Gigabyte's P35T-DQ6 (T denotes the use of DDR3 memory modules) is the heavyweight contender in this round up - literally. The all copper SilentPipe and CrazyCool cooling solution used by the board really adds some weight. For those uninitiated, SilentPipe is the cooling solution on top of the board while CrazyCool is the one on the bottom (back) of the board. With such a large heat dissipation area, the chipsen and the mosfet should be cooler than most boards running at full load for long periods of time even when overclocked to high FSBs.
Of course, there are some downsides to Gigabyte's approach. For one, SilentPipe. It takes so much space between the processor and the graphics card and the general area around the processor. So much so, the single PCI-E x1 slot between the heatsink and the PCI-E x16 slot is practically useless - you won't be able to fit much of a card there. Even a tall, short card like X-Fi Extreme Audio is a tight fit - there's so little space between the back of the card and the towering SilentPipe heatsink.
The SilentPipe and CrazyCool heatsink actually connect to each other and we believe there are some heat transfer between the two. Removing the heatsink is fairly easy and doable (unlike ASUS Stack Cool), but not as easy as you might think. All but one screw can be easily reached and turned with a screwdriver - the final screw can only be accessed after you remove the topmost part of the heatsink (the one with the 'SilentPipe' engraving).
Although Gigabyte took the time and effort to engineer a complex cooling solution - a silent cooling solution that works really well by the way - we were immediately dissapointed when we took a closer look at the bottom of this massive heatsink. They are still using thermal tape and pads between the P965 chipset, the ICH9R southbridge and the mosfets on the motherboard. Thermal paste would undoubtedly be more efficient - better heat transfer between the chipset and the heatsink and less hassle to reapply. If they were willing to use such a huge heatsink, why not make better use of it?
In the end, we couldn't help but wonder whether or not such extravagant cooling is necessary if Gigabyte had use thermal paste. The goal of SilentPipe and CrazyCool was to keep the temperature low enough (but silently) for very high overclocks. However, we have some reservations about that - hardcore overclockers will likely remove the SilentPipe / CrazyCool alltogether, replacing it with more extreme cooling like a waterblock and the like. So, is most cases they will likely not use it.
Then, there's the airflow factor. If you look at the overall design, undoubtedly just like Stackcool and Circupipe, SilentPipe still relies on the exhaust air from the processor fan / heatsink to keep itself cool - assuming the fan / heatsink blows the air down the processor like the stock cooling. If you were to use third party solutions with large / tall heatsink towers (with 120 mm fans blowing air sideways - from the front of the case to the back), you won't blow that much air on the SilentPipe heatsink. Fitting such a large heatsink will also likely be more troublesome than stock cooling.
Unlike the ASUS P5K3 Deluxe 'aggressive' timings when memory modules are set to SPD defaults, the Gigabyte P35T-DQ6 is more conservative in this regard. Notice memory timings at 480 MHz are closer to default timings of the Samsung DDR3 memory modules at 533 MHz, with the exception of a slightly lower TRAS cycles (19 as opposed to 20 cycles). The difference is understandable - after all its running at lower clocks (480 MHz vs 533 MHz). Due to a mixup on our end, we were unable to show the CPU-Z processor and FSB clock tab, which also includes core voltage values and also RivaTuner's shot of processor clocks during heavy loads.
Expansions and Add-Ons
For all your expansion needs, the Gigabyte P35T-DQ6 comes with
two
PCI, three x1 and two x16 PCI Express slots which are Crossfire ready.
The
arrangement of the expansion slots are typical of Gigabyte boards -
again with dual slot cooling Radeon cards, you'll lose the two PCI and
PCI-E x1
slots. Remember, with dual slot coolers its important to leave the slot
beside the card empty to allow better airflow. That leaves just the
single x1 PCI-E slot, which sadly, may not really be useful due to the
available space limited by the giant SilentPipe chipset cooling.The P35T-DQ6 may not have all the bells and whistles compared to the ASUS P5K3 and P5K3 Deluxe (WiFi adapter, dual Gigabit Ethernet), but it offers a very flexible storage options. Gigabyte was the first vendor to offer external SATA drives support on their 865 and 875 boards and they still continue to do so with their current offering. Unlike other vendors who opted to put eSATA ports on the ATX back panel, Gigabyte choose to use the internal SATA ports in combination with add-on brackets. That means users who don't use eSATA can still use all the available ports for internal drives. Of course, there is a matter of SATA ports placement - if you install a dual slot cooler card on the second PCI-E x16, you may find it hard to install / remove the SATA cables on ports 3 to 6.
Like many high end motherboards, you'll find the usual suspects of ports on the ATX back panel with this board - four USB ports, one Firewire port,a Gigabit Ethernet port courtesy of the Marvell Gigabit Ethernet controller chip, the standard six analog audio ports, both coax and optical SPDIF output ports, PS/2 ports, and a serial and paralel ports for backward compatibility. Expansion wise, in addition to the eSATA brackets, you'll find another bracket with additional USB ports. A full complementary of cables (one IDE cable, one floppy cable, four SATA cables (two internal, two external) are included.
We still wish Gigabyte offered more flexibility with their eSATA brackets. In its current form, the cables can only be used for external drives. Then' there is the general problem of brackets - we just don't like having too many brackets. The use of brackets (eSATA and the additional USB ports) means you'll have to choose between them or losing two expansion slots. Maybe Gigabyte should think about putting the serial and paralel ports on brackets rather than the additiona USB ports, a better compromise since you hardly users those ports nowadays.
Tweaking and Overclocking Friendly
The Gigabyte P35T-DQ6 offers the usual complement of important,
overclocking settings In
the BIOS under the menu 'MIB Intelligent Tweaker'. For those
unaccustomed to their boards, you need to press 'Ctrl' and "F1' on the
main BIOS menu to enable all the advanced options - the ones you really
need. Various
settings - multiplier, voltage, FSB settings are available in
addition to other settings such as chipset, memory clock and
FSB clocks and other options. Gigabyte made several nice touches to the
BIOS - color coded settings for various voltages denoting risk factors,
default core voltage displays made overclocking much more
easier. Memory divider settings are in ratios, but you can
always
see what
the current settings are and at what speed the memory will run when
you change them.All these settings can be set manually or automatically. Gigabyte's P35 motherbaords also include more strap options compared to their previous P965 boards. The BIOS also supports several BIOS profiles, allowing you to save several overclocking settings for troubleshooting. If you want to update the BIOS, you can use Q-Flash so you don't have to rely on floppys or USB boot devices.
Overall, its a pretty good BIOS. Of course, we still would like Gigabyte change their default 'OK' settings for processor, memory voltage and 3.3, 5 and 12 volt rails values on the hardware monitor page (which incidentally, they did change on their X38 motherboards) and ditch the 'Ctrl'+'F1' option. Changing it into a BIOS popup dialog box alerting users.when they enter the MIB menu should be more than enough (plus the option to disable such warning for advanced users).
As you would guess, we do have some minor gripes with this board, though nothing really serious.
- DIMM placement comes on the top of the list. There's obviously enough room near the far end of the DIMM, so why place the DIMM slots so close to the first PCI-E x16 slot? It also would make more sense temperature wise since exhaust from the processor's heatsink will be able to cool the memory..
- As noted before, the placement of SATA ports 3 to 6 can interfere with full length cards (especially dual slot cooling graphics cards).
- Then therei's SilentPipe - it works, but not only does it unnecessarily complicates installation and to some extent limits your choice of fans / heatsinks, it also limits your choice of add-on peripherals as well (the space constraints of the PCI-E x1 slot). There's also the use of thermal tape / pads which in our opinion doesn't work as godd as thermal paste (on the P35 chipset and ICH9R southbridge).
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