PCB Design and Functionality

The model name is very easy to figure out and actually speaks for itself. It describes the peculiarities of the Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6 mainboard very well. 965P stands clearly for the chipset name used as a basis for this solution. D stands for durable indicating high stability and reliability of this product. The mainboard was manufactured using only solid-state capacitors that boast a few times higher lifetime and reliability than traditional electrolytic capacitors.

However, the importance of new type of capacitors is somewhat exaggerated. It is really hard to claim that the resulting increase of the mainboard price is an indisputable advantage. Solid-state capacitors are surely more lasting, however now that the computer industry is developing in really high tempo, the standards change very rapidly and the requirements to long life-time of electronic components are not that crucial any more. It is the CPU, video card, expansion card or peripheral devices upgrade that very often forces you to replace the mainboard, and not the failure of old electronic components. Moreover, traditional capacitors may also last you for years if they are of premium quality.

As for the Q6 abbreviation, it stands for 6 Quad. Gigabyte singled out six peculiar mainboard characteristics that the number 4 can refer to and thus reflected them in the model name of the product. Among them are:

1. Quad Core Optimized – optimization for quad-core processors;
2. Quad Cooling – noiseless cooling system including Crazy Cool and Silent-Pipe technologies;
3. Quad BIOS – combination of DualBIOS and Express BIOS Rescue Technology;
4. Quad e-SATA2 – support for external SATA drives;
5. Quad Triple Phase – 12-phase processor voltage regulator circuitry;
6. Quad DDR2 Slots – four DDR2 DIMM slots onboard.

The scheme below gives you a better idea of the Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6 mainboard layout. It is almost flawless as far as the location of all electronic components is concerned.

The only thing we could probably point out is the availability of only two PCI slots, because there are two PCI Express x16 slots onboard, allowing to use two graphics cards in CrossFire mode. The memory slot clips are very close to the first graphics cards, although they are not too close. Three fan connectors seem to be too few for the top-of-the line mainboard, especially with the passive chipset cooling system installed. And these seem to be all the drawbacks we could think of in reference to the PCB layout of Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6.

As for the Silent-Pipe chipset cooling system, the South Bridge is equipped not with a heatsink but with a heat conductor. The heat from heat conductor is transferred via the heatpipe to the larger North Bridge heatsink with a thick massive sole.

Then heatpipes transfer the heat to two heatsinks located above the MOSFET transistors of the 12-phase processor voltage regulator. The heatsinks and capacitors are placed very close to the processor socket, which may cause some difficulties during certain CPU cooler models installation.