Gigabyte 990 FXA-UD7 review

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Finals Words and conclusion

 

Finals Words and conclusion

It is nearly getting a little repetitive to review the 990FX chipset once again with a Phenom II processor.

So just like the ASUS review allow me to split up this conclusion into two segments, the AMD chipset and the ASUS motherboard. We'll start off with the chipset. To be totally honest I expected more features and innovation in the 99FX chipset, pretty much this a petit overhaul of the 890FX chipset with very subtle yet small changes. The changes can be found in somewhat wider multi-GPU support, creating optimized data paths for stuff like USB 3.0 chips and thus bandwidth and some minor tweaks in the RAID unit. Truth be told, the 790 and 890 chipsets were already very impressive, so while the chipset itself is really good we did hope for native USB 3.0 support, and how cool would it have been to assign three graphics cards x16 PCI-Express lanes? Still though if you have two GPUs two full bandwidth x16 links are available to you and that is certainly much better then anything Intel has to offer with its chipsets. But to fully and optimally enjoy multi-GPU solutions, AMD needs faster processors. So tweaks, optimizations better multi GPU support (SLI is now supported) and of course Socket AM3+ with Bulldozer processor support is what the 990FX chipset is all about. But the chipset release itself remains a little underwhelming, doesn't it?

Gigabyte 990FXA UD9

That said, let's move onward to the Gigabyte motherboard itself as Gigabyte did a splendid job with the UD7.

Let's forget about performance with the Phenom II for now and look at the product for what it's intended for, Bulldozer based FX series processors and SLI functionality. So from A to Z this motherboards really is impressive. Whether that's build quality, the overall looks or the feature set... it simply is a dark and evil looking apparatus.

Now SLI wise this board will even support quad-SLI, but for that we really needs faster AMD processors. We did try SLI mode to cook up some results with two GeForce GTX 560 cards, however we where unable to activate SLI mode. We have contacted NVIDIA about it (as they supplied an early SLI driver) yet up-to this very moment do not have a solution

* one day before launching this article NVIDIA released a 265.50 driver, and this board still was not compatible in SLI mode. Apparantly a new 265.51 has solved this though.

The motherboard as delivered is extensive, you'll have all the feasible gadgets onboard ranging from integrated multi-channel audio, gigabit Ethernet, DDR3 1866 MHz support in dual-channel configuration, the USB 3.0 ports but more overly; we like the four PCIe x16 slots. Running multiple GPUs is getting more common all the time so it's good to know that at the very least your motherboard is supporting it.

The overall baseline performance is as good as the 800 series chipset with a Phenom II processor, with 1600/1866Mhz DDR3 memory support now able to be configured in the BIOS you might see slightly faster performance thanks to that feature, but as many of our memory reviews already have shown, very high memory bandwidth does not do a lot for Phenom II and Athlon II processors at all.

guru3d-recommended_150px.jpgOverclocking wise the sky is the limit and you can take the processor as far as its willing to go, no problems on that front either.

So the UD7 really is a truly terrific piece of machinery, now if NVIDIA can get the driver up-to snuff and SLI kicks in, then this motherboard will gain value and features real fast. Once AMD's Bulldozer processors are launched, that's where things get really interesting (well -- we hope).

We'll say it again, 990FX should have never been released prior to the new FX series processor, but alongside of it. For us it is really hard to make a point as to what the motherboard is all about, which is AMD FX (Bulldozer). But we do hope that anyone can see through the Phenom II performance and look at the UD7 for what it really is, a grand design, looking fantastic with all the latest features and gadgets you'll need. This product will last you a long time.

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