SPCR

Could someone explain this to me... whats the difference between them?
A very quick rundown would be apprieciated, no need for extreme details

GA-P35-DS3
GA-P35-DS3L
GA-P35-DS3P
GA-P35-DS3R

Also, which one of them would be considered best?

They all use the same P35 north bridge. The difference is the south bridge wich means the number of SATA and IDE connectors and the RAID support will be different. Also, the GA-P35-DS3P model supports Firewire

GA-P35-DS3L :
4 SATA Intel ( ICH9 non RAID )

GA-P35-DS3 :
4 SATA Intel ( ICH9 non RAID )
2 SATA Gigabyte ( RAID supported )
1 IDE Gigabyte

GA-P35-DS3R :
6 SATA Intel ( ICH9R RAID supported )
2 SATA Gigabyte ( RAID supported )
1 IDE Gigabyte

GA-P35-DS3P :
6 SATA Intel ( ICH9R RAID supported )
2 SATA Gigabyte ( RAID supported )
1 IDE Gigabyte
Firewire

They all are good boards. The best one for you will depend on your needs. Maybe you don't need RAID ou Firewire.

For me, I have the DS3R because I need the RAID.
P.S. The Intel RAID is much faster than the Gigabyte RAID

Also of note is that the GA-P35-DS3P has two x16 PCIe slots (though the second one is only x4 electrically). The GA-P35-DS3P and GA-P35-DS3R also come with e-SATA adapters that let you connect e-SATA drives to the internal SATA connectors.

Thank you
I will probably just get one HDD, so i can't use RAID(if i have understood how it works correctly ). But, the only board that is sold in rev 2.1(native 45nm support ) is the GA-P35-DS3R where i'm buying my parts. Is it worth getting that one for the native support, or does that really matter?

all GA-P35 boards will support the 45nm core 2 duos. All you have to do is update the bios if it's not supported out of the box.

If you don't need the raid, I suggest you get the GA-P35-DS3 because you might need the IDE for an optical drive

Another difference:
"Today only Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L and GA-P35-S3L feature simple processor voltage regulator circuitry, all other models from S3 series feature 6-phase circuitry, and mainboards with the P index and two PCI Express x16 slots also have an 8-pin ATX12V connector."

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/mainbo ... html#sect0

AFAIK, all of the above models are limited to fan control for the CPU fan. I believe you've got to step up to an Gigabyte X38 or X48 board to get fan control for multiple headers.

The Abit IP35 Pro remains the best P35 board for fan control, but Abit still has work to do before they fully support the E8x00 CPUs.

mine has 2 controllable fan headers with Speedfan, the third one will monitor the fan speeb but cannot control it

thank you all for clearing this out!
The P35-DS3 is most likely what i will get then.

mr_plow_king wrote:mine has 2 controllable fan headers with Speedfan, the third one will monitor the fan speeb but cannot control it

Can you elaborate?

How many fans can be controlled by the bios and Gigabyte's own software on your GA-P35-DS3 (what revision?)?

Is Speedfan required to change the speed on the second fan?

I have the DS3R, 2 of the 4 fan headers on the board are controllable with speedfan.

There are 4 fan headers on the board :


CPU_FAN --> controllable
SYS_FAN1 --> controllable
SYS_FAN2 --> not controllable
PWR FAN --> not controllable

I'm not using the gigabyte software but I guess it should also be able to control de fans

In Gigabyte's P35 and X38 boards, only the CPU fan is BIOS-controllable.

Edit: Turns out the secondary four-pin SYS_FAN2 header is BIOS-controllable, too, although the documentation does not say it. See below.

well on my DS3R ( rev 1.0 ) the SYS1_FAN is controllable and is independant from the CPU fan speec control

I can control both 4-pin fans (CPU_FAN and SYS2_FAN)

Do you mean control by BIOS (outside Windows / in Linux) or by SpeedFan?

I have the DS3L and love it.

BIOS controls both 4-pin headers.
Speedfan is able to control both as well.

This is new to me. I rechecked the specs and documentation (for GA-EP35-DS3P) and found no mention of speed control on the SYS_FAN2 header. What board, revision and BIOS version are you using? Do you have a 3-pin or 4-pin fan attached to that header?

line wrote:This is new to me. I rechecked the specs and documentation (for GA-EP35-DS3P) and found no mention of speed control on the SYS_FAN2 header. What board, revision and BIOS version are you using? Do you have a 3-pin or 4-pin fan attached to that header?

AFAIK, only the CPU fan header is bios-controllable on revision 2.0 and v2.1 boards.

I am curious whether the SYS_FAN1 (or SYS_FAN2) header is controllable with speedfan on revision 2.0 and 2.1 boards. Does anyone know?

The board revision is 1.0,
A 4-pin fan is plugged into the CPU_FAN header
A 3-pin fan is connected into SYS_FAN2 header

KenAF wrote:I am curious whether the SYS_FAN1 (or SYS_FAN2) header is controllable with speedfan on revision 2.0 and 2.1 boards. Does anyone know?

Yep, I just tested it on my GA-P35-DS3P rev 2.0.

The manual mentions nothing about the SYS_FAN2 being controllable (even though it mentions controlling the CPU fan several times), but it's definitely controllable. I plugged fans into both headers and they ran at different speeds. I loaded speedfan and was able to control each fan independently.

Conroy wrote:

KenAF wrote:I am curious whether the SYS_FAN1 (or SYS_FAN2) header is controllable with speedfan on revision 2.0 and 2.1 boards. Does anyone know?

Yep, I just tested it on my GA-P35-DS3P rev 2.0.

The manual mentions nothing about the SYS_FAN2 being controllable (even though it mentions controlling the CPU fan several times), but it's definitely controllable. I plugged fans into both headers and they ran at different speeds. I loaded speedfan and was able to control each fan independently.

Thanks for testing that.

Do you know if the latest version (v7.1212.1) of Gigabyte's EasyTune5 Pro allows you customize the operation of the SYS_FAN2 fan header?

It would be great if you could use EasyTune to set bios settings for fan control on the SYS_FAN2 header, eliminating the need to run Speedfan in Windows.

That's interesting. EasyTune has no option to control the sys_fan2. The help pages mention control of the northbridge cooler, but my board doesn't have that.

I had some trouble installing easytune5 and I can't figure out how to see version number, so I'm not absolutely sure that I have the latest version, but the "live update" says I do.

Conroy wrote:That's interesting. EasyTune has no option to control the sys_fan2. The help pages mention control of the northbridge cooler, but my board doesn't have that.

I had some trouble installing easytune5 and I can't figure out how to see version number, so I'm not absolutely sure that I have the latest version, but the "live update" says I do.

The files on the latest version (v7.1212.1) are dated December 12, 2007. The instructions say you need to remove the old version first before installing the new.

If your software is called "Easy Tune 5" and not "Easy Tune 5 Pro," then I suppose you have a very old version. It looks like Gigabyte discontinued the "Easy Tune 5" software and replaced it with "Easy Tune 5 Pro" months ago.

Oh I see what's going on - gigabyte's site is all screwed up. They have Easy Tune 5 listed under the B7.1212.1 link as Pro, and they have the latest Easy Tune 5 Pro listed under the B7.1101.1 link also as Pro.

I installed the second link and now have a file dated 12/12/07 and the program calls itself ET5 Pro. The SpeedFan settings still do not show anything about a case fan though, only CPU fan.

It's strange, every time I run this, my system's CPU voltage never matches easytune's voltage exactly. Also, if I try setting the voltage in EasyTune 5 Pro, it will change my settings to a higher voltage by itself.

Thanks again for the testing Conroy.

I guess Gigabyte users must use Speedfan for now.

i asked same question which was well answered in this thread
viewtopic.php?t=45762

oh, by the way - is it easy to update the BIOS if it doesn't support the CPU?

oh, by the way - is it easy to update the BIOS if it doesn't support the CPU?

Mostly.

I installed my unsupported CPU (E8400) and booted into bios. From the bios, there is a utility to flash to a new bios using a usb drive, floppy or hard drive.

I did run into one problem - the utility kept reporting an error with the bios file on the first USB drive I tried; it wouldn't work until I put the file on a second USB drive.

Also, I didn't try myself, but I have read of others being able to install and boot into windows before flashing to the new BIOS.

okay, thanks for clearing that out.