We'd almost consider it a banner year for Gigabyte, who not only left an impression in the high case arena with their
3D Aurora, but have managed to propel themselves into the motherboard market's handful of elite manufacturers. Most recently we gave praise to the
P35-DQ6 motherboard, which won us over with a solid feature-set complimented with strong overclocking potential and the the performance to match. But at just three months old, Intel's P35 chipset is already yesterday's news, and today we're peering at the X38 chipset through Gigabyte's X38-DQ6. Can Gigabyte end their arguably banner year with a bang, or will they bumble into 2008?
Specifications
| Product |
|
CPU Support
|
- Intel Core 2 Extreme Quad Core / Core 2 Duo /
Intel Pentium Extreme / Intel Pentium D
- FSB 1600 / 1333 / 1066 / 800 MHz
|
| Chipset |
- Northbridge: Intel X38
- Southbridge: ICH9R
|
| Memory |
|
Expansion Slots
|
- Two PCI-E 2.0 x16 (Crossfire)
- Three PCI-E x1
- Two PCI
|
| Storage |
- Eight SATA 3Gb/s
- One IDE connector
- One Floppy connect
|
| Audio |
|
| LAN |
|
| Warranty |
|
You can read the full lineup of features on
Gigabyte's product page, with a healthy dose of bandwagon marketing thrown in. Riding the quad-core hype, Gigabyte touts a generous portion of 'quad' features, six in all, including 'Quad DDR2 Slots.' But once you get past the market speak, there's a lot for enthusiasts to salivate over, such as all-solid capacitors and other overclocker-oriented goodies.
Chipset
Despite the similarities, Intel's new X38 chipset (formerly known as Bearlake) isn't meant to supplant the mainstream P35, and instead attempts to target the high end arena, much in the same way the 975X targeted a different audience than the 965P back in the Pentium IV days. So what exactly does the X38 bring to the table that the P35 doesn't? The answer lies in PCI-E 2.0 support, which likely will remain a negligible factor for the chipset's lifetime, along with full dual x16 support and some tweaks to the Core Logic and memory controller. The X38 also brings official DDR3-1333 support to the table, though the motherboard we're reviewing today revolves around DDR2 (DDR3 makes its way onto the GA-X38T-DQ6 iteration).
Bundle
Motherboard bundles tend to be either over the top, or inexcusably skimpy, and taking a page out of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Gigabyte struck a balance somewhere in the middle. Media consists of an Intel CPU installation sheet, hardware install guide, user's manual, driver CD, and a case sticker. On the hardware side of things, Gigabyte included four SATA cables of which two utilize the L-shaped connectors, an IDE ribbon cable, a floppy cable, an I/O backplate, and no less than four eSATA ports on two PCI brackets - groovy! Also included are two ever-important screws that must be inserted if you plan on removing the stock copper backplate to install a third party CPU cooler. Lose these screws and you're, uh, screwed.
