Testing
 

Intel E6600 (Tested up to 4.5GHz)

The EP35-DS3P was a pleasure to connect and assemble. Everything was easily accessible and there were no obstructions. The SATA ports are spread out enough that you'll have something to use if you have two large ATI Radeon cards. As the board was configured and BIOS options set, the board seemed to know when to reboot and report back when things didn't go as planned.

CPUZ

Mainboard

Memory SPD

The BIOS is pretty well organized. I like that the BIOS has one page that combines all the features commonly used to change CPU, memory, and voltage settings. The M.I.T. (Motherboard Intelligent Tweaker) page is where this is all found including all the settings needed to manually, or automatically overclock. Several of the settings can ramp up VGA, BUS, and memory performance automatically.

Info	Integrated Peripherals	Advanced Features
M.I.T. Settings	PC Health	Voltages

During the software installation of the platform, I ran in to a couple of issues which were more bothersome than impossible to get around. First off, after the OS was set up and the motherboard driver disc was inserted, the installation program prompts you to automatically or manually install all the drivers on the CD. Some of the drivers will be useful to most people, but some of them aren't necessary and at least can be unchecked to avoid installation.

Flawless Graphics Support

One of the drivers that has caused some havoc for some others out there as well as the test system is the UAA (Unified Audio Architecture) Bus Driver for High Definition Audio (KB888111) file. After installing the file, when I tried installing Realtek audio driver from the disc, it kept reporting that it could not find or detect the integrated ALC889A Realtek Codec. The "Unknown Device" would not properly detect which was caused by a glitch between the UAA and Codec. The work around involved manually removing/uninstalling the UAA entry from the Device Manager and registry in Safe Mode.

So, to save many users any headache till Realtek gets a handle on this issue, don't install the UAA Bus Driver (KB888111) from the disc. I was able to confirm that skipping this UAA patch during driver installation worked without issue. The audio worked fine at all times.

For testing confirmation purposes, two Gigabyte ATI Radeon HD 3870 cards were installed which worked perfectly. However, the cards wouldn't properly operate on the ASUS Blitz Formula in CrossfireX, but would work individually. After hours and hours of BIOS updates, CMOS resets, double, quadruple checking, the issue just couldn't be remedied. Despite my efforts, the system would proceed to boot but without any video in CrossfireX. This is the only odd incompatibility issue to surface with the Formula thus far and hopefully be fixed.

ATI Radeon HD 3870 CrossfireX Success

All in all, there weren't any graphic card issues whether it be ATI or NVidia based graphics cards on the EP35-DS3P platform. Gigabyte did tell us they would double check their cards on their end just in case. But, all signs point to the Blitz Formula having some sort of issue since the cards have worked on other CrossfireX motherboards just fine. So, this is naturally a pleasing result that Gigabyte keeps up on things from there end.

As per my current standard, the Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3P platform was tested all around for its features and capabilities. For graphics performance verification, the system was tested at resolutions of 1680 x 1050 with all 3D applications set to the highest settings. The graphics drivers were left to the default High Quality settings.

There are no surprises here between the two platforms. Scores were so close, it was almost pointless trying to differentiate between them. All the screen shots could easily be confused for the other as the 3D tests finished. These are definitely very cable gaming platforms.

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