Reviews - Pro-Clockers! PC Reviews One MegaHertz At A Time

Introduction

The motherboard market is awash with chipsets at the moment and the overclocker currently has a huge range of different features and board configurations to sort through and make a choice when it comes time for an upgrade or a new build. Amongst all the choices there are a couple of chipsets which have stood, head held high, above all the rest. In this group we find the Intel P965, and its younger but higher performing brother the P35. Even with the introduction of the Intel X38 chipset, the P35 still has the world at its feet, primarily due to its’ better price to performance ratio. To top off the price to performance ratio it has been proven time and time again to be the better overclocker, well, when it comes to Core2Duo processors. This can be backed up when searching some to the larger forums. Boards like the abit IP35 Pro, ASUS P5K and Gigabyte P35 top the threads in most of these cases.

The latter of the aforementioned boards was one of first to hit the market at the launch of the P35 chipset. The GA-P35, in which ever format you got it, overclocked like a monster with a tweak here and a tweak there. But now that the world is on the energy saving kick Gigabyte has released an updated version of the P35 range called the GA-EP35 range. According to Gigabyte this new line of boards has a power saving rate of 70% which should make your parents, partner or roomy happy when it comes time to fork over the money to pay the utility bill. The Dynamic Energy Save or DES for short will automatically adjust CPU phase power during idle and load activity. Which means when at idle the power will drop down to dual phase and when a load is poured on up to four or higher dependent on the load.

Most of you out there are possible wondering more about the overclocking side of the board. Understandable as the entire P35 line was a favored amongst enthusiasts. The boards overclocked well beyond that of others containing the Intel P35 chipset. And did so at an attractive price. For under $140 you had all the BIOS and onboard features you could need. It is with great pleasure then that we received the Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS4 for our reviewing pleasure. Read on, we hope you enjoy the review.

Gigabyte would like to say something

GIGABYTE’s GA-EP35-DS4 motherboard provides the ultimate dream machine for serious overclockers and enthusiasts. Making sure gamers have plenty of future CPU headroom, the GIGABYTE GA-EP35-DS4 supports Intel® Core 2™ multi-core processors as well as the all-new Intel 45nm CPUs. In addition to providing record setting support for 1600MHz (O.C.) Front Side Bus and up to 1200 MHz (O.C.) of DDR2 memory, the GA-EP35-DS4 is further equipped to support ATI CrossFireX™ with dual PCI Express x16 interfaces. The GA-EP35-DS4 also delivers several Unique GIGABYTE innovations including the latest edition to GIGABYTE’s technology arsenal, the Dynamic Energy Saver (DES), providing extensive power savings with one simple click. Featuring the award-winning Durable 2 design, the GA-EP35-DS4 provides additional power savings, ultra cooling and extended system durability for even the most hardcore PC gamers.

Packaging and contents

Gigabyte as long as I have known them, have never skipped out on presenting their motherboards in a very marketable fashion and this new board is no different. The white and pinkish colored box is filled with a world of information about the board but it mostly focuses on the energy saving features of the board.

Specifications

Features

1. Supports Intel® Core™ 2 multi-core and Intel 45nm processors
2. Supports DDR2 1200(OC)* memory for outstanding system performance.
3. Revolution energy saving design with GIGABYTE Dynamic Energy Saver (DES) technology.
4. Ultra Durable 2 motherboard features High Quality CPU Power design with Ferrite core chokes, Low RDS (on) MOSFET and Solid Capacitors.
5. Ultimate graphics performance with dual PCI-E x16 interface
6. Integrated SATA 3Gb/s with RAID function
7. Features high speed Gigabit Ethernet and IEEE1394
8. Unique Silent-Pipe with outstanding cooling performance
9. Audio controller from ALC 889A codec and DTS Connect, featuring 106 dB Signal to Noise ratio and supporting for both Blu-ray and HD DVD formats.

Closer look at the board

Due to the fact that this board is based on the Intel P35 chipset gives it Crossfire support automatically. With ATI pushing the envelope on their video cards (finally) having Crossfire supports leaves room for more video power down the road. Granted the second PCIe are only 4x meaning you will not get full bandwidth out of it.

Here we have the available expansion slots in the photo below. Between the two PEG slots are two  PCIe 1x slots which are, well pretty useless if you decide to take the Crossfire avenue. Another possible layout issue for those thinking of eventually going to a Crossfire setup is the placement of the SATA ports inline with the second PEG slot. As mentioned in Richard’s review at Bit-tech, use a single slot GPU in that second slot and you block two SATA ports, use a HD 3870 with its’ double slot cooler and you lose four. Also located between the two slots is the CMOS battery and Clear CMOS jumper these are not hard to get to when using a single card but will be a real pain if you again use Crossfire.

Normally we would like to see the battery and jumper in the under portions of the board but with the EP35 it is not possible due to all the other ports and pins located in this area. Besides the Southbridge, eight SATA ports and the single IDE controller are also the pins for external USB and firewire ports. But as mentioned earlier, if you do plan on Crossfiring with this board plan on being creative with connecting your SATA devices as the video card interferes heavily with the SATA ports. It seems obvious to us that Gigabyte were not focusing on dual GPU use when they designed the layout for this particular board. With all the drawbacks that exist with the EP35s layout it might have been a better idea to design the board for maximum expansion and forget Crossfire completely. Thankfully most PC users still have no real intention of going dual so I guess it balances out in the end.

The EP35 uses relatively large passive copper heatsinks to cool the North and South bridges which also extend up to cool the PWM mosfets as well. All the heatsinks are connect via a copper heat pipe. The heat pipes engulf the CPU socket but we did not have any issues mounting our Thermalright Ultra 120 to the board no matter which way we faced it.

One thing we would like to praise Gigabyte for is placing most of the power connectors on the outer edges of the board. Here we have the floppy, ATX and four pin aux power connections between the DIMM slots and the outer edge of the board. The 8-pin 12V power socket is located right behind the I/O connections at the top edge of the board which is pretty much perfect. The same can’t be said however for the front panel audio headers which get placed right behind the rear I/O, which is as far from the front panel audio as it could get. No one wants to traipse those annoying wires across their otherwise beautiful motherboard.

The I/O panel is feature rich as well. The only legacy ports her are the PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports. If you need serial and COM ports they are provided by way of  motherboard headers and expansion slot brackets. There are an incredible amount of USB and firewire ports, eight and two respectively. No need for hubs here.

EasyTune

If you have ever used a Gigabyte board before chances are you are familiar with the EasyTune software. EasyTune enables you to keep a tracking on all temps, fan speeds and voltage readings without have to go back to the BIOS.

But for the overclocker at heart you can control every single CPU functions as well as most voltage option. Gigabyte made it easy to overclock from Windows instead of the BIOS. We have never had great results with Windows based OC utilities, so we will stick to the BIOS when the time comes. The only way we see this changing is if Intel start offering something similar to AMD Overdrive.

DES

The DES software is originally coded by Intersil. The GUI is pretty user friendly, simply clicking on the big blue button to open up a world of power saving options. The overall use of the software is to turn off and on power saving options.

Once there is any load put on the system the tiny rods and pistons rotate as if they would in a six cylinder car. Each combination of rod and piston represents one phase power. In this case there are a set of six cylinders representing the six phases of this EP35 motherboard’s power delivery system.
The DES software keeps track of how much power is saved whether the application is activated or not to get a growing total. The overall main purpose of the DES software and function is to give you maximum power savings without sacrificing performance.

BIOS

The EP35 DS4’s BIOS is a classic example of what Gigabyte has used when it comes to BIOSes. The good thing here is that all the tools used to overclock are located under one tab. From memory tunings to voltage settings, you really don’t have to leave the M.I.T. screen.

A little bit of caution needs to be taken when upping the voltage on the MCH and DRAM. As the values in the BIOS are whatever the defaults of them are plus the value selected in the BIOS. So let’s say your default ram voltage is 1.9v and you select 1.55v in the BIOS that is 3.40v to your ram. Good thing there is a flashing red warning when getting into the danger zone.

CPU Frequancy: 100-700MHz
PCI Frequency: 90-150MHz
CPU ratio: 6 to CPU default
CPU voltage: 0.70-2.35V
DRAM voltage: default- +1.55
MCH voltage: default- +0.375
System Memory Multiplier: 2, 2.4, 3.2, 3.33, 4.0, 2.5, 3, 4

Testing

To test the new Gigabyte offering we slapped some nice current hardware in it (apart from the GPU which we know is really old. Anyone wanting to donate a new graphics card to serve as test pilot can do so by contacting us) and  gave it a run for its money against some of the toughest synthetic and real world benchmarking tools available. We also compare the results to the Asrock 4Core1600P35-Wifi+ we reviewed last weekHere is out setup:
Testing hardware:

Intel Core2Duo E8400
DDR2 Crucial Ballistix PC6400 (5-5-5-15)
Maxtor 100GB SATAI
Leadtek 6800GT
Thermalright Ultra 120
Thermaltake TP1000

Testing Software:
Futuremark PCMark05
Futuremark 3DMark06
SiSoftware Sandra
Everest Ultimate
SuperPi 1.5 mod
Prey
F.E.A.R.

Competition:
Asrock 4Core1600P35-WiFi+ (DDR2)
Asrock 4Core1600P35-WiFi+ (DDR3)

Results

CPU results

Futuremark PCmark05 Build 1.1.0
PCMark®05 is everything you need to reliably and easily measure the performance of your PC and determine its strengths and weaknesses. With PCMark05, you will be able to select the optimal upgrades for your existing PC, or choose the right new PC that fits your specific needs. This easy-to-use product gives you the same tools and knowledge that virtually every professional tester in the industry uses.

Super PI Modded 1.5
In August 1995, the calculation of pi up to 4,294,960,000 decimal digits was succeeded by using a supercomputer at the University of Tokyo. The program was written by D.Takahashi and he collaborated with Dr. Y.Kanada at the computer center, the University of Tokyo. This record should be the current world record. (Details are shown in the windows help.) This record-breaking program was ported to personal computer environment such as Windows NT and Windows 95. In order to calculate 33.55 million digits, it takes within 3 days with Pentium 90MHz, 40MB main memory and 340MB available storage.

Ram results

Futuremark PCmark05 Build 1.1.0
PCMark®05 is everything you need to reliably and easily measure the performance of your PC and determine its strengths and weaknesses. With PCMark05, you will be able to select the optimal upgrades for your existing PC, or choose the right new PC that fits your specific needs. This easy-to-use product gives you the same tools and knowledge that virtually every professional tester in the industry uses.

SiSoftware Sandra Lite 2007 SP1
SiSoftware has announced the availability of Service Release 2 (SR2) for SiSoftware Sandra 2005, the latest version of its award-winning utility. The focus of this service release has been improved support, compatibility and reliability rather than new features. We have been working closely with more hardware vendors than before to be able to bring greater direct support of an increased market share of commodity and server technologies.

Lavalys Everest
Lavalys EVEREST Home Edition is freeware system information, system diagnostics and benchmarking solution for home PC users, based on the award-winning EVEREST Technology. It offers the world's most accurate system information and diagnostics capabilities, including online features, memory benchmarks, hardware monitoring, and low-level hardware information. EVEREST Home Edition is uniquely available for home users without any charges, based on the freeware license.

HDD results

Futuremark PCmark05 Build 1.1.0
PCMark®05 is everything you need to reliably and easily measure the performance of your PC and determine its strengths and weaknesses. With PCMark05, you will be able to select the optimal upgrades for your existing PC, or choose the right new PC that fits your specific needs. This easy-to-use product gives you the same tools and knowledge that virtually every professional tester in the industry uses.

Simpli Software HD Tach 3
HD Tach will test the sequential read, random access and interface burst speeds of your attached storage device (hard drive, flash drive, removable drive, etc). All drive technologies such as SCSI, IDE/ATA, 1394, USB, SATA and RAID are supported. Test results from HD Tach can be used to confirm manufacturer specs, analyze your system for proper performance, and compare your performance with others. HD Tach is very easy to use, quick, and presents data in easy to read graphs, including the ability to compare two storage devices on screen at the same time for easy analysis.

Video and Gaming results

Futuremark 3DMark06 Build 1.0.2
3DMark®06 is the worldwide standard in advanced 3D game performance benchmarking. A fundamental tool for every company in the PC industry as well as PC users and gamers, 3DMark06 uses advanced real-time 3D game workloads to measure PC performance using a suite of DirectX 9 3D graphics tests, CPU tests, and 3D feature tests. 3DMark06 tests include all new HDR/SM3.0 graphics tests, SM2.0 graphics tests, AI and physics driven single and multiple cores or processor CPU tests and a collection of comprehensive feature tests to reliably measure next generation gaming performance today. Futuremark's exclusive Online ResultBrowser web service tracks and compares 3DMark06 scores.

Sierra F.E.A.R. Update 1.08
F.E.A.R. ™ (First Encounter Assault Recon) is an intense combat experience with rich atmosphere and a deeply intense paranormal storyline presented entirely in first person. Be the hero in your own spine-tingling epic of action, tension, and terror… and discover the true meaning of F.E.A.R.

3drealms Prey
PREY takes full advantage of the Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ sound card. PREY supports OpenAL hardware acceleration, EAX® ADVANCED HD™ 5.0 features of 4 reverberation effects at once, and uses Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ XRAM feature to load audio samples on the cards with 64 megs of RAM.

Overclocking

Overclocking the GA-EP35-DS4 took a lot of trial and error. Most to the trial came from fiddling with the System Memory Muiltiplier. I tried most of the time overclocking with the 1:2 which this board mixed with my equipment did not like at all. The highest FSB we were able to get the system to boot into was 415Mhz. Moving over to a 5:6 was much more successful. As the system booted right up at the 415MHz the last ratio was mixed at. We surpassed that and got 456MHz successfully. Speeds up to 490MHz were good for getting into Windows but that’s about all. I believe the EP35-DS4 is a BIOS or two away from being put into the same class as the Gigabyte boards we have reviewed when it comes to overclocking.

Conclusion

The EP35-DS4 is a reasonably well laid out motherboard for the most part. Everything is laid out where things should not interfere with you making a very clean install, except when using dual graphics cards. The features are plenty as you are given more USB and firewire than most of us will know what to do with. And when playing with the sound my music has never been clearer.

The price of the EP35 on many retail websites is about $170-180. This puts the Gigabyte board right in the middle of the pack with boards based on the Intel P35 chipset like the Abit IP35 Pro, an excellent board in its’ own right. Which depending on your budget can be good or bad.
The DES software and feature may sway a couple more would be buyers to pick up the Gigabyte board. But overall it is not an important option for the overclocker or gamer.

When it comes to overclocking which is why we are here, the EP35 is okay. The max 456MHz we reached was okay for someone looking for a modest overclock. But for someone looking to go for the gusto this board is a little lacking. We think a new BIOS geared to overclocking could make this board a real winner.

In summary, The Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS4 is a solid board. It has a few glaring flaws in terms of its’ layout, but for the majority of the peeps out there it will work to perfection. If you are looking to Crossfire, we strongly suggest pinching your pennies for a while and purchasing an X38 board, several very good examples of which Gigabyte have available. The DES seems like an interesting addition, but, due to our inability to determine the level of saving s we would make due to our short time with the board, was a little underwhelming.

Gigabyte’s reputation precedes it and we have no doubt that they will be hard at work improving the capabilities of DES and the EP35 Bios. We think that this board is a winner for those wanting to set up a really well featured, energy-efficient and stable PC for work or play. Hopefully the next time we bring a Gigabyte review to you we can show off one of their energy efficient, Crossfire capable EX38 boards.