GIGABYTE GA-965P-DQ6 2.0 @ [H] Enthusiast

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
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GIGABYTE GA-965P-DQ6 2.0 - Gigabyte returns with version 2 of their already esteemed GA-965P-DQ6. What is better about this new motherboard if anything? Gigabyte has already set the bar very high with the DQ6 v1. Does the DQ6 v2 live up to its own namesake?

Gigabyte has another winner in the GA-965P-DQ6 V2! If you are looking for an extremely feature-rich motherboard that will suit all but the most extreme Core 2 Duo overclocking needs, the Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6 should be at the top of your list.
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I would go for this board if it had three PCI slots. I have three soundcards and they are all PCI. This is why I went with the Gigabyte DS3.
 
I love my 965P-DS3 v1.0. Great board at a a great price. Gigabyte has earned every single plaudit they get for all their recent 'boards. Looks like the DQ6 v2.0 earns them some more.
 
I purchased a Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6 in December (from Newegg, and largely due to Kyle's experience with the Rev 1.0 board) and to my surprise it was a Rev 2.0 board. I've got my QX6700 running smoothly at 3.2GHz and couldn't be happier.
 
grenadier said:
In the article you say that you "achieved a stable and respectable 460MHz FSB clock" - What kind of northbridge temperatures were you getting under full load at this speed?

The different motherboards on the market right now have widely different cooling solutions for the northbridge and power management - the difference isn't small either - I've seen some P965 boards where the northbridge regularly hits 70C+ and others where it hangs around 50C. It'd be really nice to see these temperatures measured in future reviews and I'm sure it wouldn't take much time to record them.
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I don't recall the exact temperatures, but the heatsink was always relatively cool to the touch. I don't know if that helps, but the solution seems to be adequate.
 
JethroXP said:
I purchased a Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6 in December (from Newegg, and largely due to Kyle's experience with the Rev 1.0 board) and to my surprise it was a Rev 2.0 board. I've got my QX6700 running smoothly at 3.2GHz and couldn't be happier.
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What kind of temps are you seeing?
 
+1 for the DS3, and I also bought for the 3 legacy pci slots; and rev. 1.0 is fine.

I bought this board to hold me over until I find exactly what I want in the next gen./rev. of motheboards when I may upgrade my e6600.

M
 
Nice review but....

How about an update with the new F8 bios for the DQ6 that has been out since Dec. 27th. The DS3 got a nice overclocking boost with the latest bios for it.

Ocworkbench was able to hit 525 MHz x 6 with their E6300 on a DQ6 so I was hoping to see [H]ard equal or beat that number.

Come on Kyle. Why don't you wring that board's neck so we can see what she'll really do? :D

http://forums.ocworkbench.com/bbs/g...0-at-6x-525mhz-aircool-using-e6300-57327.html

http://www.ocworkbench.com/2006/newsphotos/dec/Gigabyte%20dq6 rev2 at 6x525 copy.jpg

The last couple of generations of Gigabyte boards I've owned have been fantastic overclockers and rock solid stable.

They just need a little more tweaking to get the most out of them.

Kyle - First off, dont hotlink images that are not yours, it is bandwidth theft. We use the BIOS that is the most recent public BIOS when we start testing. Given the intense testing we do, it takes a while to get this done, so while what you may see as the lastest was not so when WE got the board. I wish I could pull off a review in 12 hours like the old days, but the fact is that people in the forums tear us to shreds when we do that. Should you want to see what is great about the BIOS that released very recently, that is what forum and other sites are for. Hope this answers your issues.
 
Good review. Nice to see that they just didn't etch a v2.0 into the board and leave everthing the same. It's good to know that some (albeit small) upgrades/changes where made.
 
ChiZZad said:
Good review. Nice to see that they just didn't etch a v2.0 into the board and leave everthing the same. It's good to know that some (albeit small) upgrades/changes where made.
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Yeah, overall the changes aren't massive, but it's nice to know the differences between the two if you are shopping for a P965 Express board today.
 
Both the link posted in the OP and the link from the [H] Enthusiast homepage are borked. The link jmacay posted works, though.

edit: jmackay's link no longer works. see thread in forum help and feedback
 
Lazy_Moron said:
Why do you need 3 sound cards?
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I am a musician and use them for recording. With all three m-audio soundcards I have ten analog inputs and four digital inputs. I use a Mackie mixing board as well. I could've just bought one soundcard that has all te inputs that I need, but I couldn't afford it at the time:)
 
The DQ6 Rev.2 was a massive improvement for me. The first Rev.1 board I bought was one of the earlier ones with problems that drove me nuts trying to get it to run without HDD thrashing and thousands of errors, and worse, nobody could figure out what the problem was. Sent it in to Gigabyte under their premium service, but when it came back some fan control and startup problems were improved, but the real problems with ICH8/SATAII AHCI errors were the same. RMAed that board, got a new Rev.1, but no improvement there whatsoever. Finally after three months of screwing around, RMAed that board and got a Rev.2 and all problems disappeared as if by magic. It runs solid as a rock with no problems.

Love the board now, even though I wanted to take a sledgehammer to its predecessors. It has all the performance and features I've wanted for a long time.
 
John_T said:
The DQ6 Rev.2 was a massive improvement for me. The first Rev.1 board I bought was one of the earlier ones with problems that drove me nuts trying to get it to run without HDD thrashing and thousands of errors, and worse, nobody could figure out what the problem was. Sent it in to Gigabyte under their premium service, but when it came back some fan control and startup problems were improved, but the real problems with ICH8/SATAII AHCI errors were the same. RMAed that board, got a new Rev.1, but no improvement there whatsoever. Finally after three months of screwing around, RMAed that board and got a Rev.2 and all problems disappeared as if by magic. It runs solid as a rock with no problems.

Love the board now, even though I wanted to take a sledgehammer to its predecessors. It has all the performance and features I've wanted for a long time.
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I never worked with the original DQ6, but I rather enjoyed working with the new one. I've found myself recommending it to a number of people who either don't need or don't want the hassle of dealing with the 680i or 650i.
 
There were some problems with the first DQ6 Rev.1 boards. Some were board problems, but I think some were in the 965 chipset ICH8 timings. We will never know... :rolleyes:
 
John_T said:
There were some problems with the first DQ6 Rev.1 boards. Some were board problems, but I think some were in the 965 chipset ICH8 timings. We will never know... :rolleyes:
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I don't know about that. I've worked with many P965 Express boards using the ICH8 series southbridges and I've never had any problems with them. The chipset and 90% of the boards that use it are all solid. The worst two being the ECS PX1 Extreme and abit AB9 Pro. Niether of which was bad, but they weren't up to par with other P965 Express based boards I've used.
 
In my particular case, it was that the HDDs would dash for 2-10MB and then freeze for 5-20 seconds, release and then repeat the cycle all the time when more than a few MB were being accessed or moved. This meant that whatever applications were involved would freeze too. A defrag would take beyond overnight and the computer couldn't be used while it was running. Event Viewer would show thousands of disk warnings followed by iaStor errors. It was rumored to be something not right in Intel's hardware/software implementation and the board's bios, though there was no change with each bios upgrade.

At the time of course I searched the net for a diagnosis and solution, and while I ran into some other almost identical cases, I never found out the complete story. The fact that my just changing the board from a Rev.1 to a Rev.2 without changing anything else, and the problem completely disappeared, says it all for me. Perhaps there was a Samsung HDD firmware incompatibility, I don't know, I'm just happy that's the end of that chapter. :D
 
JethroXP said:
I purchased a Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6 in December (from Newegg, and largely due to Kyle's experience with the Rev 1.0 board) and to my surprise it was a Rev 2.0 board. I've got my QX6700 running smoothly at 3.2GHz and couldn't be happier.
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I have my QX6700 on order. Have you had any issues at all with your setup?

Anyone know if any vendor aside from Newegg is shipping rev 2.0? Newegg apparently can't promise they will send a specific revision.

Anyone have a link on 975X vs. P965? In particular, I've narrowed down my choices to this board and the Intel 975XBX2, so any opinions on which to choose would be great. Thank you!
 
chaostim said:
I have my QX6700 on order. Have you had any issues at all with your setup?

Anyone know if any vendor aside from Newegg is shipping rev 2.0? Newegg apparently can't promise they will send a specific revision.

Anyone have a link on 975X vs. P965? In particular, I've narrowed down my choices to this board and the Intel 975XBX2, so any opinions on which to choose would be great. Thank you!
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No issues at all. I simply dropped the CPU in, loaded WInXP, and then overclocked. Worked like a charm. Also, a friend of mine ordered a GA-965P-DQ6 from Newegg in mid-December and also recieved the Rev 2.0 board. Chances are that is all they are stocking now.
 
I bought a DQ6 from newegg back in the middle of december and it was a 2.0 board so you should definitely get the new revision if you pick one up from them now.
 
JethroXP said:
No issues at all. I simply dropped the CPU in, loaded WInXP, and then overclocked. Worked like a charm. Also, a friend of mine ordered a GA-965P-DQ6 from Newegg in mid-December and also recieved the Rev 2.0 board. Chances are that is all they are stocking now.
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Thanks all, I'm leaning toward the DQ6-Rev2 and will go with Newegg if I buy it.

JethroXP- are your drives Raid 0? Any problems with setup?

I was skimming the manual and it doesn't seem like you can choose both RAID and AHCI on the Intel ICH8R. Does the RAID option automatically include the extra AHCI features for bandwidth and such? It seems like you would want that especially for a RAID setup...
 
Nope, I opted not to use RAID at this time. I just have a 500GB C: drive and a 500GB D: drive.
 
i ordered one today from newegg.

it is hard to find much of any discussion about this board on various forums.

anything in this price range is always the p5b-deluxe that is being discussed.

i cant wait to get rid of my asus board. i just wish this gigabyte had more of a community
 
Yeah, not much for "official" DQ6 threads. There was an "FAQ" thread on another forum, but the last post was months ago.

I should be assembling the system this weekend. If there's any stability issues, the Giga will probably go back for a Bad Axe 2.
 
well looks like ill be building with this mobo tonight.

i ordered it from newegg yesterday afternoon, it shipped at 10am today and is on the truck for delivery at 1pm :D

its nice living 30 miles from newegg's jersey warehouse location sometimes.
 
I got my Rev 2.0 from Newegg yesterday. Will report this weekend if I have any issues.
 
mine works like a champ.

had a little time to tweak it yesterday.

found a nice 3.25ghz to run it at 24/7 with minimal voltage increase.

ran super pi @ 3.6ghz in just over 16 seconds with 1.4v , going to push it farther tonight.
 
System posted and so far no errors on 4 passes of Memtest86 v1.70. Everything is at what I believe are stock settings.
 
i too dont know whether to get the bx2 or a board such as the dq6.

how hard is it to remove the 'crazy cool' backplate? i'm going to buy the tuniq tower and i'm very concerned about ease of installation.
 
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