Gigabyte GA-X79-UD3 Review
by Ian Cutress on December 26, 2011 4:37 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Gigabyte
- X79
- Sandy Bridge E
Board Features
As mentioned previously, the abundance of SATA 6 Gbps ports is nice to see, especially in comparison to the competition. We have a high end Realtek codec, and Intel NIC as well. Gigabyte still insist on putting a Trusted Platform Module on their boards, but as I learned in a previous Gigabyte review, this is because Gigabyte have had positive feedback from customers who use this functionality. We are missing though some onboard power/reset/clear CMOS buttons which would make testing and error checking easier on all fronts.
| Gigabyte GA-X79-UD3 | |
| Size | ATX |
| CPU Interface | LGA2011 |
| CPU Support | Intel Second Generation Core i7 Sandy Bridge E |
| Chipset | Intel X79 |
| Base Clock Frequency | 100.0 MHz |
| Core Voltage | Default, 0.8 V to 1.735 V |
| CPU Clock Multiplier | Auto, 12x to 59x |
| DRAM Voltage | Auto, 1.1 V to 2.1 V |
| DRAM Command Rate | Auto, 1N to 3N |
| Memory Slots |
Four DDR3 DIMM slots supporting up to 32 GB Up to Quad Channel Support for DDR3, 800-3200 MHz |
| Expansion Slots |
2 x PCIe Gen 3 x16 2 x PCIe Gen 3 x8 2 x PCIe x1 2 x PCI |
| Onboard SATA/RAID |
2 x SATA 6 Gbps, Support for RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 4 x SATA 3 Gbps, Support for RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 4 x SATA 6 Gbps, Support for RAID 0, 1 |
| Onboard |
4 x SATA 3 Gbps (PCH) 6 x SATA 6 Gbps (2 PCH, 4 Controller) 5 x Fan Headers 1 x 4-pin Molex CFX/SLI Power Connector 1 x HDMI_SPDIF Header 1 x Front Panel Header 1 x Front Panel Audio Header 3 x USB 2.0 Headers 1 x USB 3.0 Header 1 x Serial Port Header 1 x Trusted Platform Module Header |
| Onboard LAN | Intel Gigabit 82579V |
| Onboard Audio |
Realtek ALC898 7.1 Ch HD, Supports Dolby Home Theater |
| Power Connectors |
1 x 24-pin ATX connector 1 x 8-pin 12V connector |
| Fan Headers |
1 x CPU Fan Header 4 x SYS Headers |
| IO Panel |
1 x PS/2 Mouse Port 1 x PS/2 Keyboard Port 1 x Optical S/PDIF Out Port 1 x Coaxial S/PDIF Out Port 8 x USB 2.0 2 x USB 3.0 2 x eSATA 6 Gbps 1 x Gigabit Ethernet Audio Jacks |
| BIOS Version | F5 |
| Warranty Period | 3 Years from date of manufacture |
In The Box
IO Shield
Manual
Driver CD
4 x SATA Cables
Long SLI Cable
Long CFX Cable
3-way SLI Bridge
4-way SLI Bridge
Gigabyte typically are not all encompassing with their box contents - previous boards I have reviewed tend to have the bare minimum (IO shield, manual, CD, 2 SATA cables, perhaps more). In this case, we have more cables, and an array of SLI connectors for the multi-GPU enthusiast. Perhaps this is more what Gigabyte are aiming with the UD3?
Software
Gigabyte software over the past 12 months has not changed much - we still have EasyTune6 with basic OC functionality and a limited series of fan controls (when compared to their main competitors that can set dual ramping); Smart6 with various BIOS functionality, QuickBoost, QuickBoot, Timelock and SmartRecovery2; and @BIOS for updating the BIOS. Rather than go through them again, I will direct you to our previous reviews [1,2].
What is new though, is 3DPower. In essence, it is a very basic utility that allows a user to adjust the power delivery to the PWM on the board for power saving or on-the-fly overclocking. The software is a bit slow and unresponsive, and the majority of consumers will not understand what the options mean. However, it is there if a user wants it.
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sor - Wednesday, December 28, 2011 - link
I've had three different motherboards with realtek 8111 nics on them, all of them regularly had issues where the link would go to 100mbit or drop out altogether, which required disabling the device and then reenabling it/reinstalling the driver... almost daily. Granted, this was with Linux and the driver might not be up to par (though I used the one from Realtek's website after having issues, with no improvement), but since it's what I use at home and at work I much prefer the reliability of the Intel NIC and drivers.ET6 - Saturday, December 31, 2011 - link
You do need to have more than one Ethernet NIC on the physical computer if you are going to install Virtual Machines. For example, you could install Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V first. You could then install several VMs; one running Windows 7 with Media Center for media transcoding and content display; one running Windows Home Server 2011 as a media server etc; and maybe a third running Windows SQL Server 2008 or Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010.You need a dedicated NIC for all network communications with the management operating system incuding remote access to the Hyper-V role. The management operating system runs the Hyper-V role. This NIC should be different than any mapped to VMs.
Need at least one other Ethernet NIC to provide Virtual Machine access to an external virtual network.
Now you might have reason for 32 or 64 Gig of RAM.
zanon - Monday, December 26, 2011 - link
I had thought that at this point most manufacturers would finally be moving to EFI, and that that was an important part of enabling some of these more modern GUI configs. However, you don't mention EFI at all, so does that mean these are still using legacy BIOS, just further hacked on? Or are you using "BIOS" in some generic sense? If it's the former then that's both too bad and somewhat interesting, wonder what the hold up is. If it's the latter it's confusing, please stop immediately and don't do it again.tpi2009 - Monday, December 26, 2011 - link
If you read the screenshots in the second page of this review you'll find your answer.zanon - Tuesday, December 27, 2011 - link
The screenshots say alternatively "3D BIOS", "Dual UEFI BIOS", "BIOS Features" and "UEFI DualBIOS" with the article itself never referring to EFI at all. Awesome clarity and consistency there! Does "Dual" mean that it has both EFI and BIOS? Are the selectable, or is there some sort of automatic switching, or what? Or is it just stupid confusing naming?Death666Angel - Tuesday, December 27, 2011 - link
BIOS is used as a synonym for UEFI afaict. "Dual" refers to Gigabytes use of 2 BIOS chips, meaning you cannot brick it with a BIOS flash gone wrong (though I haven't seen one of those in years).AstroGuardian - Monday, December 26, 2011 - link
I can't notice any performance difference from the graphs. How can you notice and how can you make such a poor verdict?RamarC - Monday, December 26, 2011 - link
it wasn't a low rating... just a bit middle of the road because of the XMP issues and the price."In terms of performance, we are not seeing anything stellar with the GA-X79-UD3." so it doesn't hit the best-of-the-high-end marks but it's still a good mobo.
"If it were my money on the line, it would be a hard choice between the UD3 and the ASRock X79 Extreme4." that sounds like a mid-range endorsement to me.
So overall it seems to be a solid 'B'... you just need to see if 'pretty good' is worth your money.
PS to AT: thanks for the recent hardware reviews -- since I was getting very tired of smartphone writeups since a) I (like a lot of folks) am tied to a carrier and thus limited to their offerings, and b) I read AT for PC tech (not phone tech, and I can upgrade PC tech at my choosing.)
gevorg - Monday, December 26, 2011 - link
Does Gigabyte continues to ignore the fact that their BIOS lacks basic case fan controls? Unacceptable for a $100+ mobo, let alone $250.Rick83 - Monday, December 26, 2011 - link
If it where only the BIOS - It's in fact the hardware chip that's only got two PWM-able outputs...