Gigabyte P35-DS4 – Features
In case you missed the last two pages, the P35-DS4 is pretty much the same as the P35-DQ6 in every way except for a few small alterations. The P35-DS4 utilizes an 8-phase power design rather than the 12-phase design used by the more expensive P35-DQ6. The P35-DS4 does not feature the Crazy Cool heatsinks on the rear of the board whereas the P35-DQ6 does. Finally, the P35-DQ6 offers quad BIOS versus the P35-DS4's dual BIOS support.
Really these features are somewhat worthless making the P35-DS4 a better buy as you will save around $40 on this version. The 12-phase power design did not allow us to push our Core 2 Duo E6700 processor any further than we could on the P35-DS4. The Crazy Cool heatsinks were annoying and have to be removed if you want to use some of the more extreme after market cooling solutions. We really see no point to the quad BIOS configuration and find a dual BIOS setup more than enough.
Feature wise everything else is the same as you get 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-labelling the JMicron JMB363 controller with "Gigabyte SATA2". Again, this JMicron controller supports two SATA ports which can be found onboard and a single IDE port. I prefer the way Gigabyte keep the extra SATA ports onboard rather than use them as eSATA ports at the I/O panel (SATA brackets are included in the box). The P35-DQ6 uses the ICH9R southbridge chip and therefore offers another six SATA ports all capable of supporting RAID modes.
For $190 the P35-DS4 is an exceptional product offering with all the features most will ever need along with all the performance and overclocking capabilities anyone could ask for. The Gigabyte P35-DS4 certainly is a quality product as you will find when taking a look at the board design.