Verdict: Too expensive and too gimmicky

Gigabyte probably makes the widest range of motherboards based on the same chipset, and its P965 range includes bargain basement models such as the GA-965P-DS3, and high-end models such as this GA-965P-DQ6.

The GA-965P-DQ6 takes the 'throw in everything, including the kitchen sink' approach. The guiding philosophy of the GA-965P-DQ6 is its '6-quad scheme', which refers to six quad-themed features. These are four DIMM sockets, four eS-ATA II ports, quad BIOS (a system that allows for four backup copies of the BIOS), quad triple-phase power and quad cooling. The latter refers to the heatsinks and heatpipes that snake their way across the PCB in order to keep the Northbridge, Southbridge and VRMs cool. It's also, apparently, quad-core CPU-ready.

The Northbridge is the Intel P965, while the Southbridge is the Intel ICH8R, so it doesn't support SLI or CrossFire. However, it has six RAID-capable S-ATA II ports, plus another two RAID-capable S-ATA II ports courtesy of a Gigabyte-branded controller. A pair of adaptors to convert four of these into eS-ATA II ports is also included. The 8-channel Intel HD Audio chip can output through a set of analogue jacks, or coaxial and optical S/PDIF outputs. As the GA-965P-DQ6 is a full-sized ATX motherboard, in addition to the one 16x PCI-E slot, it has two PCI slots and three 1x PCI-E slots, plus a single full-length 4x PCI-E slot, although, at the time of writing, this doesn't support CrossFire.

The GA-965P-DQ6 proved to be a respectable performer at its stock settings but, despite the wide range of voltage controls on its BIOS, we could only overclock the FSB of our test Core 2 Duo CPU from 266MHz to 300MHz, which is a long way short of the frequency achieved by other P965 motherboards. This is strange, because by dropping the CPU multiplier from 10 to 6, we could overclock the FSB to 370MHz.

At £137, the GA-965P-DQ6 is fiendishly expensive for a P965 motherboard, but the high price isn't justified. It's a poor overclocker and, despite the glut of gimmicky extras, it lacks genuinely useful additions, such as wireless LAN

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