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Gigabyte X79-UD3 Motherboard Review

Motherboards/Intel S2011 by leeghoofd @ 2012-05-01

Even though main focus is lately on Ivy Bridge, let's not forget about Intel's High End range based on the X79 chipset. One of the main drawbacks of Socket 2011 is the total platform cost. Besides the quad core i7-3820, the hexacores versions cost a pretty penny. On top of that, most of the X79 mainstream boards are far from cheap. Prices of 250 euros and more are pretty common. Luckily for us Gigabyte and ASRock have got 'let's call them a more" budget friendly motherboard in their X79 lineup. Gigabyte's type numbering has always been kept pretty simple. Today's UD3 board is the entry board for their limited socket 2011 series. Limited, because Gigabyte only has got 3 boards left in the X79 range : the UD3, UD5 and a gamer orientated G1 Assasin 2 board. The X79-UD7 board has been EOL'ed. And till now there's still no sign of the X79-UD5 S(erver) version. But does a "cheap" board mean that the quality or performance is inferior ? Time to find out what this X79-UD3 has got in store for us.

Software

3DPower : Gigabyte has included the 3DPower Windows software to be able to control the PWM and Memory power delivery. The UD3 has a new Digital PWM controller, plus a digital memory controller. The latter can adjust not only the memory, but also the VTT and VSA voltage. The 3DPower software has got the tweaking enthousiast completely covered. But there's even more software to use...

Easytune : The renown Easy tune is still present in the Gigabyte software bundle. We tried the three OC profiles ( 4.1 - 4.3 and 4.5GHz ) and only the first two worked flawlessly without manual intervention. Issue is that the Loadline setting is not altered. The Vcore set by Easytune at 1.35Vcore was not enough after Vdroop/drop to keep the 3960X CPU Prime95 stable. By adjusting the Loadline setting we got it stable. Out of the box it would not run on our ES CPU.

Touch Bios: Touch bios is also not new and was already included with the Z68 series. However Gigabyte must ensure if they release a board, bios or software, that everything works accordingly. Many false setting readouts in the Touch Bios. Plus adjusting memory timings sometimes resulted in a no post. While adjusting manually the same settings straight in the bios it booted up fine. One of the reasons most enthousiasts use the bios instead of some buggy software...

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