GA-X58A-UD5 Revision 2.0 the MOST in Depth Review/ Analysis

[sin0822]

The iTE IT8275E is a fairly new chip and there is no information on it that I can find other than it’s another super I/O controller, Gigabyte has confirmed that this chip controls Phase switching on this board.

When you open the Dynamic Energy Saver program you can see this chip in action, switching off phases when un-needed and then when full power is needed seeing both sets of eight phases roar.


Note: While I was researching this IC I found so many different claims of this chip, all stated that this chip is very new and that they do not know, or it controls floppy drive, or that is helps with ram voltage controller. Distance of the traces is a big deal when it comes to motherboards, basically you want the shortest traces you can get because you have to deal with more resistance with more distance, and thus you need more voltage. So a floppy drive controller wouldn’t be on the exact opposite side of the board. Now let’s move to the ram controller claim, first off you do not need a super I/O chip to control ram power, the trace they saw going from this chip to the ram controller was probably part of the system that determines how many/what color LEDs to turn on, traces to CPU and NB would be on one of the internal layers of PCB. The iTE chip that monitors voltages and temperatures DOES NOT monitor Wattage or phase load, which is the task of the Interstill Chip, so this iTE mini Super I/O chips would monitor the monitoring controllers. (Kind of like a second supervisor)

Next we move onto the LC4032V which is a Super High Speed CPLD logic device, basically a programmable microchip this chip obviously controls the POST display that tells us what part of the boot up process the board is going through. It is located right next to the POST DEBUG LED and is a very handy tool.


When you fail to boot you will hang on a code, and then you can cross reference that code to the manual and find out what is failing and causing you not to boot. The UD3R and USB3 are the only X58A boards in the line that do not have this feature. I would like to mention that after you set overclock settings the board will cycle through to post “C1” multiple times, this isn’t a boot loop it’s more like the board checking itself over and over making sure it can correctly POST, so do not be alarmed. After overclocking failed this board is excellent, I never have to use the CMOS clear button. I will hit the power button, it will turn off for a few seconds then power back on say OC failed, BUT all my OC settings that if failed with are there! That is a huge relief because everyone knows it’s a pain resetting all the frequencies and voltages, sometimes you just forget certain ones and then you have to guess. I should also mention that after it POSTs fine, and you are still overclocked, it will just go through POST cycle once, and not go to C1 code 3+ times to check itself.

Here we have Gigabyte’s Dual Bios (2x 16Mbit Flash). This feature is one that is now found on almost every board, but it is very handy.


When the main BIOS fails for any reason or corrupts, the backup BIOS is supposed to kick in and re-flash the main bios after you have successfully booted on the backup bios. The main bios also updates the backup bios after successful boot as well. This feature ensures bios redundancy so in situations where a naughty in windows bios flash fails you have some type of protection short of the warranty. For safety of the system, you cannot access the backup bios unless the main bios fails. I do not recommend to anyone to flash in windows, but if you must do so make sure you use @bios with a downloaded bios file and system at stock. Make sure that you do not update from server as that might fail. In windows bios flashing is downright risky on any board. Please use the in bios flashing tool, all you have to do is load the bios onto a USB drive, put it in the right USB slot and hit the “end” button when you’re in the bios. AWARD BIOS is very common now, and has the same look it has always had since the 90s. I just want to mention that this board is PnP1.0a, DMI 2.0, SM BIOS 2.4, and ACPI 1.0b compliant.