Wednesday, September 21st 2011

Gigabyte Unveils 990FXA-UD3 1.2 Motherboard

Gigabyte unveiled a new socket AM3+ motherboard targeting a price-point sweetspot, the 990FXA-UD3 1.2. The board is based on the AMD 990FX + SB950 chipset, and supports the upcoming AMD FX processors apart from socket AM3 processors in the Phenom II and Athlon II series. As a new revision, the board supports AMD FX processors out of the box. The AM3+ socket is powered by an 8+2 phase VRM. The board is constructed according to the UltraDurable 3 Classic specifications, with 2 oz copper-layer PCB, 50,000+ hours capacitor durability, and DualBIOS. The socket is wired to four DDR3 DIMM slots supporting dual-channel DDR3-2000 MHz memory with overclocking.

There are four PCI-Express x16 slots on this board, however, only two of them are wired to the AMD 990FX northbridge, both run at full PCI-Express 2.0 x16 bandwidth at all times. The other two are electrical PCI-Express x4, wired to the SB950 southbridge. The board supports both NVIDIA SLI and AMD CrossFireX, though it's likely that it will ship with just the 2-way SLI bridge cable.
Other expansion slots include two PCI-Express x1, and one legacy PCI. All six SATA 6 Gb/s ports from the southbridge are assigned as internal ports, there are two eSATA 3 Gb/s ports, driven by a JMicron JMB363 controller. There are four USB 3.0 ports, two on the rear panel, two via a standard header, driven by Etron EJ168 controllers. Other connectivity includes 8 channel HD audio driven by Realtek ALC889 codec, one gigabit Ethernet connection by Realtek RTL8111E, and FireWire. The board makes use of traditional AwardBIOS, with HybridEFI extensions that lets you boot from volumes bigger than 2.2 terabytes.

The GA-990FXA-UD3 1.2 will be priced at about US $160.
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38 Comments on Gigabyte Unveils 990FXA-UD3 1.2 Motherboard

#26
damric
I want this, FX chip, and some DDR3-2000 please.
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#27
XxAtlasxX
Again another board without UEFI?? What're they gonna do when Win 8 lauches ?? (w/UEFI native support)
Posted on Reply
#28
Horrux
Looks yummy, I think this is going to be my new board.
Posted on Reply
#29
Dr. Nick
Sometimes I wonder why motherboard manufacturers don't just open the ends of all the PCI-E slots. It's not like they're magically gonna use more bandwidth.
Posted on Reply
#30
Inceptor
VanchaSo the only difference from v1.1 is that they've removed the two eSATA 6Gb/s on the back panel and replaced two of the USB2.0 ports with USB2.0/eSATA 3Gb/s combo ports, along with putting the second IEEE 1394 port on the back panel with the other one?

Essentially they've updated it to be less of a good deal.
Basically.
I wonder if it was because they ran out of Marvell 88SE9172 chips and couldn't get a good deal on another batch, or if they're just cutting costs and upping their margins, or because the UD5 has the Marvell chips and they were seeing more UD3s selling than they expected.
I'm guessing the latter two reasons combined.
Posted on Reply
#31
Inceptor
XxAtlasxXAgain another board without UEFI?? What're they gonna do when Win 8 lauches ?? (w/UEFI native support)
You're assuming everyone will automatically upgrade to Windows 8?
Anyway, it's likely that this board and its compatriots will not be in production when Windows 8 is released next year. So, unless you're planning on upgrading for no good reason, this board and Windows 7 is likely to have a long life -- consider all the hundreds of millions of users around the world who still use Windows XP...
Posted on Reply
#32
Covert_Death
InceptorYou're assuming everyone will automatically upgrade to Windows 8?
Anyway, it's likely that this board and its compatriots will not be in production when Windows 8 is released next year. So, unless you're planning on upgrading for no good reason, this board and Windows 7 is likely to have a long life -- consider all the hundreds of millions of users around the world who still use Windows XP...
yea the not evening making it an option to get it when W8 is only a year out is retarded. people who build custom rigs ( aka the customers who will buy this board) are a lot more likely to stay up to date on the latest version of windows, and if it properly fully functional why would you buy it? it is certainly keeping me from buying one.

im not going to buy from the ONE brand out there that doesn't allow me that option when every other board is just as good but DOES give me UEFI
Posted on Reply
#33
Inceptor
Well, all things considered, I think you're assuming too much about upgrades.
Also, the preview release of Windows 8, just released is a year of development from final release. Microsoft wants to hear feedback from developers so that they can tweak, tune, and modify what they've got so far.
To a power user, the current iteration of Windows 8 is not ideal. So, if that does not change, then (just as when Vista was released), you'll see many people staying with the previous windows version, in this case Windows 7 (in the Vista case, Windows XP).
It's wayyyy too soon to be talking final release features anyway...
Posted on Reply
#34
Covert_Death
right but i don't want to have to buy another MB just to use W8, because "ideally" W8 will be better and i will want to use it
Posted on Reply
#35
Inceptor
I've spared a few minutes to look this up. I think there's been some misunderstanding about UEFI and Windows 8. At least as far as the current preview build of Windows 8 is concerned... The UEFI is only a possible issue if you're looking to dual boot with Linux, the fear being that it would not be possible with the Win 8 'secure boot' on UEFI machines. But 'secure boot' can be disabled allowing a dual boot:
redmondmag.com/articles/2011/09/23/windows-8-dual-boot-possible-if-secure-boot-disabled.aspx
and,
"Early adopters can run Windows 8 Developer Preview even on modest, pre-Vista era hardware, and I don’t expect this to change for the RTM Build of the operating system. "
news.softpedia.com/news/Windows-8-Developer-Preview-System-Requirements-222306.shtml

So, the whole thing is a moot point; there is no problem with running Windows 8 on a Mobo with traditional BIOS instead of UEFI.

The 'net may be a 'frathouse for retards' but it does have its moments :)
Posted on Reply
#36
Horrux
Covert_Deathright but i don't want to have to buy another MB just to use W8, because "ideally" W8 will be better and i will want to use it
I think Win7 is plenty good enough. I wonder what Win8 is suppose to bring that might make me want to "upgrade". Nah, I'd still be running XP if it supported DX11 I think...

Back on topic, just got myself one of them mobos, installing it later today. :)
Posted on Reply
#37
Horrux
HorruxI think Win7 is plenty good enough. I wonder what Win8 is suppose to bring that might make me want to "upgrade". Nah, I'd still be running XP if it supported DX11 I think...

Back on topic, just got myself one of them mobos, installing it later today. :)
Well, what can I say? I installed it. It's version 1.0. It ran for about 15 minutes. I ended up disassembling my PC, looking for the mistake I might have made, reassembled it with that mobo, still same problem, disassembled it, reassembled it with my trustworthy ASUS M4A79 Deluxe, and everything is running fine, if with only DDR2 and SATA2 and without official SLI support.

Meh.

I think I'll stick with ASUS.
Posted on Reply
#38
Inceptor
I have Rev. 1.0, but I haven't had any problems with mine.
Although I haven't overclocked my cpu too much; no voltage added.

The only weird thing I've come across is the apparent AMD guidelines for the chipset saying that VDroop is to be expected when overclocking. Apparently, it's OK to run with a high voltage at idle, because the chipset will automatically reduce the voltage when running under load, to a safer and more manageable level for the overclock (aka VDroop). It feels like a loss of control, letting the chipset do its thing to stabilize the overclock.
I can see why many people who initially bought 990fx boards complained about VDroop. AMD changed the overclocking 'rules'.
Posted on Reply
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