It's funny what kind of numbers a company can find when it rummages around in its collective butt.

They only have ONE memory module in that overclocked machine...does that mean they couldn't get the overclock up so high with 2?

As for heatpipes: boo! I'm a luddite in this case. Heatpipes are unattractive and overused, stuck into everything just because there are people out there who will think "oh, I should get the model with a heatpipe because it MUST be better cooling". I'd rather save 5 or 10 bucks on a decent motherboard, instead of having to go down to a low-end board if I don't want pipes (not saying there aren't some options, they're just becoming less varied).

A quantity of fins on a solid heatsink will dissipate just as much heat as the same area of fins on the end of a heatpipe, even if the working fluid transfers heat more efficiently. I know, there are reasons that you might want to move all those fins to a different part of the board, or just can't fit enough fins in, but there are plenty of cases where they aren't needed at all. I'm rambling now so I'll stop.

According to Gigabyte, low-resistance MOSFETs, ferrite core chokes, and solid capacitors

Sounds PR-ish.

The solid capacitors are somewhat unique, since many boards use standard electros.

I suppose some cheap boards might use chokes with powdered iron cores, but I'm not sure the heat contribution would be substantially reduced from moving to ferrite.

The MOSFET thing sounds suspiciously like smoke-blowing. Most switching MOSFETs have very low Rds(on) ratings as it is. You might be able to change from a part with (say) a 0.22 ohm rating to one with a 0.1 ohm rating, but at these low voltages that won't make a whole lot of difference.

Basically, if you want power supply reliability, use [iualit/i] caps in conjuntion with a 3-phase delivery design or better, or an alternate delivery configuration that is equivalent/better.

"The company says a heavily overclocked motherboard might have a three-month life span..."
pffft! 3 months?

Dropped the multi to 6 to do 500, nothing special in the oc department imo

I like that plexi case. I'd advertise for them at LAN parties if they would give that system to me. :)

Why is there no northbridge cooler on motherboard in photo? I thought the X38 was suposed to run very hot. Looks like they are trying to hide a problem.

I like what Gigabyte is doing with enthusiast boards at good prices, hopefully things like heatpipes on chipsets become common enough that the price comes down and they become more widespread over traditional fin heatsinks.

how is 500Mhz FSB special??? My P965DS3P gets easily to 515 with +0.2V stable at 500Mhz which makes my 6300 rocking at 3500Mhz *rockstable*

Me, being who I am, am glad they are spending a little extra on system longevity. Too many times I have worn out a machine in 24/7 operation where flaky unexplained problems seem to accumulate over time. Typically it is something on the MB going out of whack like the capacitors or some other device. I suppose running this at stock would net you a quite reliable MB.

-LS

I get almost that much bandwidth with my 975X using G.Skill PC2-6400@ 860Mhz 4-4-4-12.