Gigabyte EX38-DS4 Review

Makaveli - February 19, 2008
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Testing:

The Gigabyte EX38-DS4 will be put through our rigorous tests to see how it compares to other motherboards with the X38 chipset. I'll be comparing this motherboard to the Abit IX38 Quad GT, the ASUS Maximus Formula, and the Foxconn Mars. All of the motherboards, video cards, memory, and CPUs will be set to stock. All of the latest drivers were installed for each motherboard.

Testing Setup:

Processor: Intel Q6600 Core 2 Quad 266x9
Motherboard: Gigabyte EX38-DS4
Memory: Mushkin XP2 6400 2x2GB 4-4-4-12
Video Card(s): Gigabyte 8800GT Turbo Force Edition
Power Supply: Ultra X3 800watt Power Supply
Hard Drive:2 x Seagate 500GB SATA
Opticals: Sony Dual Layer Burner
O/S: Windows Vista Ultimate Edition

Comparison Motherboards:

Comparison Motherboard 1: Asus Maximus Formula
Comparison Motherboard 2: Abit IX38 Quad GT
Comparison Motherboard 3: Foxconn Mars

Overclocking:

Overclocked settings:

Processor: Intel Q6600 466 x 7
Sytem Memory: Mushkin XP2 6400 5-5-4-12

For the overclocking on the DS4, I wanted to see just how high I could get the FSB on this motherboard. It turns out that when I used a multiplier of 7, I got the highest FSB, which was 466. The highest clock that I could get out of the CPU with this DS4 was 3.5GHz, which was 388x9. I found the BIOS to be useful but more complicated than it should be. It wasn't as easy as Abit's OC Guru that I've used on a previous motherboard. The voltage stepping was very low which was nice because you could change the voltage from say 1.5500 to 1.55625, which is decent stepping in my mind. Overall, it wasn't too hard to overclock on this motherboard but I just didn't feel like it was as easy as previous motherboards that I've overclocked on. Without further ado, let's get testing!