coming from a $200+ socket 939, but it turned out to be a good deal! I took my time installing everything and held my breath when I pressed the power button the first time; Beeped one time and everything was good! Booted no problem and automatically detected my dualcore CPU and memory. Memory was automatically set to the proper voltage with dual-channel enabled. Good bios as well, easy to use, lots of options.

Cons: Few Things, nothing serious though. First of all I ordered on 10/1/08 and received version 1 (shipped from NJ); would have preffered v2. Also, I didn't notice the dimensions of the board until after my order was placed.. it's full ATX height but it's shorter in width, like an inch or 2. Not a problem though, I just thought that ATX size was a standard.. it is clearly specified on NewEgg I just missed it (still fits, more room for cables too, screws line up good). One more thing that could be a problem for some, you will need a ps2 enabled keyboard to access the bios for the first time; once u get in just set the option to use usb keyboards and ur good (had problems with Saitek2 usb keyboard in bios until this setting was changed).

Overall Review: I don't overclock so no comment's on that. I got this board for a Mobo/CPU/Mem upgrade on an aging gaming rig and I got an AMD Athon 64 X2 6000+ Windsor 3.0GHz with 2GB G.Skill DDR2 (F2-6400CL5D-2GBNQ). According to bios my system temps are usually in the 30's C with my Centurion ATX case; Did a quick restart to check temp's in bios after installing everything on my dual-boot setup and cpu registered 39C and system at 31C. That works for me! Thanks to NewEgg and to everyone that took the time to write a review!

Pros: Other thoughts:

Cons: Other thoughts:

Overall Review: The difference between this and the GIGABYTE GA-MA770-S3 is the capacitor used. DS3 use "Ultra Durable" capacitors which is why it's higher by about $20. Specifications on both DS3 and S3 is exactly the same. Time will tell if it's worth the extra $$$

Pros: Built new system with this board and Athlon64 X2 5000+ black edition processor. Bios has the settings for CPU multiplier and voltage to easily overclock. Running 1.40v @ 16x for 3.2 GHz performance. New generation AMD chipset with Phenom support. Firewire ports.

Cons: Checking on the Thermaltake website, I noticed that aparrently Gigabyte MBs are not compatible with some of those hefty multimount CPU coolers due to their heatsink mounting. Easiest to go with a CPU cooler with stock AMD type mounting (like Rosewill Z1). Single PCI16 slot for video - not a con for me, but if you want to go with multiple video cards, you could go to 790 chipset board.

Overall Review: I have no plans to go with multiple video cards (crossfire), so this single card configuration was good for me. Why pay more for extra complexity I don't want. I do need crossfire, and this board has it, and it is working. Bios has the settings for CPU and memory voltage, CPU multiplier, and manual memory timings - though they have so many values to set for memory timings (way more than 4-4-4-12), I was not sure how to set all that manually, so just using automatic "SPD" memory values for now.

Pros: Good layout in terms of component spacing and labeling. MB documentation is outstanding; all one must do is follow the directions- A real joy to put together.

Cons: Surprised that there is a connection for floppy drive. Although, I can see a limited advantage in having one. For example, it makes creating bootable Ghost images alot easier.

Overall Review: This is my 8th build in as many years (first time with Gigabyte). Assembly was flawless: Raidmax Smiloddon case, AMD Athlon 64 x2 6400+, 2 gig Crucial DDR 800 memory (CT2KIT12864AA800), Western Digital 320 gig SATA HD, Maxtor 200gig SATA HD, Samsung DVD SATA burner, and XFX 8800 GT Alfa Dog edition video card. Note: I purchased the Smilodon case with Raidmax's 500 watt power supply(PS). Upon inspection, however, the PS did not appear to be of good quality. So, I took my 3 year old 500Watt modular Antec Smartpower PS from my old system and replaced the Raidmax. The system runs great!

Pros: This board is great for the price. Comes with overclocking utilities. I was able to get my AMD 5000+ BE to 3.2 ghz stable just by increasing the multiplier. North and South bridge don't run that hot.

Cons: The IDE port is a bit of a hassle to get to if you don't plug it in first. This board will only support 1066 memory if you have the right processor, so don't spend extra money on 1066 unless you have a phenom or something. I was unaware of this.

Overall Review: Great board would recommend it if you don't plan on going SLI, or Crossfire. Great for the price.

Pros: This is an outstanding motherboard. Right out of the box into the case and then a power up. All hardware was detected correctly, SATA drives and IDE dives were configured correctly and even the sound is better than expected. All in all it is quite clearly a superior product for the price tag. One thing to note - the Memory was automatically set for low latency timings without having to enter CMOS/BIOS at all. 4.4.4.4 at 2.01v Stable.

Cons: None - AMD Brisbane 5000+ AM2 running with Crucial 2gb kit and EVGA 7600GT with Seagate 250 and 80 SATA Drive is really going strong. My Optical drives are still IDE, but that is just fine for now... Waiting for BlueRay to drop in price.

Overall Review: If you are looking for a good product this will not disappoint. Stick with good Memory, don't skimp on the power supply and you should be set.