Verdict time

This latest Gigabyte offering has been very reliable and stable throughout our numerous testing. Even when being put under dry ice and LN2 it didn't show any weaknesses. I entered a nice competition hosted by the guys at Overclock.net. This was particular interesting, as I pushed both boards for maximum efficiency. It might sound as a surprise, but I obtained better results on the Gigabyte board. Clock for clock it's a bit better than the MSI GD70. The latter however still deserves credit for being very stable and easy to work with.

Bug Encountered :

With the F2 Bios I had some issues. Tweaking via AMD's AMD Overdrive tool in Windows was not working as it should. Most of the multipliers, voltage sliders and some ram timings couldn't be altered. The MSI board had no issues with the Overdrive tool. This bug is confirmed by numerous end users on different Operating platforms. The packed Easytune is nice, but just for basic stuff. If you really need access to every little tweak, it's better to look elsewhere and go with the AMD tool. (last minute update : using Beta bios F3F the Overdrive is functioning correctly, which is a bit of relief for the tweakers.)


on the left F2 bios , where most of the sliders not working, on the right the latest beta F3F

Rarely, when recovering from a bad overclock, I lost my USB keyboard. (Even when legacy devices were selected in the bios) This made it very hard to select a recovery option in the menu. A Cmos battery pop, was the only way to get back into the bios. Luckily the board recovered mostly nicely and allowed me to go straight into the bios. Bios F3F still has this issue with my keyboard.

Related to the OC recovery, my NB multiplier sometimes remained locked at 10X. No matter what was selected in the bios. Changing the value one up or down, saving and rebooting, unlocked the NB multiplier again. This bug seems to be more AMD related, as I've had positive confirmation on some other manufacturers’ boards having this issue too.


However don't let this all scare you. Bios engineers are working hard on it. And there's no board that hasn't got a minor flaw. Several Alpha/Beta biosses have already being distributed and testing will continue. Gigabyte is striving hard to be one of the best, if not THE best platform for AMD CPU's. I must say that I'm really impressed by the quickness of response on feedback. As long as I can keep the motherboard I'll be following up on the new biosses and keep the article updated.


Our Giga board relaxing after an LN2 session on the Dimastech bench table

Verdict time

This is one nice piece of hardware, stuffed with goodies that give it the edge on other competitors’ boards. With integration of new technologies like SATA 6Gbps and USB 3.0 Gigabyte has succeeded to future proof the AMD790FX based boards. Of course the 333 technology is also adapted on other chipsets, but the AMD chipsets don't need the workaround as with P55 boards to get max performance out of the new features. Only downside for this motherboard is that the new chipset, the 870, 880 and 890 series is just around the corner. At CeBIT we will probably be crushed by the new motherboards based on the new Thuban ready chipset. Early boards are also in the lab, undergoing tests right as you read this. But for those that don't want to wait, I can heartily recommend this motherboard. Once the small bugs are ironed out, this is one tweakable high performance motherboard, that will be able to push your CPU to its limits.



Pros
+ Very easy to setup high end performance motherboard solution
+ Proven 790FX chipset and USB3.0 and S-ATA3.0 onboard
+ Nicely engineered and intuitive Bios to use.
+ Competively priced (155 euro's) for the abundance of packed features

Contras
- Minor bugs that still need to be ironed out (HD write, USB issue)
- Spacing between the PCI-E 16X slots can always be better.

Big thanks goes out to Bernice from Gigabyte for allowing me to spend more than feasible time with this board and to Gareth Ogden from Corsair for the 8Gb PC12800 ram kit.