Gigabyte X58A-UD7 running review

[cirthix]

i can confirm that a megahalem mounted such that the fan is blowing up (in a normal-oriented atx case) and pushing air through the heatsink will fit, but not wtih overly thick (38mm) fans. a normal 1" thick fan will fit properly.

[HuffPCair]

So if you do not water cool you are stuck with a waterblock on the NB??

[Mungri]

So if you do not water cool you are stuck with a waterblock on the NB??

No, that big cooling card thing plugs into it.

One question I have - with the cooling block installed, can the second PCI-E 1x slot fit a Creative Titanium sized card?

[Katanai]

No, that big cooling card thing plugs into it.

One question I have - with the cooling block installed, can the second PCI-E 1x slot fit a Creative Titanium sized card?

Sadly no, with the heatpipe installed you can not fit in those PCIE 1x slots.



They could have done better than that, I don't see why a northbridge sink should block two slots.
And I really don't know why it doesn't have a bit that fits in that top PCIE x1 slot if its sitting on top of it.
That would have made mounting it on a table 10 times easier...

You can fit that card in the lowest PCIE slot though, if you don't plan on going SLI or Crossfire...

[punx223]

Sadly no, with the heatpipe installed you can not fit in those PCIE 1x slots.



They could have done better than that, I don't see why a northbridge sink should block two slots.
And I really don't know why it doesn't have a bit that fits in that top PCIE x1 slot if its sitting on top of it.
That would have made mounting it on a table 10 times easier...

You can fit that card in the lowest PCIE slot though, if you don't plan on going SLI or Crossfire...

yeah with the supplemental air cooler installed it blocks access to the 1x slots.

but this is one helluva beefy cooling solution, i think im gonna test it first without the supplemental cooler attached as im betting it will still stay plenty cool.

[fritzman]

Subscribed! Gotta get me one of these.

Looking forward to more guys.

[Guppster]

I am building a computer with Gigabyte X58A-UD7.
I want to know whats the best power supply to use.
I am useing thermaltake SwordM (VD500LBNA)

[Katanai]

I am building a computer with Gigabyte X58A-UD7.
I want to know whats the best power supply to use.
I am useing thermaltake SwordM (VD500LBNA)

I have a Corsair HX750. Two of my colleagues also got it after I purchased it. It's the best power supply out there imo. If you don't need a modular one the TX750 is also good...

[Solid Snake]

Wow thanks for your review man

[thegamer36]

I am really considering this board. What size are the nozzles on the NB waterblock? Are they removable and can they be replaced with compression fittings?

Thanks.

[fritzman]

My UD7 should arrive today... sadly, I have to wait a few more days for the IFX-14 to arrive, but at least I can drool over it until then!

Keep any settings/hints coming... really appreciate what you've done so far.

[FeRaL]

I am really considering this board. What size are the nozzles on the NB waterblock? Are they removable and can they be replaced with compression fittings?

Thanks.

3/8" and they are not removable. Your best bet would be to get an acrylic sheet and make your own top.

[gup133]

Hi mates!
If I use waterblock on chipset Have I use heatsink too (I have an I7 920@4400 at 1,30 - 211x21)? do you think 200-210 of bclk can be reached using only wb and not the heatsink?

Thank you all.

[lowfat]

Sadly no, with the heatpipe installed you can not fit in those PCIE 1x slots.



They could have done better than that, I don't see why a northbridge sink should block two slots.
And I really don't know why it doesn't have a bit that fits in that top PCIE x1 slot if its sitting on top of it.
That would have made mounting it on a table 10 times easier...

You can fit that card in the lowest PCIE slot though, if you don't plan on going SLI or Crossfire...

Ya the HSF is pretty poorly designed that is for sure. I am thinking about taking the NB heatsink assembly off of my dead EX58-UD5. That way I can at least use one of the PCIe slots. The top slot is about 99% useless no matter on the cooling though. The only card that I've ever seen been able to fit there is a x1 PCIe eSATA card.

Hi mates!
If I use waterblock on chipset Have I use heatsink too (I have an I7 920@4400 at 1,30 - 211x21)? do you think 200-210 of bclk can be reached using only wb and not the heatsink?

Thank you all.

Easy.

[Katanai]

Ya the HSF is pretty poorly designed that is for sure. I am thinking about taking the NB heatsink assembly off of my dead EX58-UD5. That way I can at least use one of the PCIe slots. The top slot is about 99% useless no matter on the cooling though. The only card that I've ever seen been able to fit there is a x1 PCIe eSATA card.

Maybe this would fit:



It's one of our wireless cards.

Still I didn't buy this board for slot placement. I could see it's poor from the start. I wanted something really easy to watercool and in a month or two I think I will be able to see if it's just that...

[nossy23]

I'm planning to get this MB, but stilll have the following question:


- I'm not going to use watercooling, and I will be using the Noctua NH-D14 cpu cooler on a i7 920. I know with this cooler one can also not use the extra passive cooling on the MB because it won't fit together with the Noctua.



--> Is it still realistic to aim for 4 Ghz without watercooling and no extra Silent Pipe installed?

[fritzman]

I'm planning to get this MB, but stilll have the following question:


- I'm not going to use watercooling, and I will be using the Noctua NH-D14 cpu cooler on a i7 920. I know with this cooler one can also not use the extra passive cooling on the MB because it won't fit together with the Noctua.



--> Is it still realistic to aim for 4 Ghz without watercooling and no extra Silent Pipe installed?

I don't think you're going to have any problem... 4.0Ghz is not a huge overclock for the 920, and as such, you should not be needing to play with much board voltage at all... mainly just the cpu. I would say as long as you have good air movement through your case, you should be just fine.

[dricks]

Hi,
I bought an UD7 two weeks ago to complete a i7 975 configuration.

So, here are my thought after two weeks : this motherboard is really ed up. Yup.
Explanations...
Full test config :
Gigabyte X58A-UD7
CPU I7 975
Cooler : Noctua NH-U12P-SE2
RAM : CORSAIR C7 1600Mhz (3x2GB)
Power : Seasonic X-750 Gold
Graphics : 2x 8800GTX (SLI)
Sound : Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS PCI (but.....)

1/ Impressions :
Looks solid at first look. Nice colors, and sounds promising looking at its features.
I bought this MB instead of any other high price X58 (almost every high priced ones are around 300€) because it had 2 E-SATA. Glad to see them on the back.

2/ Positionning :
I'm using an air cooling solution, so a very bad point for it are the 2 PCIEx 1x which aren't usable because they are on the way of the chipset's heavy passive cooler.
Moreover, the usable PCIEx 16x ports for dual slot SLI cards are port 1 and 3, which makes the PCI port unusable. My Audigy ZS had to stay away

Only one PCIex 16x port is left after installing the cards, which is a lot less than my previous motherboard (an Asus Striker Extreme), on which i was able to install the sound card and still had a free PCIEx 1x available.

3/ BIOS Setup
As a lucky owner of an I7 975 EE, my first action was to look in the bios in order to fix the multiplier i want.
Yeah, but the BIOS won't let me go over x26 (base clock is x25 on the 975)
x26?! WTF?
I turn OFF turbo boost technology and put x26. The Turbo Boost went ON again by himself. WTF?
I turn it OFF again, and the multiplier back to x25 by himself.
WTF...?

After a few try, i gave up on this.
Time to test those ESATA ports.

I have two external drive, and on my previous rig they were at a solid 50MB/s each on those ports, so i had high expectations on those ones.
Disappointment.
It took me at least 15 minutes only to get them recognized. Cold plug, hot plug, nothing seems to work. Sometimes, one of the two was shows up, but not the other.
I luckily managed to have them both (how? don't know) and then boot up.
I had to transfer almost 500GB of data from the first Drive to the Other.
I launched the copy, and watched TV.

Two hours later, i went on the PC to see how it goes... The copy was hanging, still saying 'Copy in progress', but no progression left. I stopped it, but the HDD LED were still active.
Decided to reboot, but on reboot, the LED were still on?
WTF??!
Had to unplug the power cable to stop that.

Back to windows, all the files were on the disk, but 2 out of 3 were corrupted, while they were still fine on the source external drive.
So i decided to gave up on the ESATA, and used both USB instead.
Bye bye 50MB/s
And USB gave me an average 18MB/s

This time, the copy finished right but took a hell of a time (18MB/s for 500GB, takes a looooooong time... )
The JMicron controller in charge for ESATA has a bad reputation for good reasons as it seems.

So, to sum up : buggy BIOS, instable Jmicron controller, bad PCI ports positionning.
That's the most expensive card i ever bought (the striker extreme was at 240€ when i bought it, this one is at 300€) and also the worse ever.

I saw that F3 Beta bios are available, but i will wait for a final version to upgrade.
But still, i'm very very very disappointed on this one. Perhaps Gigabyte should put less functionnality but at a higher quality level.

[flopper]

took several months for the ud5 board to get good bios.
early adopters might get a lot of issues.

[Supershanks]

Great review punx223

took several months for the ud5 board to get good bios.
early adopters might get a lot of issues.

Bios has been good on this from day1, even with shipping bios.

Just got a few updates to mine

Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD7 Living Review:

1) Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD7 - The naked truth


2) Voltage Measuring Points


3) 4.4Ghz 21x210 Ram x8 1,680Mhz 7-7-7-19

[fritzman]

Hey thanks for those Clunk links... they have full BIOS settings for a good range of bclks from around 3.8 up... awesome for us guys on air!

[Zayras]

- I'm not going to use watercooling, and I will be using the Noctua NH-D14 cpu cooler on a i7 920. I know with this cooler one can also not use the extra passive cooling on the MB because it won't fit together with the Noctua.

I don't think you're going to have any problem... 4.0Ghz is not a huge overclock for the 920, and as such, you should not be needing to play with much board voltage at all... mainly just the cpu. I would say as long as you have good air movement through your case, you should be just fine.

So does the NH-D14 really not fit in with the gigantic heatsink? I'm really considering this or the UD5, but if it doesn't fit then is there any reason (other than higher power phase) to go for the UD7?

BTW does your IFX fit with the passive heatsink fritzman? If so how tight is the spacing?


Thanks guys, but I ended up answering my own question, it does fit. For anyone worried about clearance issues it will fit horizontally, but not vertically. See this vid to see what I mean and just how much space you'll have: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWlVcVcYT3g