Gigabyte GA-EP31-DS3L Motherboard

[Hardware Secrets Team]

There has been a new article posted.

Title: Gigabyte GA-EP31-DS3L Motherboard
URL: http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/575

Here is a snippet:
"We took a look on GA-EP31-DS3L, a motherboard from Gigabyte based on Intel P31 chipset targeted to the mainstream market, coming with a lot of features and a relatively low cost. Check it out!click to..."

Comments on this article are welcome.

Best regards,
Hardware Secrets Team
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com

[Merman]

From the BIOS illustrations Gigabyte has improved the voltage control section of their low cost boards. Adding de-voltage control and GTLREF control.

Are you going to be doing a review in the future, maybe overclocking an E7200 or E8400???

If not can you explain this new voltage controls???

[Gabriel Torres]

Hello,

We do this "first look" kind of article when we don't have the time to make a full review.

We don't have plans to make a full review for this motherboard.

GTL is the name of the bus used between the CPU and the north bridge chip and thus GTLREF refers to the voltage used on this bus.

I wasn't the one who wrote this article, so I can't comment on what exactly this other option "DeOverVoltage" does, but I will ask advice from our contributor Rafael Coelho, who was the one that wrote the article.

Cheers,
Gabriel.

[Rafael Coelho]

Hello!
The "DeOverVoltage" allows you to simply reduce the voltage of the circuits. If you want to do an overvolt, use the "OverVoltage" option; if you want to reduce (undervolt), you need to use the "DeOverVoltage" option.
I didn´t understand why to make it as a separate option, if it was easier the "old fashion" way: one option allowing user to select desired voltage, plus or minus.
Cheers
Rafael Coelho

[Merman]

Originally Posted by Gabriel Torres

Hello,

GTL is the name of the bus used between the CPU and the north bridge chip and thus GTLREF refers to the voltage used on this bus.

There is an option for FSB voltage, which I assume is the bus for both north and south bridge chips??? I understand increasing this voltage by a small amount can increase system stability when overclocking.

Then there is the GTLREF option with a voltage ratio option.

Seems like the GTLREF is a fine tuning of the FSB to the MCH??? But how does it work??? Does increasing the ratio increase or decrease some aspect of the power on the bus only to the MCH???



BTW that Static tRead Value of 3 (tRD) is outrageous. Did the system boot with that value???

[Merman]

Originally Posted by dungeonmaster

Hello!
The "DeOverVoltage" allows you to simply reduce the voltage of the circuits. If you want to do an overvolt, use the "OverVoltage" option; if you want to reduce (undervolt), you need to use the "DeOverVoltage" option.
I didn´t understand why to make it as a separate option, if it was easier the "old fashion" way: one option allowing user to select desired voltage, plus or minus.
Cheers
Rafael Coelho

Thanks for the info and I agree one option would make more sense.

The ability to lower voltage is nice as more control is always better than less but only makes sense to me if the standard voltage is on the high side??? Which could be the case as I found the standard CPU voltage set to the high side.

With that said, Everest reads my voltages as:
MCH: 1.25v
ICH: 1.05v

Are your standard voltages the same???

[Rafael Coelho]

Sorry Merman, I don't own this motherboard anymore... So I cannot check this info.
Cheers,
Rafael