I am concerned about the PCB size of the DS3R board and the BIOS of all P35 boards for the Gigabyte and I'm comparing this to the Abit boards.
I have the impression that we still have to use floppies for our Bios updates!!! Is this true? I think the recommendation is to use Q-Flash. Is that right? Just an aside: I think it's incredible that we still have to use floppies. I have read several times of warnings and recommending to *NOT* use Windows type programs for updating the BIOS (e.g. @BIOS).
What does it mean for the hardware for the smaller PCB on the DS3R? I assume that Gigabyte cut corners with the DS3R board and I might have asked this question before. Sorry, if I did but I cannot recall the response or answer. I am now comparing the DS4 (which seems to be slightly below the DQ6 but is probably as good) and the Abit IP35 Pro. The DS3P and DS4 board has the larger PCB. How does their PCBs compare to the Abit IP35 Pro's? These boards are around the same price and I am undecided since the DS4 has only two PCI slots but has 8 SATA ports v.s. 6 on the Abit. It also has the better PCI-E-based ethernet rather than Abit's ethernet based on the PCI bus.
Can anyone assess these differences and recommend one way or the other?
Edit: I just discovered the DS4 is about $5 more than the Abit IP35 Pro (around the same $$). Not sure if that has any bearing on any recommendations or how I should assess. ;-)
I have the impression that we still have to use floppies for our Bios updates!!! Is this true? I think the recommendation is to use Q-Flash. Is that right? Just an aside: I think it's incredible that we still have to use floppies. I have read several times of warnings and recommending to *NOT* use Windows type programs for updating the BIOS (e.g. @BIOS).
What does it mean for the hardware for the smaller PCB on the DS3R? I assume that Gigabyte cut corners with the DS3R board and I might have asked this question before. Sorry, if I did but I cannot recall the response or answer. I am now comparing the DS4 (which seems to be slightly below the DQ6 but is probably as good) and the Abit IP35 Pro. The DS3P and DS4 board has the larger PCB. How does their PCBs compare to the Abit IP35 Pro's? These boards are around the same price and I am undecided since the DS4 has only two PCI slots but has 8 SATA ports v.s. 6 on the Abit. It also has the better PCI-E-based ethernet rather than Abit's ethernet based on the PCI bus.
Can anyone assess these differences and recommend one way or the other?
Edit: I just discovered the DS4 is about $5 more than the Abit IP35 Pro (around the same $$). Not sure if that has any bearing on any recommendations or how I should assess. ;-)