Gigabyte GA-880GMA-UD2H and 870A-UD3 Motherboards Tested

Motherboards/AMD AM3 by leeghoofd @ 2010-09-01

In this review we take a closer look at two budget friendly AMD motherboards from Gigabyte; 880GMA-UD2H with integrated GPU and the 870A-UD3. Do they stand a chance against high end AMD boards? Time to find out

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Introduction & GA-880GMA-UD2H Features and Board

Introduction

In this review we take a closer look at two budget friendly AMD motherboards from Gigabyte; 880GMA-UD2H with integrated GPU and the 870A-UD3. Do they stand a chance against high end AMD boards? Time to find out

GA-880GMA-UD2H

The box is in the typical Gigabyte style. A white box, listing clearly most of the important specifications, with the 333 logo as eye catcher. Why change something that works? The motherboard dimensions are based on the mATX format, addressing a specific crowd, with less spacious cases. Does that automatically mean less performance too ?

Madshrimps (c)
Madshrimps (c) Madshrimps (c)


Madshrimps (c)


The board is, stuffed with amazing features. One PCIe 2.0 16x, a PCIe 2.0 4x and 1x slot and a regular PCI slot. Ready to fulfill any required desire of your new multimedia HTPC build.

Madshrimps (c)

Madshrimps (c)


The included accessories are reduced to a strict minimum: one IDE cable and 2 S-ATA cables, IO shield, the driver cd and a manual.

Madshrimps (c)


4 + 1 Phase power supporting up to 140 watt CPUs. Really incredible that a tiny board as this has got no problems to power your favorite AMD hexacore monster. The ATI 4250 GPU is kept cool by a big heatsink. Sadly the mounting would have been better if it was screwed down. Our review sample made bad contact at first as the heatsink was not properly aligned, remounting it did the trick. But a more solid mounting ( read screw nut design) would be better.

Madshrimps (c)
Madshrimps (c) Madshrimps (c)


The tiny Southbridge heatsink works well. The underneath SB850, handles the 5 S-ATA3.0 ports. The famous NEC chip for the USB3.0 support. Hopefully soon we will see more S-ATA3.0 ports than the older ones.

Madshrimps (c)


The I/O back panel allows the following connections :

Madshrimps (c)


Time to power the board up ->
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