DS3 vs DS4

DreadNiK · 31 Aug 2006 at 14:41

Is it worth the extra £15 to get the DS4?

Spec:

e6300
7900GTX
2x1gb Corsair 2GB DDR2 XMS2-6400C4

Virdi · 31 Aug 2006 at 15:11

Well with the DS4 - You get nice heat pipe cooling on the Northbridge and Firewire onboard!

Gibbs · 31 Aug 2006 at 15:28

to be honest if u need firewire then yes but if not then no. theNB will run very happy on the DS3, abit a little hotter.

Ill be water cooling next month so i just went with the DS3 and wack a chipset water block if really needed

DreadNiK · 31 Aug 2006 at 15:36

Hm. I use fw for my Ipod, but I *think* I have a firewire add-in card lurking somewhere...

Slightly better cooling...

hmm...still undecided...

Socaddict · 31 Aug 2006 at 15:38

DS3 is fine, i reckon. I love mine. Not had a single problem with it.

djkav · 31 Aug 2006 at 18:27

I will need to get the DS4, only because i've been told that that board will work with the core 2 duo without a BIOS upgrade.

I don't have any other SKT 775 chips to upgrade the BIOS for core 2 duo.

iViper · 31 Aug 2006 at 19:13

Dont forget the extra PCI-E slot folks.

bee · 31 Aug 2006 at 20:04

djkav said:
I will need to get the DS4, only because i've been told that that board will work with the core 2 duo without a BIOS upgrade.

I don't have any other SKT 775 chips to upgrade the BIOS for core 2 duo.

im afraid you've been told wrong , the ds3 will work with all core 2 duo cpus without any bios update.

DreadNiK · 31 Aug 2006 at 20:07

iViper said:
Dont forget the extra PCI-E slot folks.

What is that actually for, since the board doesn't appear to support SLi. Does it support crossfire? I've read that the second slot is 4x and not 16x?

Is there no clocking/speed advantage over the DS3?

Virdi · 31 Aug 2006 at 21:18

djkav said:
I will need to get the DS4, only because i've been told that that board will work with the core 2 duo without a BIOS upgrade.

I don't have any other SKT 775 chips to upgrade the BIOS for core 2 duo.

Just a little warning - The F2 Bios on the DS4 is terrible. Didn't let me clock over 300FSB.

As soon as I upgraded to the F3 version - I was running at 400+

Pookie Bear · 31 Aug 2006 at 22:05

DreadNiK said:
What is that actually for, since the board doesn't appear to support SLi. Does it support crossfire? I've read that the second slot is 4x and not 16x?

Is there no clocking/speed advantage over the DS3?

The P965 boards, including DS3 and DS4, do not support Crossfire or SLi.

Massive Attack · 6 Sep 2006 at 20:26

sorry for thread hijack but i am in the sam position, my majour want is overclocking but would prefeable not want to update the bios as im not sure how to

.DevastatioN · 6 Sep 2006 at 20:33

I'd say get the DS4, has some nice features which the DS3 doesnt have. I just received mine today. Installed it and it''s formatting my 2 160gb hdds now so I can install windows

Just make sure you get compatible ram and you're fine.

Stelly · 6 Sep 2006 at 21:17

I would say go with the DS4 well worth the extra £15 in my opinion

Stelly

Massive Attack · 6 Sep 2006 at 23:20

cheers guys i have some geil pc6400 ultra stuff does that work?

Cob · 7 Sep 2006 at 07:44

It certainly does work.

DreadNiK · 7 Sep 2006 at 09:00

Indeed it does...I got the DS4 in the end. Last night I put the memory (Geil pc6400 ultra) up to its rated 800mhz and it stopped posting, kept trying and failing to auto-recover the bios. However, all I had to do was power it up while holding in the reset button (I'm indebted to the person who mentioned this trick), it would then post, but it would be unstable, just had to go into the bios and up the memory voltage to the rated 2.1 and it seems fine (though I haven't stressed it yet, ran out of awake time)

stoofa · 7 Sep 2006 at 15:07

As a note - please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong

The DS4 in the BIOS doesn't actually display the "actual memory voltage" you are running, rather the "Relative voltage".
So by default it will be showing +/- 0v

The default voltage for this board appears to be 1.8v, so for the Geil you will want to make the setting +0.3v.
This is 0.3v over the default of 1.8v giving you the 2.1v the Geil wants.
Thankfully the Geil will boot at 1.8v - so you can get into the BIOS and make that change.
Some other brands hate 1.8v and this is where the whole "My DS4 refuses to boot" issue comes from.

Stelly · 7 Sep 2006 at 15:54

stoofa said:
As a note - please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong
The DS4 in the BIOS doesn't actually display the "actual memory voltage" you are running, rather the "Relative voltage".
So by default it will be showing +/- 0v

The default voltage for this board appears to be 1.8v, so for the Geil you will want to make the setting +0.3v.
This is 0.3v over the default of 1.8v giving you the 2.1v the Geil wants.
Thankfully the Geil will boot at 1.8v - so you can get into the BIOS and make that change.
Some other brands hate 1.8v and this is where the whole "My DS4 refuses to boot" issue comes from.

That is correct but if you install the gigebyte software in windows you should be able to get the totaly voltage

Stelly

Raj · 7 Sep 2006 at 19:34

Help, i just got the DS4, but i dont seem to have any cable to attach USB ports or Firewire ports ont he case? im lost as what to do as i though they should come with the motherboard?