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9-way Intel P35 motherboard round-up

By Steven Walton on August 22, 2007
Editor: Julio Franco

Gigabyte P35-DQ6 – Features

Now here is an exciting motherboard that could melt the ECS P35T-A should they be placed too close together. The Gigabyte P35-DQ6 looks significantly more impressive than the ECS on paper, and even at twice the price the P35-DQ6 still seems to be a better buy to us. The Gigabyte P35-DQ6 was one of the first Intel P35 motherboards that I laid my hands on roughly three months ago now. The P35-DQ6 is the bigger and more expensive version of the P35-DS4 which we also have also included in this roundup.

The only difference between these two motherboards is that the P35-DQ6 features the crazy cool heatsink on the back where as the P35-DS4 just has two smaller heatsinks. The P35-DQ6 utilizes a 12-phase power design whereas the P35-DS4 uses an eight-phase. The P35-DQ6 features a quad BIOS configuration whereas the P35-DS4 uses a dual BIOS. Finally, the P35-DQ6 costs around $40 more, so if none of these features are of any worth to you the P35-DS4 may be a better option for you.

The Gigabyte P35-DQ6 features the Realtek ALC889A codec and DTS connect, featuring 106dB Signal to Noise ratio with support for both Blu-ray and HD DVD formats. The board boasts a single Gigabit LAN connection through the use of a Realtek RTL8111B controller which uses the PCI Express bus. The Texas Instruments TSB43AB22A Firewire controller is also included supporting two ports, one of which can be found at the I/O panel.

Interestingly Gigabyte has started re-labeling the JMicron JMB363 controller with “Gigabyte SATA2”. Again this JMicron controller supports two SATA ports which can be found on-board and a single IDE port. I prefer the way Gigabyte keep the extra SATA ports on-board rather than use them as eSATA ports at the I/O panel. Included are SATA brackets that can be used to connected eSATA storage if needed by the user. The P35-DQ6 uses the ICH9R southbridge chip and therefore offers another six SATA ports all capable of supporting RAID modes.

While the P35-DQ6 does appear to be an incredibly loaded motherboard it’s actually not as well stocked as the slightly more expensive ASUS P5K Deluxe motherboard. Nevertheless for $230 the P35-DQ6 is an exceptional product offering all the features most will ever need along with all the performance and overclocking capabilities anyone could ask for (more on that later).