Gigabyte Z68X-UD4-B3 Voltage Review

[Vivi]

Heya guy's, there are already all kinds of reviews out for this board so i thought i'd try something quick and interesting. This review is mainly targeted at overclockers.

Pic's of the board ready to go:

Scope Probe's and Read points soldered behind the CPU for accuracy.









Voltage Set in BIOS vs BIOS readout vs Multi Meter readout

Looks alright. 0.02v extra on Vmem is not the most accurate.



Next up i tested all 10 levels of Load Line Calibration (LLC). For those who do no know, it is the motherboards way to counter loss of CPU voltage when the CPU go's under load.

CPU SET 1.3V in BIOS

1st Load line Disabled. (The default setting).




















:O (Don't try this at home.. or on 1.6v)



Between LLC 4/5/6 You should get your best result / stability.

Now to test the clarity of the 24 phase beast.

I used an oscilloscope to see the fluctuation in voltage being fed to the CPU and Memory. I set my scope to .010v (10mv) per division. See below. (One block on the grid = 1 division).



I used 1.3V in the bios with LLC Level 5.
Wprime was used to stress all 8 cores.
And superpi which is considered to be light weight.

VCore


What i found very strange was at full load 8 cores Wprime the stability is incredibly. But look at how demanding single threaded superpi is??

VMem




I was curious to see if changing the PWM frequency had any visual effect.

PWM AT +42%



PWM AT -24%


I don't see a huge difference.



i also checked the temperature after a few hours of load testing.
Not a big change with my low ambient and that huge heatsink.

The PWM stayed very cool.







Then i did some random testing.
I wanted to see if this board is on par with the P67A-UD4-B3 in 3Dmark2001SE.

There is a visible difference, but im sure with finer tuning the gap won't be big.
System:
2600k @ 5ghz
Gtx 275 Stock



Lastly the max BLCK i achieved.

http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=1892751





Overall a very stable board. Excellent clocker for the budget bencher.

Coolios hope you enjoyed.

[Hondacity]

1.65v bios and 1.67v actual

is not good

set it to 1.67v and what do you get? 1.69v?

does it have hyper bios support like ud5/ud7?

[Vivi]

Yea i guess it is overvolting the memory a bit which isnt good. Changed that bit.

When i bench hypers 1.78 = 1.8. So take care when benching mem at high volts

Hyper bios support? What do you mean. My hypers work good in this board but not for 32m.

[sin0822]

very nice job!!!, i was thinking about doing the same with a scope. I did the LLC report for the UD7 with all ten levels like you did, with software readings too, i wonder if the trends are the same and if LLC is the same.

[Vivi]

yea i had a look at your chart:


excellent work i recommend people check out your review aswel.

Strange that all levels on the UD7 actually drop

[Lsdmeasap]

Very cool idea man, nice work!!

[G H Z]

Interesting read, good job Vivi.

[runmc]

Interesting read, good job Vivi.

Yeah I enjoyed the read also. Thank you Vivi.
It's nice how you explain things. Always good to learn something.

[K404]

I have one of these boards but i've never used it.... some good info in here Vivi, thanks!

An oscilloscope is on my "buy" list but i'm struggling to find one at a good price

[Vivi]

Go on ebay k404! Some good prices on techtonics (some brand like that). You don't need an expensive one

[K404]

Need and want are two different things! I deffo want dual-channel and probably a PC connection for data logging and graphs

[PatRaceTin]

wow this test is deep