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We have reviewed the Gigabyte 990FXA-UD7 motherboard before, but it is well worth a recap for today's review. It is fully loaded, offering support for DDR3 memory up to 2000mhz and 2,3 and 4 way AMD CrossfireX and Nvidia SLI configurations. The board also includes support for SATA 6GB/s, IEEE 1394a and USB 3.0 devices.
It is shipped in a large, brightly coloured box with the focus on the stylishly crafted gold and gun metal coloured heatsink. There is a list of specifications along the bottom of the box, ideal for browsing in a store.
The box is a gatefold design which opens up to detail selling points, such as the power efficiency, support for 4 way SLI and Crossfire and USB 3 and SATA 3 connectivity. Gigabyte also detail the boards design, featuring Japanese solid capacitors and Ferrite Core chokes which are rated to 50,000 hours.
The bundle is comprehensive, including a manual, driver and software disc, I/O backplate, SATA cables and several stickers for a case. Additionally, there are a plethora of SLI and Crossfire cables in the box: 3 way SLI bracket, 4 way SLI bracket, single SLI cable and two Crossfire cables.
The 990FXA-UD7 is a very attractively designed board, with eye catching gold and silver heatsinks.
The board has 6 PCI E x16 slots. Two of them run at x16, two x8 and two x4.
Gigabyte say: “For optimum performance, if only one PCI Express graphics card is to be installed, be sure to install it in the PCIEX16_1 slot; if you are installing two PCI Express graphics cards, it is recommended that you install them in the PCIEX16_1 and PCIEX16_2 slots. The PCIEX8_1 slot shares bandwidth with the PCIEX16_1 slot and the PCIEX8_2 slot with PCIEX16_2. The PCIEX16_1/PCIEX16_2 slot will operate at up to x8 mode when the PCIEX8_1/PCIEX8_2 is populated.”
Along the bottom of the board are three USB 2.0 headers, a single USB 3.0 header, a FireWire header and the front I/O audio connector. There are only three CPU fan headers on the board, which still stuns me, even a few months later. This is a high end board, not a budget model.
Along the bottom of the board are 8 SATA ports. All of these ports are SATA 6GBp/s capable. The two grey ports on the right are handled by the Marvel 88SE9172 controller while the other six are powered by the onboard AMD SB950 South Bridge controller. Next to the SATA ports is a diagnostic debug readout which is used for troubleshooting in case of any problems.
The motherboard can support memory with speeds at 1066mhz/1333mhz/1600mhz/1866mhz and 2000 mhz (OC). A total of 32GB of memory can be installed and obviously it is a dual channel memory architecture.
Gigabyte include a cover over the reset CMOS button to prevent accidental activation. They have also included a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) header to aid with hardware based security.
The back panel connectors include: 1 x PS/2 keyboard/mouse port, 1 x optical S/PDIF Out connector, 1 x coaxial S/PDIF Out connector, 1 x IEEE 1394a port, 7 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports, 2 x USB 3.0/2.0 ports, 1 x eSATA/USB Combo connector, 1 x eSATA 6Gb/s connector, 1 x RJ-45 port, 6 x audio jacks (Center/Subwoofer Speaker Out/Rear Speaker Out/Side Speaker Out/Line In/Line Out/Microphone).
Above, the AMD FX 8150 Black Edition engineering sample ‘locked and loaded'.
It seems quite good, I preordered one, will try and get it past 5 ghz with water 🙂
Yeah 2600k is still the leader under £300, much as I had thought before release. Still, I like the eight core design, seems a fine gaming solution and thats really what most of us do.
Its disappointing. I dont think its much better, if at all than the 2500k and it costs more here. I prefer the motherboards from AMD but realistically, that cheapo gigabyte board you reviewed would be all I would ever need.
Not that impressed overall, but its not a poor product. I had imagined it might be a disaster.
In the hands of the expert crowd with phase, im sure this will hit 5-7ghz. it might be a killer product then.
@ samuel. Sure I game, but all I do? I think not.
My views on this are slightly disappointing. It is a good chip., but it is VERy late to the game. Intel have a new range to announce very soon. I dont think anyone would be massively happy about this release. Intel will be having a chuckle.
I know it is a new technology, but why is it failing so badly against the 2600k when rendering and professional tasks? It has double the physical cores? It seems such an inefficient design. Very disappointed, I wont be ordering one.
My friend told me I was mad buying a 2500k last month ‘because bulldozer will be a much better processor and cost less’.
What happened? AMD?
biased review. Just for your info the processors have to be tested at lower resolution in games just so you do not get limited by graphic cards performance (i thought you should know that by now), that being the case in this review where the scores in game are far to close. Give it a go at lower resolutions and see how it ends up then.
If you want to show the difrence between those procesors that should be the way to do it. The way this review is made doesn’t actually presents the difrences between tho competitors (because thay are all limited by the GPU). For that matter why should we buy any of those ? we should just go for a weaker CPU (and much cheaper one) that provides 3 less fps less (at that resolution) than those “high end” CPUS
And you skyped the power consumtion slide. I wonder why? from what i have read at 4,8 ghz the FX consumes as much as 260 W while running Cinebench.
Who cares about low resolution? I always read those in reviews and say ‘great this one is 3 fps more, but I never use that res anyway, so who cares?’.
Seems like a decent chip to me, but overprices here.
John, I don’t want to show differences between processors and system builds at settings that no gamer or enthusiast user will ever touch. We have limited time and focus on the important aspects of the hardware. When building a system it is key to factor in who will buy it and how much they will spend. No one will spend all this money on a gaming system then nothing on a screen to enjoy the high end hardware.
I think we have shown the differences between the processors in many ways. It actually highlights that at high resolution most of them perform at a very similar level with only slight variables. If you are buying a processor for gaming, then the Core i5 2500k is still the ideal ‘enthusiast’ solution due to the low price in the UK, as I said in the conclusion. A lot of people will be reassured to know that if they buy any of the processors on test today, with a good graphics card that their gaming experience will be first class (even if there are slight variables).
In regards to power consumption, we are always limited to time. I don’t publish a third party ‘slide’ showing a result. I would test it myself and give an analysis of idle and load results. I haven’t had time to do it right.
If you have any more concerns over ‘conspiracy theories’ please feel free to email me.
Makes sense and I found it a good review. always some haters 😉
Chip is good, but its not good enough, Not against Intel really.
It also looks weak on a single core basis. weaker than the last generation X6.
I got a lot from this, especially in regards to rendering. I work rendering 6 hours a day, sometimes from home and i have a 2600k which has b een a great, relatively inexpensive purchase. with studio max it performs well and a part of me was hoping that the 8 core 8150 could very well outperform the 2600k thanks to the extra physical cores, but sadly the cores seem inefficient, lacking ‘horsepower’.
In regards to other areas it seems strong, but really wont come to full force until the extra extensions are used, which going on history will be long into the next cycle of hardware from intel. Direct X 11 for instance is barely used now, and when it is, it makes very little image quality difference (apart from a few t itles).
Its not quite the release I was expecting or hoping for. I will wait for X79, but it will be out of my price league. shame the 8 cores hasnt really made any difference in the real world 🙁
Gaming on any of those systems is fine. thats the conclusion I get. 1080p, if you buy any of the chips you are set. Simple as that. I live in the real world myself and know that even if I bought a last generation X6 1090T or even the 1060 I could play any game on my TV at 1080p.
Im more interested in the raw productivity tests as I dont just game, and this chip hasn’t shown me I dont need to change my last generation AMD hardware for this. They really are so far behind Intel that I am shocked this was ever released.
All the new instruction support really will mean very little this year or perhaps even next year. quite saddened 🙁
Overclockers will like the processor however because it seems a little of fun, like the K series from Intel in that regard. hitting new speeds and seeing what is possible with cooling changes. the X4 and X6 sucked in that regard.
You complettly forgot about power consumtion… 260W at 4.8 while doing cinebench is ALOT… plus the 4 “cores”one are worst than the older quad core generation. This showld not have been released. Now Intel will just charge much more for their CPU… bad bad bad AMD
I find it rather worring that you publish a CPU review without showing power consumption, tight schedule or not. This review in my view gives a completely wrong signal to consumers. The AMD FX-8150 not only perform worse than for example the 2600K, its draws A LOT more power. Some one mentioned 4,8 GHz.. take a look at this graph from NordicHardware..
http://www.nordichardware.se/images/labswedish/artiklar/CPU-Chipset/Bulldozer/largethumbnails/poweroc.png
Source: http://www.nordichardware.se/test-lab-cpu-chipset/44360-amd-fx-8150-bulldozer-goer-entre-pa-marknaden-test.html?start=30#content
Hi Nize. We can take a look at power consumption later when we get time to do it properly. But people can certainly look at your links in the meantime.
Glad to hear it and good to see the open discussions in the comments Zardon!
Haters gonna hate.
I’m more interested in how it plays Shogun 2. I don’t play most of the games in the review except for Deus Ex. Basically AMD say “use the scorpius platform” which will be a FX cpu, any AMD GPU from 6850 upwards and the 990FX mobo’s. What I want to know is: will the FX-8150 with the HD6870X2 play Shogun 2 better than the 2500K with the same GPU?
That said, nearly all other reviews basically say “It’s ok, but it doesn’t live up to expectations”. My point is that all the hype surrounding it meant that it would never have met expectations because expectations were that it would beat the i7, it hasn’t but it does seem to have nestled into a niche between the i7 and i5.
Also, AMD doesn’t have the collossal R&D budget that Intel has.
I don’t think the review was biased at all.
Amazing how people always want more :p Im the same, id like to have seen detailed power consumption like the rest of the review which was very detailed.
No bias at all. I think all the hardware was presented very fairly and I can take from this that the core i5 2500k is still the bargain buy.
I dont think the FX chip is bad at all, and ive seen it online for £199.99 as it looks like AMD are taking the comments onboard. Some retailers selling it for £230 however so pay attention if you buy one !
All the good DX11 games covered and at the resolution I want to see.
Looks pretty good all around, but on a ‘core per core’ basis it is quite weak really. Still it looks like a mega fun processor to play with, which is one aspect AMD were missing for years. I can see guys getting 6ghz on high end cooling with this.
You know, I was really expecting better performance numbers at that price. Looks like I will be waiting until they go down a bit. I’m pretty excited to see what I can accomplish with my water cooling setup. For now, looks like I will be getting a second HD6870 and getting my 955BE stable at a higher clock speed.
Great review Z. As always, there are some people that like to nit pick but anyone who follows this site really regularly knows that you guys are super slammed with work.
If this CPU is priced below i5 2500k it would be interesting, maybe so for the people that bought 990-whatever board…
But still, the power consumption is really worrying… I hope they can fix this in next stepping.
all in all, disappointing release… but not that much for me, since I’m not a fanboi 😀
here is the Shogun 2 performance:
http://www.hardware.fr/articles/842-22/jeux-3d-total-war-shogun-2-starcraft-ii-anno-1404.html
an i3 2130 does better… cheers AMD
why your CPUZ says that your Bulldozer is 8130P? (ES) ?
Just the version of CPUz. correct name is listed in ‘specification’.
A lot of you are forgetting that this is a new design path that AMD has taken with their CPU (more like APU, as this is the first steps they are making towards it), also the troubles that AMD had with Global Foundries during production and release… and last but not least, you are all speaking as though this is what they will release for an entire year (or more even?), as I understand it, there will be further revisions/progression in 2012 and onward.
Now to be honest, I was waiting to see what Bulldozer would actually be like before making my uprgade from a Intel Q9400, and in all honesty, the only thing im really disappointed with about this processor is it’s price. it’s actual competition (2500K) doesnt hammer it to hell and back, not by a long shot.
Another test with Gigabyte 990FXA-UD7 and Crosshair Formula V
http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/showthread.php?t=358508&page=3
Gigabyte 990FXA-UD7 runs better
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