EDIT: SATA 3 RESULTS
I just bought my new Gigabyte X58A UD3R, which is a much better than the old UD3R, it has full 6 DDR 3 slots, more PCI-E slots and offers USB and a fully functional and bootable SATA 3 controller. Perhaps at the moment it's the best features/price motherboard on the market.
Some Specification
CPU : Intel® Socket 1366 Core™ i7 Processor Extreme Edition/Core™ i7 Processor Supports Intel® Dynamic Speed Technology, Supports new generation Intel 32nm 6-core processors
Chipset : Intel® X58 /ICH10R
Memory : 6 x DIMM, Max. 24 GB, DDR3-2000(O.C.)/1800(O.C.)/1600(O.C.)/1333/1066 Non-ECC,Un-buffered Memory, Triple channel memory architecture * Supports Intel® Extreme Memory Profile (XMP)
Expansion Slots :
1. 2 x PCI Express x16 slots, running at x16 (PCIEX16_1/PCIEX16_2)
2. 2 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x8 (PCIEX8_1/PCIEX8_2)
3. 2 x PCI Express x1 slots
4. 1 x PCI slot
Full specifications on Gigabyte webpage
Packaging
one 3xSLI connector, one 2xSLI connector, 4 Sata cables, 1 IDE cable, Driver CD with several programs for energy saving and overclocking and some manuals
Board layout
Nickel plated socket, phases and heatpipes. Nice touch thou it won't be even noticed after installing the components.
8 Phase CPU power
3 Phase memory power
1. ICH10R 6 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors
2. Marvell 9128 chip: 2 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors
3. GIGABYTE SATA2 chip : 1 x IDE ; 2 x SATA 3Gb/s
NEC chip: Up to 2 USB 3.0/2.0 ports on the back panel
Back panel
Besides the standard features it offers USB3, eSATA and Clear CMOS
Cooling
The heat sinks are not the high-end cooling solution seen on the more expensive motherboards, but you can improve the cooling very easy, by removing the blue plates gigabyte and ultra durable 3.
NOTE! Be very careful while removing the blue plates! Use a flat plastic object, stick it between the cooler and the blue plate and pull it slowly. Save the plates with the original white thermal pad for warranty.
BIOS
UD3R offers simple and easy to use BIOS, it might lack some features, but it's more than enough for the average user.
And most important you have a Dual BIOS, that means if you mess up the firs one it will be restored from the second chip.
Test Setup
Gigabyte X58A UD3R BIOS F4
Core i7 920 D0 @ 4 GHz 1.184V
Thermalright IFX-14
3x2 GB OCZ Reper 1866 @ 1910 MHz 9-9-9-28
Ati 5770
Ageia PhysX
2x500 GB Samsung F3 RAID0
Cooler Master Stacker
Windows 7 64bit Home Premium
Tests
EVEREST ULTIMATE 5.0
PRIME 95
FryBench
3dmark06
Borderlands Setup
HD Tune (does not work accurate with Marvell SATA3)
EVEREST memory benchmark
@4 GHz
@4.2 GHz
Prime 95 and other system stability tests. I wasn't able to run PRIME 95 long enough, because of the faulty LLC settings, which are Standart, Level1 and Level2. If you set anything besides Level2 you won't get very far. When I set 1.18125 in BIOS, I get 1.162 idle and 1.184 load in Windows. When I set 1.18750, again 1.162 idle, but 1.184 up to 1.200 load. I hope that with the next BIOS those problems will be fixed. Even with those problems you'll be able to overclock your CPU at about 4 GHz (depends of the CPU itself).
EDIT: After further testing, I noticed that when I set the voltages above 1.200, they are much more accurate.
Fry Render My result was 4 minutes 59 seconds, which is the same as the result from my old Rampage II Gene.
EDIT:
MARVELL 9128 vs. INTEL ICH10R
Here are the NON interesting results, since hd tune and other hdd benchmarking software wasn't working properly, I used Borderlands setup. During the installation it shows the lapsed time, time left and MB/s. The game itself is almost 7GB
2xSamsung F3 500GB
RAID 0____MB/s____total time
Intel______60______~2m. 10s.
Marvel____60______~2m. 10s.
The reason for the previous results was that i used different stripe sizes. I'm very sorry for the confusion.
On my old WD 640 black single mode the game was installed for more than 7 minutes.
What about 4.6 GHz ?
CPU-Z Validation
Conclusion
Gigabyte made a very good motherboard, featuring the latest technology USB3, SATA3 with excellent build quality. It has the same PCB as the bigger ones X58A UD5 and UD7, very good slot distribution and despite the lack of huge chipset cooler and water block it offers a descend cooling. It's very easy to install, you can put almost every big air cooler on the market, up to 3 Nvidia or Ati graphic cards. The BIOS is very easy to update and change settings and OC. There are also a lot of windows utilities for energy saving, overclocking and BIOS updates.
PROS:
+Packaging
+Board Layout
+Dual BIOS
+OC
+Price
+USB3
+Bootable SATA3
+ClrCMOS on back panel
CONS:
-Over/Undervolt issues
-Lack of Power/Reset buttons on the PCB
BANG FOR THE BUCK
Editor Award
New test results soon.
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks