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Back in July, we reviewed the Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6 motherboard - and found it to be an excellent performer, and very good overclocker.

Today, we take a look at a lower cost version, the Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3, and I can't help but wonder how it will perform. Given its lower cost, you might think it will not perform as well - however the intervening months have given Gigabyte time to tweak their production and their BIOS.  Not to mention the fact that the DS3 has become something of a darling in the overclocking community with a reputation for being an amazing bang for the buck - so we figured we'd take a look at what could potentially be a killer board.

The GA-965P-DS3 supports:

• Quad Core Ready
• All-Solid capacitor motherboard design
• Speed: Wide range of frequencies, voltages, and overclocking software
• Smart: Download Center, Xpress Install, Smart Lan, QBIOS/Q-Flash, Boot Menu, Smart Fan
• Safe: Virtual Dual BIOS, BIOS Settings Recover, HDD SMART, Corporate Online Manager, Xpress Recovery 2, PC Health Monitor

That's enough marketing talk, here is the full specification table:

Specification (from Gigabyte) Processor Supports Intel® Core™2 Extreme Quad-Core / Core™2 Duo / Intel® Pentium® Extreme/ Intel® Pentium® D processor Supports 1066/800/533 MHz FSB Chipset Northbridge: Intel® G965 Express Chipset Southbridge: Intel® ICH8 Marvel 8053 Gigabit LAN Controller GIGABYTE SATAII controller Realtek ALC883 8 Channel Audio Codec Memory Supports DDR2 800/667/533 memory Dual Channel architecture support up to 8GB by 4 DIMM slots * Due to standard PC architecture, a certain amount of memory is reserved for system usage and therefore the actual memory size is less than the stated amount. Expansion Slots 1 x PCI Express X16 slot 3 x PCI Express X1 slot 3 x PCI slots Form Factor ATX form factor, 305 x 210mm Internal I/O Connectors 1 x 24-pin ATX power connector 1 x 4-pin ATX 12V power connector 1 x floppy connector 1 x IDE connector 6 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors 1 x CPU fan connector 1 x system fan connector 1 x front panel connector 1 x front audio connector 1 x CD In connector 3 x USB 2.0/1.1 connectors for additional 6 ports by cables 1 x SPDIF In connector 1 x COM port connector 1 x power LED connector Rear Panel I/O 1 x PS/2 keyboard port 1 x PS/2 mouse port 1 x SPDIF Out connection (coaxial+optical) 1 x parallel port 4 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports 1 x VGA port 1 x RJ-45 port 6 x audio jacks (Line In / Line Out / MIC In/Surround Speaker Out (Rear Speaker Out)/Center/Subwoofer Speaker Out/Side Speaker Out) H/W Monitoring System voltage detection CPU / System temperature detection CPU / System fan speed detection CPU warning temperature CPU / System fan failure warning CPU Smart Fan Control Other Features Supports RAID 0, 1, JBOD (2 ports with RAID function supported by GIGABYTE SATA2) Supports @BIOS Supports Download Center Supports Q-Flash Supports EasyTune5 Supports Xpress Install Supports Xpress Recovery2 Supports Virtual Dual BIOS (Xpress BIOS Rescue) Remark Due to different Linux support condition provided by chipset vendors, please download Linux driver from chipset vendors' website or 3rd party website. Due to most hardware/software vendors no longer offer support for Win9X/ME. If some vendors still has Win9X/ME drivers available, we will publish on website.