Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD4-B3 (Write-Up In Progress)

[Bobsama]

Disclaimer: I'm a bit of a new at this so draw your own conclusions based on the information I will be presenting. I'll give my own thoughts, too.

Gigabyte Z68X-UD4 Review

Table of Contents

1. Motherboard Specifications
2. Pictures
3. System Setup
4. Stock Performance
5. Overclocked Performance
6. Other Performance Metrics
7. Bobsama's Conclusion

Ok, so, by now I expect most people are versed that effectively P67 + H67 = Z68. Enable in a few other technologies, like Smart Response, and you now have a new chipset that Intel can charge a few bucks extra for. To be honest, even if the chipset physically costs more, simplifying Intel's product line to just H61 (for budget configurations) and Z68 (for everything else) is actually a really good idea. I don't know about bulk chipset prices, but even if there was a few dollars difference, having the same chipset on the majority of high-end boards DOES save Gigabyte time and money when designing, manufacturing, and programming.



On a side note, please bear with me. My motherboard is headed in today.

[Bobsama]

Motherboard Specifications

Highlights
Support for LGA1155 processors
16 phase VRM
VRM indicator LEDs
4 x DDR3 DIMM slots; DDR3 1066-2133 MHz; Up to 8GB/DIMM
4 x USB 3.0 (2 on back panel, 2 on motherboard headers)
10 x SATA ports (No port sharing!!)

Expansion Slots
#1: None
#2: PCI-Express 2.0 x16
#3: PCI-Express 2.0 x1
#4: PCI-Express 2.0 x1
#5: PCI-Express 2.0 x8
#6: PCI
#7: PCI

Supports PCI-Express x16/x0 or, when the x8 slot is populated, PCI-Express x8/x8.
Supports nVidia SLI.
Supports AMD CrossFireX.
PCI slots via a PCIe-to-PCI bridge chip.

CPU
Supports Intel Celeron, Pentium, Core i3, Core i5, and Core i7 for LGA1155
LGA1155 mounting holes (Also compatible with LGA1156 coolers. Not compatible with LGA775 or LGA1366.)

Chipset
Intel Z68 Express
Allows CPU, GPU, & RAM overclocking
Also enables Intel Smart Response (SSD-caching), Intel Quick Sync Video, and Intel InTru 3D
Supports both AMD CrossFireX and nVidia SLI
Dual-BIOS feature
Uses two Marvell 88SE9172 SATA/eSATA controllers (2 SATA-III ports, 2 eSATA-III ports; no port sharing)
Uses two Etron EJ168 USB 3.0/2.0 controllers (2 USB 3.0 ports via back panel, 2 USB 3.0 ports via header)
Uses one Realtek RTL8111E NIC (10/100/1000 mbit wired NIC)
Uses one VIA VT6308 Firewire controller (2 Firewire 1394a ports; 1 via back panel, 1 via header)
Uses one Realtek ALC889 codec (S/PDIF Optical and S/PDIF Coax via back panel)
Uses one iTE IT8728 for legacy ports (PS/2 Keyboard or Mouse port via back panel, COM port via header)

Back Panel Connections
PS/2 for Keyboard or Mouse
7 x USB 2.0
2 x USB 3.0
1 x eSATA-III/USB combo
1 x eSATA-III
1 x 1394a Firewire
1 x 10/100/1000 mbit RJ-45 port
6 x Analog 3.5mm jacks (Line In, Mic In, Line Out, Side Out, Rear Out, C/SW Out)
1 x S/PDIF Optical Out (a.k.a. Toslink Out)
1 x S/PDIF Coax Out via RCA

Motherboard Header Connections
4 x Fan headers (2 for 4-pin fans, 2 for 3-pin fans)
1 x Trusted Platform Module header (for encryption chips)
1 x USB 3.0 header (for 2 USB 3.0 ports)
3 x USB 2.0 headers (for 6 USB 2.0 ports)
1 x Firewire header (for 1 Firewire 1394a port
1 x COM header (for 1 COM port)
1 x S/PDIF Optical Out header
Front-Panel Audio header (for front-panel audio connections)
Front Panel switch and LED headers

[Bobsama]

Pictures

[Bobsama]

System Setup



CPU: Intel Core i7-2600K
CPU HSF: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus; 2 x Petra's Yate Loon (low-speed); Arctic Cooling MX-2 TIM
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD4-B3
Graphics: XFX Radeon HD 5850 1GB GDDR5 (HD-585X-ZAFC)
RAM: Patriot Gamer 2 Series 2x4GB DDR3-1333 (PGD38G1333ELK)
Power Supply: Corsair TX750 (OEM: Channel Well)
Hard Drives: 1 x WD Caviar Blue 320GB SATA-II (OS); 3 x WD Raptor 150GB SATA-I in RAID 0 (games, benchmark programs)
Chassis: Lian-Li PC-K58W; stock fans
OS: Window 7 Professional x64 SP1


Benchmark Applications
SuperPi
HyperPi
LinX LinPack
WinRAR 4

Battlefield Bad Company 2
Civilization V
Either Fallout 3, Fallout:NV or Oblivion IV
Grand Theft Auto IV (including Episodes from Liberty City)
Left 4 Dead 2
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky

Also considering Flight Simulator X (or X-Plane 9), Homefront, and a few other titles.

I don't have Crysis or anything racing, though if you really want to see that, you'll have to hook me up.

I would also appreciate and would definitely run 3DMark 11 or PCMark 7. The same with the 06 versions; I have a copy of Windows XP.

The motherboard didn't survive to get past SuperPi.

[Bobsama]

Stock Performance

Reserved

[Bobsama]

Overclocked Performance

Reserved

[Bobsama]

Other Performance Metrics

Windows Experience Score (at stock):


3 x Raptor 150GB RAID 0 in HDTune:

[Bobsama]

Super PI / mod1.5 XS results


CPU (HT? Turbo?) DDR3-Freq CL-tRC-tRP-tRAS: 1M time (4M time) [32M time]

Optimized Defaults (3400Mhz, Turbo, HT, RAM OC'd), DDR3-1600 9-9-9-24:
Q8300 @ 2500MHz (Yorkfield) DDR2-800 5-5-5-16:
Q8300 @ 3000MHz (Yorkfield) DDR2-800 5-5-5-16: 23.735s (125.641s) []
Q8300 @ 3400MHz (Yorkfield) DDR2-800 5-5-5-16:
3400MHz (HT; no turbo) DDR3-1333 9-9-9-24: 11.080s (56.480s) [10m 07.081s]
3400MHz (HT; no turbo) DDR3-1600 9-9-9-24: 11.060s (55.895s) [09m 58.791s]
3400MHz (HT; Turbo) DDR3-1600 9-9-9-24: 10.670s (54.241s) [09m 42.037s*]
3500MHz (HT; no turbo) DDR3-1600 9-9-9-24: 10.670s (54.194s) [09m 42.265s]
3800MHz (HT; no turbo) DDR3-1600 9-9-9-24: 09.844s (50.247s) [09m 05.034s]
4500MHz (HT; no turbo) DDR3-1600 9-9-9-24: 08.299s (42.885s) [07m 47.887s]

[Bobsama]

Reserved

[Bobsama]

Reserved

[Bobsama]

Bobsama's Conclusion

Let's start out with a summary and I'll expand on it as necessary.

The Good
--10 SATA ports
--S/PDIF Coax and Optical outputs
--Holy black PCBs, Batman!!
--16-phase VRM

The Bad
--Intel's Turbo Boost was broken
--The two eSATA ports weren't available internally (unlike Asrock Extreme6)
--No USB 3.0 bracket or bay
--PCI-Express x16-length slots is incompatible with Lian-Li's tool-less clamp system (when using long graphics cards)

The Mediocre
--Faulty motherboard had difficulty installing or booting into Windows 7
--"Social Games" bull**** on the drivers CD

So far my biggest gripe with this package and Gigabyte's entire lineup is the fact that Gigabyte, unlike Asrock, Asus, MSI, etc., leaves out any USB 3.0 breakout. With an MSRP of $209.99, I would think that a USB 3.0 breakout would be a natural addition. Instead, we're left with an incomplete product. The package is otherwise fairly complete.

Also, apparently some stupid spyware called "Splashtop Connect" is a necessary driver in Gigabyte's book. That's simply ridiculous; it's not a driver, it's not essential, and thus it doesn't belong. Again, a $210 MSRP yet they're acting like a Dell or HP.

My favorite part of the motherboard was the 16-phase VRM and associated heatsinks. They looked pretty damn nice and never got more than warm. There was a lot of untapped potential there. I thought they're a perfect fit for most Lian-Li cases and a top choice for anything with a window. Overall system performance was good and my SuperPi times were competitive, thanks mostly to the RAID array. It's really a shame I got a bad board.

Now considering I came from a Q8300 with 6GB DDR2, I just couldn't justify the hefty price for what was really a minimal upgrade in gaming. I did get to play a few games in between reinstalling Windows and troubleshooting. I didn't notice any spectacular improvements. I guess that's to be expected, though. My cooling wasn't quite up to par and considering that it's summer and I'm without air conditioning, I think my overclocking was limited more by weather.

The last thing to note is that Intel Turbo Boost was quite broken it seems. As you can see in my SuperPi benchmarks, the Turbo multiplier was only +1x so I have to knock Gigabyte for that. The last BIOS update was a month ago so Gigabyte's not particularly keen on fixing Turbo it seems. They could have at least did an incremental update (F6.1 or something) but they've not even bothered.

[massman]

reserved for positive comment

[tom1]

nice start follow you

[Bobsama]

Alright I received the package. A little worse for wear but I'll find out if it works in a short while. I'm going to tear down the Q8300 box and replace its guts with the 2600K.

[Bobsama]

Update: added some overclocking results. Not yet benchmarked but that's coming this week.

[hot120]

Thanks! Looking forward to the rest. Ordering this MB next week to go along with my new 2600k I bought from IRE.

[kokomiscool]

looking foward for the bench...

[Bobsama]

Thanks! Looking forward to the rest. Ordering this MB next week to go along with my new 2600k I bought from IRE.

Be a little careful. I also updated my conclusion (I'm doing that part mostly on hands-on experience and then will have some remarks concerning performance) and one of the big gripes was that this motherboard (or maybe this chipset? I don't have another Cougar Point board to test) seems to dislike Windows 7. Both booting from hard drive and from DVD hasn't been great. I'm hoping that there's a Gigabyte rep who's looking at this and can help with a new/improved BIOS.

It almost feels like like this motherboard is 90% for looks and 10% for functionality. My overclocks were actually pretty terrible; the 4.8GHz (4C/8T) booted but crashed a few minutes later. The 4.9GHz (4C/4T) was a suicide shot followed by a reboot. The 5.0GHz (4C/4T) was a 4.5GHz boot and then EasyTune6 to a 50x multiplier. I validated and the machine literally crashed before Firefox completely loaded the web validation.

And in its defense, I'm without air conditioning and just using the CM Hyper 212+ with the stock fan. I did turn up fan speeds but that didn't do much. Though I also have to point out that, for those overclocks, I did disable GSATA, eSATA, all USB 3.0, audio, LAN, and all CPU protection and energy-saving measures.

The other thing that I found odd was that BIOS wouldn't read or maybe even give >1.38 VCore. When I set 1.44V, the readout said 1.38V. Maybe it got the add'l voltage but I couldn't easily tell. Regardless, the 4.5GHz OC seemed stable but I have had difficulty since the 5GHz validation to even setup the BIOS. It's like the motherboard has good hours and bad days. Pissed me off it does.

As for the benching, I know what I'll do for overclocked settings. Turbo off and probably 4.5-4.8GHz clock. I was trying for CPU-Z validation prior; Prime95 wasn't run. However, for stock settings, should I just run it at 3.4GHz w/o turbo, 3.4GHz w/ default turbo, or 3.8GHz w/o turbo? All three have merits.

[Leeghoofd]

You should test stock clocks for future comparisons with other boards regarding efficiency...(if you ever feel doing more boards)

I would want to know if the turbo kicks in to 3.8Ghz if you run eg superpi 32M when running above 1333Mhz multiplier... Plz run a Superpi 1m and 32M (no tweaks ) with rams at 1600Mhz 8-8-8-24 so I can compare with the boards I have here...

EDIT : just saw you have 1333Mhz rams, then it will be fine... ( darn man you are missing some big performance due to them slow rams )

[Bobsama]

If you can give me a complete timings readout, I'll happily try those settings and give my RAM a little voltage.

By default, only one core gets 3.8ghz, a second 3.7, a third 3.6, and a fourth 3.5. To do a SuperPi run, I could just disable a couple cores and HT for a max OC but that'd be inconsistent with the other benchmarks.

[Leeghoofd]

that is indeed what it's supposed to do... Plz load optimised defaults in the bios, set ram to 1600Mhz ( if your set can do that ) and then run a Superpi 1m and 32m and report the scores here... it's not a matter of efficiency or fastest score. I just want to know if the turbo work according Intel specs on the UD4 (it didn't on my UD5 nor my UD3H without manual intervention in the bios)

so load optimised defaults, up ram divider to 1600 (9-9-9-27 ) and run the bench... disabling or co not required...

[Bobsama]

that is indeed what it's supposed to do... Plz load optimised defaults in the bios, set ram to 1600Mhz ( if your set can do that ) and then run a Superpi 1m and 32m and report the scores here... it's not a matter of efficiency or fastest score. I just want to know if the turbo work according Intel specs on the UD4 (it didn't on my UD5 nor my UD3H without manual intervention in the bios)

so load optimised defaults, up ram divider to 1600 (9-9-9-27 ) and run the bench... disabling or co not required...

Well here's the initial stuff; I'll update this shortly.

EDIT: Results moved into the Performance section.

[Leeghoofd]

thx for the input, just load optimised defaults, no need to disable HTnor turbo it's auto set...

[Bobsama]

thx for the input, just load optimised defaults, no need to disable HTnor turbo it's auto set...

Optimized Defaults actually don't work (reliably) for me. I have disabled GSATA, eSATA, all USB 3.0, Firewire, and LAN. The CPU and memory settings are on Auto (unless otherwise noted). I'm including these add'l settings just as comparison since I too am curious about the impact each has.

Turbo was enabled for the last round. I'm about to start the benchmarks for 3.5GHz no-turbo.

[Leeghoofd]

a ful functioning 2600K with turbo arrives at 9.9Sec 1M and around the 9 min mark with 32M... plz download the Intel Turbo monitor and you prolly will see the CPU only goes up to 3500mhz iso 3800mhz... or to get the turbo working enable the C states ( they are on auto atm )