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Entered CNET Catalog: 02/18/2007
SKU: GA-M61P-S3
Manufacturer: Gigabyte Technology Co. Ltd.
Manufacturer description
Gigabyte Technology S series motherboards for AMD socket AM2 platform feature Safe and Smart Technologies. The S series motherboard GA-M61P-S3 supports AMD new generation AM2 processor with dual channel DDR2 800MHz high frequency memories, provides reliable and user friendly computing and reaches the maximum system performance easily via personalized software settings. Gigabyte S series motherboards are the champion's choice for AMD Socket AM2 platform!User opinions
Select a User Opinion to view: 1 2 3
User Rating: 
8/10
A good motherboard
Pros: Very stable board
Cons: I have none so far
Review:
User Rating: 
7/10
Good Motherboard
Pros: Stable, reliable
Cons: Not super-fast. Iffy tech support.
Review:
I am having a generally good experience with this motherboard, with the following additional notes.
Some people have complained that the board is irregularly sized. I did not have this problem. My case accommodates all sorts of motherboards, so all I had to do was to move a couple of mounting posts.
I actually preferred the smaller motherboard. It gave me more space to route ribbon cables to the floppy and the IDE drives.
Included SATA cables that snapped into place. This gave me a positive sense that my hard drive was securely attached to the motherboard. I didn?t get that with the cheap connectors they used on the SATA cables supplied with my previous motherboard, an MSI.
The supplied CD was useless for installing drivers.
Their tech support line was busy when I called at 12:30 PM on a Thursday to double-check that my first board really was DOA. Redialing got me through. They put me on hold with really awful music that constantly kept changing volume. I was on hold for only about five minutes. The technician quickly directed me to the solution to my problem. Neither the troubleshooting section of the manual nor their webpage had described the particular pattern of beeps I was getting on bootup (three long, one short, a pause, then continuous long beeps), and neither had explained (as the tech support person did explain) that a memory problem, as indicated by these beeps, would exist not only (a) if I had a bad RAM stick but also (b) if I took all of the RAM out of the system.
Their tech support website indicates that they determine warranty date based upon date of manufacture. They do not do cross-shipping under any circumstances, so if you need to replace your motherboard, they advise you to expect a turnaround time of two to three weeks ? which is, of course, ridiculous for people who actually use their computers.
Some people have complained that the board is irregularly sized. I did not have this problem. My case accommodates all sorts of motherboards, so all I had to do was to move a couple of mounting posts.
I actually preferred the smaller motherboard. It gave me more space to route ribbon cables to the floppy and the IDE drives.
Included SATA cables that snapped into place. This gave me a positive sense that my hard drive was securely attached to the motherboard. I didn?t get that with the cheap connectors they used on the SATA cables supplied with my previous motherboard, an MSI.
The supplied CD was useless for installing drivers.
Their tech support line was busy when I called at 12:30 PM on a Thursday to double-check that my first board really was DOA. Redialing got me through. They put me on hold with really awful music that constantly kept changing volume. I was on hold for only about five minutes. The technician quickly directed me to the solution to my problem. Neither the troubleshooting section of the manual nor their webpage had described the particular pattern of beeps I was getting on bootup (three long, one short, a pause, then continuous long beeps), and neither had explained (as the tech support person did explain) that a memory problem, as indicated by these beeps, would exist not only (a) if I had a bad RAM stick but also (b) if I took all of the RAM out of the system.
Their tech support website indicates that they determine warranty date based upon date of manufacture. They do not do cross-shipping under any circumstances, so if you need to replace your motherboard, they advise you to expect a turnaround time of two to three weeks ? which is, of course, ridiculous for people who actually use their computers.
User Rating: 8/10
I would recomend this to people that don't want a big CPU heatsink
Pros: Its blue, 4 ram slots onboard video and sound alot of use ports. RAID support
Cons: The caps are close the heatsink so can't use a big heat sink. Only one IDE.
Review:
I would buy this again if i wanted to water cool.It is a good motherboard with lots of over-clocking options. I am using it in my gaming computer and the only thing it needs is more space from the CPU heat-sink to the RAM and caps.I have used Asus and Bio-star also MSI and this one has the be the best.The price is low for what it has to offer.Any over-clocker or gamer that wants to water cool there CPU GPU and maybe chipset would be happy with this board.
