Gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L

Board Layout:

The Gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L is an ATX motherboard and while it doesn't have nearly as many features as the GA-P35-DS3S, it does resemble its layout. Four 1.8V DDR2 memory slots support DDR2-1066/800/667/533 MHz memory with a maximum capacity of 4GB. In the lower right hand corner of the GA-P31-DS3L is the Intel ICH7 Southbridge. The ICH7 provides six USB 2.0 ports, four PCI Express x1 ports, Intel 10/100 networking, four Serial ATA 2.0 ports with Intel Matrix Storage Technology, and Intel High Definition Audio. The four SATA 2.0 ports are in this area of the motherboard above the IDE connectors and there are two USB 2.0 headers.

The expansion slots on this motherboard include one PCI Express x16, three PCI Express x1, and three PCI slots. At the bottom of the motherboard below the PCI slot is the FDD connector, which is in a troubling spot but with the demise of floppy drives this shouldn't be a problem for most users.

Going north on the motherboard is the Intel P31 Chipset, which provides the single PCI Express x16 connectivity, Intel Core 2 Duo support, and support for dual channel DDR2. The P31 is not only compatible with Core 2 Duo processors but also Core 2 Quad CPUs. The GA-P35-DS3S used an elaborate "Silent Pipe 3" cooling solution on the Northbridge, but the GA-P31-DS3L just uses a small passive heatsink secured via pushpins. In the upper left hand corner of the motherboard is the 4-pin ATX12V power connector but aside from that in the area surrounding the LGA-775 socket it's free of any obstructions that would likely cause issues with larger heatsinks. At the rear of the motherboard are the PS/2, parallel, serial, four USB 2.0, one Ethernet, and six audio jacks. Some of the ASICs used on this motherboard include the ITE IT8718 I/O controller, RTL 8111B Gigabit LAN, and Realtek ALC888. While there aren't too many advanced features on this motherboard, the GA-P31-DS3L layout is clean and should present no major problems.