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

#1
Disparia
Nice. I like the slot layout, color, price.
Posted on Reply
#2
Shihab
Not PCIe Gen 3.0 ready ? Huh, I guess they learnt their lesson :rolleyes:
Posted on Reply
#4
Razer2007
Looks good, but when will they make a Micro-ATX board like that!
Posted on Reply
#5
Vancha
So 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.
Posted on Reply
#6
ASharp
ShihabyoooNot PCIe Gen 3.0 ready ? Huh, I guess they learnt their lesson :rolleyes:
Does it matter? The 990FX chipset doesn't support Gen 3 anyway.
Posted on Reply
#7
Jegergrim
ASharpDoes it matter? The 990FX chipset doesn't support Gen 3 anyway.
It could have if they bothered integrating it into the chipset no? Since the controller wont be integrated into the BD chip
Posted on Reply
#8
Volkszorn88
I have no clue which AM3+ board to buy.
Posted on Reply
#9
JrRacinFan
Served 5k and counting ...
Volkszorn88I have no clue which AM3+ board to buy.
Open a new thread. What's budget? I like the Asrock 970 Extreme4 (Cfire/SLI@ 8x/8x), but got a good deal on my M5A97 Evo.
Posted on Reply
#10
Volkszorn88
Budget is not a problem.

I'm torn between the crosshair v, asus sabortooth 990fx, gigabyte ud7 and asrock 990fx fatal1ty
Posted on Reply
#12
InnocentCriminal
Resident Grammar Amender
TheMailMan78Thats a nice looking board.
I concur.
Posted on Reply
#13
CDdude55
Crazy 4 TPU!!!
I'm currently running this board, i love it.:) (Expect is the original version and not 1.2.)
Posted on Reply
#14
techtard
This is a nice looking board. Pretty decent layout too.
Posted on Reply
#15
faramir
techtardThis is a nice looking board.
Huh ? It is ... dark ... and ugly, like a pile of ash or charcoal :( What happened to the color-keyed schemes which allowed one to locate the relevant connections and/or slots without much fuss once the board was inside the enclosure ?
Posted on Reply
#16
techtard
Color schemes are for the weak. You should be able to connect cables or anything else by memory and touch.
Posted on Reply
#17
[H]@RD5TUFF
Glad they ditched the baby blue color scheme, but this needs more SATA ports and less PCI-E slots.
Posted on Reply
#18
erocker
*
[H]@RD5TUFFGlad they ditched the baby blue color scheme, but this needs more SATA ports and less PCI-E slots.
That would be the UD5 version. Twenty bucks more an extra SATA controller. That seems to be the only relevant difference between the boards.
Posted on Reply
#19
[H]@RD5TUFF
erockerThat would be the UD5 version. Twenty bucks more an extra SATA controller. That seems to be the only relevant difference between the boards.
Yeah I have 890FX-A UD5, and I am looking to upgrade it, but Gigabyte didn't go UEFI for their 990 boards.:nutkick:
Posted on Reply
#20
btarunr
Editor & Senior Moderator
ShihabyoooNot PCIe Gen 3.0 ready ? Huh, I guess they learnt their lesson :rolleyes:
No AMD motherboard was ever mentioned by Gigabyte as being Gen 3-ready to begin with.
Posted on Reply
#21
Fx
TheMailMan78Thats a nice looking board.
hell yea it is. too bad I am already set
Posted on Reply
#22
Animalpak
wow very clean and smooth design
Posted on Reply
#23
Hayder_Master
Hmm first card use pci-e 3.0 will be ATI, and AMD motherboards still not support it, LOL.
Posted on Reply
#24
Melvis
This is the motherboard ive been wanting to get for the past few months, looks like it was good to wait?

What are the difference between the versions anyway?
Posted on Reply
#25
ShogoXT
PCI-E 3 doesnt matter right now and you get nothing from it. Besides they are always controlled through the Northbridge chipset.

Gigabyte still hasnt moved to full UEFI yet. I wonder why that is? Until that happens that is going to hold me back from them.
Posted on Reply
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