Although the P35 offers no performance gains over existing P965, 975X and nForce 680/650 chipsets, it does support a few new key technologies.
Currently, those that own an Intel 975X, P965 or an nForce 6 series motherboard have no real need to purchase an Intel P35 based board. Having said that, we imagine the majority of users planning on building a Core 2 Duo system will give the P35 a miss at this point as there are much cheaper options available offering similar features. Nevertheless the Gigabyte P35-DS4 is a stellar product, but at $230 US it’s a pricey option and with motherboards such as the ASUS P5N-E SLI costing just $140 US, it’s hard to fork out almost $100 US for this slightly updated version.
The overclocking on this board, factoring in the fact this is is a value-for-money variant series, is nothing short of stunning, Without any mods at all to the motherboard, it went to a sky-high FSB of 575MHz!! That’s on a 4MB Cache Conroe Processor.
If you’re not an overclocker, from the performance side of the spectrum, one has little to anticipate for over current 965P chipsets … If you are interested in overclocking, then you may be as impressed as me with this board. The overclocking certainly seems to have been enhanced over the 965P, and the capability of this board in the area is simply stunning out of the box. Do not be fooled by the USD$180 price tag, this board can really satisfy the overclocking enthusiast who is used to the USD$300 motherboards. The value one gets from the dollars spent on this motherboard is simply smashing!