Gigabyte S-Series GA-945P-S3 Motherboard Review

On my first attempt I was able to get this board to overclock at a steady and ready 2.5Ghz. No stability issues and the thing has been running smooth since I did so (about 2 weeks now). I believe I could go higher and if you believe what you read, then some folks out there are clocking in at 2.9Ghz using the E6400.

I would be apprehensive if that was the case, I’m not sure an E6400 with this mb would be as steady. You really do take your own life in your hands when overclocking (hehe). In fact the overclocking option in the BIOS were some of the easiest to use that I have ever dealt with. Right out of the box this motherboard was ready willing and able to boost things up a bit. Heck the board even has an auto reset function for overclocking without the need to crack it open and reset it yourself.

This motherboard is also Vista ready, for those of you who have made the jump to Microsoft’s new OS. Otherwise, XP works just as well. This system was tested using the XP operating system, just an FYI. So all in all, I am really pretty happy with how this mb has worked out, there are some minor design issues, and the working with the memory may provide some problems for end users out there, but it is a solid piece of machinery.

The overclocking options are somewhat limited, but you can still push this older chipset pretty far.  The GA-945P-S3 is a solid motherboard for anyone building a system with an Allendale or Celeron chip (who has some spare DDR2-667 laying around).

	REPORT CARD : Gigabyte GA-945P-S3 Motherboard category rating comments Quality 4 It’s a beefy, heavier board that’s pretty well built aside from some design flaws. Nice to have something with some meat on it’s bones. Innovation 5 I liked the friendly easy to use Bios setup, and this has been the least frustrating experience overclocking I have ever had. Auto reset feature is a first. Performance 4 This MB wants to be tinkered around with and it want to be overclocked. Like I said I think there is some more room in there for some additional power, but not much. This board is designed for those who want to tinker around. Installation 3 The board goes in nicely and adding all your cards is fine, but the design is flawed, with clean wire placement all but impossible. Value 3 The board is slightly pricier given the Intel 945P chipset, but still has a good amount of performance and tweakability for Core 2 processors FINAL VERDICT: 4 out of 5 stars