Gigabyte X38-DQ6 Features

With DDR3 memory kits often selling at $400 or more, for the X38-DQ6 Gigabyte has decided to focus on DDR2 memory rather that the considerably more expensive DDR3. Honestly as performance enthusiasts we were a little disappointed when we first heard of this move, but as realists we also can understand Gigabyte’s reasoning with this strategy – clearly DDR3 is selling for a significant premium over today’s high-speed DDR2 modules, and while low-latency DDR3-1333 modules do offer a performance improvement over equivalent DDR2, it’s not worth paying twice as much, particularly when you consider that most gamers game at resolutions of 1600x1200 or greater with the eye candy cranked up to the max. Under these conditions, you’re not going to see any difference between DDR2 or DDR3 memory as you’re GPU-limited. From what we’ve heard, DDR3 isn’t expected to achieve price parity with DDR2 until sometime in 2009, so it could be awhile before DDR3 really takes off with the general public.

However, for enthusiasts who absolutely crave performance, and don’t mind paying a premium for DDR3, Gigabyte will also offer the X38T-DQ6 which supports DDR3 memory, we’ve been told that the first X38T-DQ6 motherboards should be hitting US shores sometime next week. Functionally it’s identical to the motherboard we’re evaluating today, with the obvious difference being DDR3 versus DDR2 memory support.

Gigabyte has designed the X38-DQ6 to be a performer. Gigabyte boasts full support for 1600MHz FSB operation, as well as DDR2-1066 speeds, even though the X38 chipset doesn’t technically support these features.

Gigabyte achieves these speeds by basically overbuilding the X38-DQ6 board. For instance the board features 12-phase power circuitry and all-solid Japanese capacitors. Gigabyte has also redesigned their SilentPipe cooling on the system chipset and power circuitry for improved cooling performance. The new SilentPipe cooler is composed entirely of copper and uses heat pipe cooling on both the North and South Bridge of the chipset as well as the MOSFETs powering the CPU. On the underside of the motherboard Gigabyte places their Crazy Cool cooling.


Crazy Cool is comprised of copper heatsinks that sit directly underneath the CPU/North Bridge, as well as the South Bridge of the chipset. By placing heatsinks underneath these hotspots on the motherboard, additional heat is transferred off the motherboard and transferred directly to your system case. In theory, this should help to keep board temps, as well as the temps of these specific components down. It’s a nice idea that actually works, but the problem is this can make mounting some aftermarket CPU coolers more difficult, as some of these coolers require brackets that sit underneath the CPU to hold the CPU cooler in place. If this is the case for your particular CPU cooler, one solution we’ve found is simply to go by your local hardware store and pick up longer screws.


As one of Gigabyte’s 6-Quad boards, the X38-DQ6 is loaded with features. You’ve obviously got the standard 6-Quad features including quad-core CPU support and quad DDR2 slots, which are standard fare on any X38 motherboard. On top of that Gigabyte adds features that are unique to their boards such as quad cooling (SilentPipe and Crazy Cool) as well as Quad eSATA 2 ports, Quad triple-phase power (12 phases total allowing the X38-DQ6 to deliver a steady flow of power to the CPU at even the most extreme clock speeds), and Quad BIOS. With this feature Gigabyte provide two distinct BIOS chips on their X38-DQ6 motherboard (one BIOS is the primary while the second chip serves as a backup BIOS) as well as a third copy of the board’s BIOS that you can recover from on CD, while a fourth copy can be saved to your system’s hard drive.