Tuesday, August 13th 2013
GIGABYTE Readies Cost-effective Socket AM3+ Motherboard with FX-9590 Support
Only a select club of high-end socket AM3+ motherboards come with support for AMD's FX-9590 5.00 GHz eight-core processor, with a gargantuan 220W TDP, and even among some of them, support is 'unofficial,' and through use of beta BIOS (use of which is generally not covered by motherboard warranties). GIGABYTE plans to change that, with a new cost-effective motherboard with out of the box support for high-TDP AMD CPUs, such as the FX-9590, FX-9370, and FX-8770. Called GIGABYTE 970A-UD3P, the motherboard is built in the standard ATX (244 x 305 mm) form-factor.
The 970A-UD3P features an AM3+ CPU socket, with a 10-phase VRM tuned for high-TDP CPUs. It is based on AMD 970 + SB950 chipset. The CPU socket is wired to four DDR3 DIMM slots, supporting up to 64 GB of dual-channel DDR3-2133 MHz memory; and the AMD 970 northbridge. The northbridge gives out the board's sole PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slot, and three other PCI-Express 2.0 x1 slots; the other physical x16 slot is electrical x4, and wired to the southbridge. Two legacy PCI slots take seats. Storage connectivity includes six SATA 6 Gb/s ports. The board provides four USB 3.0 ports (two on the rear panel, two by header). 8-channel HD audio with optical SPDIF output, gigabit Ethernet, and a PS/2 combo port make for the rest of connectivity. The board is driven by AMI Aptio UEFI BIOS, backed by dual-UEFI. It wouldn't surprise us if GIGABYTE prices this board under $100.
The 970A-UD3P features an AM3+ CPU socket, with a 10-phase VRM tuned for high-TDP CPUs. It is based on AMD 970 + SB950 chipset. The CPU socket is wired to four DDR3 DIMM slots, supporting up to 64 GB of dual-channel DDR3-2133 MHz memory; and the AMD 970 northbridge. The northbridge gives out the board's sole PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slot, and three other PCI-Express 2.0 x1 slots; the other physical x16 slot is electrical x4, and wired to the southbridge. Two legacy PCI slots take seats. Storage connectivity includes six SATA 6 Gb/s ports. The board provides four USB 3.0 ports (two on the rear panel, two by header). 8-channel HD audio with optical SPDIF output, gigabit Ethernet, and a PS/2 combo port make for the rest of connectivity. The board is driven by AMI Aptio UEFI BIOS, backed by dual-UEFI. It wouldn't surprise us if GIGABYTE prices this board under $100.