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Gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L Motherboard
Introduction
With the mainstream as crowded as it is, many people (myself included) often make buying decisions based on brand recognition. I mean, for a hundred bucks or less, Newegg has no fewer than 195 motherboards to pick from, 60 of which are P31 or P35-based. And Gigabyte is a solid company. They're at the top of my list, it would seem, so picking a current-generation entry-level motherboard without integrated graphics narrows things down to about half a dozen options, with the GA-P31-DS3L at the front. But is that really enough to base a decision on? Well, if you're reading this, then Jesus, of course not. Here's what to expect: OK performance, dull layout, and Ultra Durability! After a trip to the bench, this board indeed gets a nod for being better than the other P31 motherboards. Here's what that means. First Looks The box comes with the barest assortment of accessories. Two (good) SATA cables, an IDE cable, an I/O shield, the manual, and the drivers. So what do you lose by buying into P31? Nothing, really. P31 is limited to 1333MHz FSB processors, faster which are non-existent, 4GB of RAM--more than enough--memory up to DDR2-800. and uses only ICH7-series Southbridges; limited RAID support. While it's somewhat possible that those are limits for a computer, even I don't run hardware that intrinsically requires more from a motherboard. I mean, I'd like to, but if wishes were horses... Immediately, I think the layout is...crummy, and yet, acceptable.   
Page 1: Introduction and First Looks
Page 2: Layout and BIOS Page 3: Testing Methodology, General Benchmarks & Graphics Benchmarks Page 4: Performance Summary, Power and Noise, and Overclocking Page 5: Conclusion 
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