Gigabyte Unveils X79S-UD5 Workstation Motherboard

[btarunr]

At CeBIT, Gigabyte unveiled what many may have overlooked for bearing a strong resemblance to the GA-X79-UD5, the GA-X79S-UD5. This board is designed to be a 1P workstation-grade motherboard, probably with out of the box support for the latest Xeon processors in the LGA2011 package, apart from Core i7 ones. The upper-half of this board is nearly identical to that of the X79-UD5. The LGA2011 CPU is powered by a 14-phase VRM, wired to eight DDR3 DIMM slots (two on either sides), supporting quad-channel memory. There are minor differences (as far as the upper-half is concerned). Tantulum capacitors on the X79-UD5 are replaced with cylindrical solid-state ones on the X79S-UD5, the FrescoLogic-made USB 3.0 controller is replaced with a VLI-made one.

It's the lower half of the X79S-UD5, where all the action is. The expansion slot load-out consists of five long PCI-Express x16 slots. Among these, two are PCI-Express 3.0 x16 capable, one is PCI-Express 3.0 x8 capable (by taking 8 lanes from one of the two x16 links), and two appear to be PCI-Express 2.0 x4. Then there's a legacy PCI slot. The PCH heatsink is identical to the one on the X79-UD5, but what's under it is what counts. Although named "X79"S-UD5, the board is actually based on the Intel C606 "Patsburg", which is an enterprise-grade chipset for Intel's Sandy Bridge-EP platforms. Apart from six SATA ports (2x 6 Gb/s + 4x 3 Gb/s), the C606 PCH provides eight SAS (Serial-attached SCSI) ports, running at 3 Gb/s speeds. The rest of the connectivity is completely identical to that of the X79-UD5.



Source: VR-Zone

[Steven B]

S for SAS!

[w3b]

Now that is a fine looking motherboard

[Frick]

Is it just me, or is the power button located weirdly?

[pcGnome]

Gigabyte.com does not list GA-X79S-UD5 as a product.

Nobody but you seem to know about this.

Is there somewhere where this is being produced? Is there some release schedule? Can it be bought at all?

Looks like a great idea, but only if it actually exists.

Same for GA-X79S-UP5

[Jizzler]

Doh! I was about to fill my knickers with excitement until I saw that PCI slot. Otherwise a beautiful board.

[pcGnome]

apparently the best things are all shimmery and amorphous ...

From: http://ggts.gigabyte.com.tw/

... as the X79S-UD5 was never released ...

[Frick]

Originally Posted by pcGnome

apparently the best things are all shimmery and amorphous ...

From: http://ggts.gigabyte.com.tw/

... as the X79S-UD5 was never released ...

Or they just haven't released it yet. But I have no idea how long it's supposed to take though.

[pcGnome]

Well, I first went to:

http://ggts.gigabyte.com/tech.asp?Cl...&SourceWeb=B2C

to ask about the product and the first answer was - not all models available in the US.

"ask another question" I pointed out this review and that was what garnered the "it was never released" comment.

Oh, if only I could believe that "yet" is part of their process, but if they want to sell something, you'd think think they'd give some hope. But they gave none.

If anyone has actual information better than this, I'd be VERY interested, but I'm not holding my breath.

The Gigabyte web site only lists four x79 boards - UD3, UD5, UD7 &
G1.Assassin 2. The last of which might interest Jizzler as it has no pci slot.

But the most troubling thing for me is that NewEgg.com has stopped selling all but the UD3 board, which makes me wonder if the whole series is on the outs. X79s, UP4 & UP5 never released and all but the low end discontinued by a major seller is NOT a good sign.

Guess I'll just have to suffer on my old 775 ga-ep45-ud3p board until this all shakes out ...